…sed mutato nomine te fabula narratur…

After resting and recuperating in Christchurch for a bit, it was time for another adventure. After some deliberation, we decided to “take it easy” and just go for a walk… THROUGH A CAVE! Yep, about an hour’s drive from Christchurch is the Cave Stream, one of New Zealand’s best kept secrets – if only because it is nigh impossible to reach if you do not have your own transportation. It’s a 600-meter walk upstream, through a limestone cave, in water that goes from knee-deep to waist-deep (and is not too cold, if you’re lucky), and it’s AWESOME in the most literal sense of the word. Bonus: in Europe, there would inevitably be a ticket booth, guided tours, all kinds of health and safety measures, and possibly a souvenir shop. Here, all we got was a sign telling us to wear proper clothing, bring a flashlight, and godspeed. So in we went, and good times were had.

Seeing as it is kind of hard to convey how cool the whole experiene was, I’m just gonna skip right to the pictures instead, as they sort of tell their own story (even though it’s hard to take pics in pitch black conditions)…

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Christchurch, as it turns out, is a very nice city, with a nice, small city center and enough to do to keep anyone occupied for at least a couple of days. Thus, I had originally planned on writing a sort of comprehensive travel guide for the entire city, but while writing my review of the Canterbury Museum, I got a bit carried away – so instead of getting my take on the town, here is a review of JUST the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, because I felt like writing one… apparently. There’s a bit on the Antarctic Centre at the end though, so feel free to skip most of this article  if you were planning on going there and skipping the museum!
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I finally, FINALLY got around to selecting, resizing and enhancing some pictures I took during the tarp of the trip that I have already written about (8-13 February)(click on “New Zealand” for more info). Enjoy!!

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Had I been writing this here update on the day I should have written it, I would undoubtedly have named it after a well-known internet phenomenon featuring islands and boats. By now, I know better, and I’m saving that one for later. With that being said, today WAS another adventure, even though one would have expected it to be relatively normal.
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I found a recipe involving chicken and bananas on the infamous BBC Recipe Website, and decided to tinker with it. The end result was, surprisingly enough, quite edible, so I just wrote it down and put it online, cause that’s how I roll…

For the records, it’s not haute cuisine, but rather just some easy-to-prepare comfort food that, for once, does not involve tomato sauce.

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I really, really should update this blog more often! Forgive me for I have sinned, it’s been a week since my last update and all that… but there’s SO much to do here!! Well, I guess I’ll just have to dig deep into my memory banks and see what I can come up with. Accuracy is not guaranteed, but excitement is, as we cycle up the Old Coach Road, and wander across Ohakune some more.
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Waking up in Wellington, I was surprised that the dreaded jetlag seemed to have no effect on me. I was just a groggy as I usually am after waking up slightly too early. Fortunately, there was no time for my usual slow start, as there were buses to be caught and breakfasts to be had: we were on our way to Ohakune, one of the possible HQs for the dreaded Tongariro Crossing!

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Flying, if you ask me, is a weird – if not unsettling – experience. Especially when traveling long distances, I always get the feeling that my mind and/or body are telling me that I’m moving too fast for my own good, that being stuffed into a big metal tube and whisked across the planet is not the way man is supposed to travel. Usually, when I fly, the effect is too small to properly appreciate (Berlin to Amsterdam is, for example, a relatively short distance), but when I had the pleasure of journeying halfway across the globe to New Zealand, what I think iamounts to the longest possible distance on a commercial flight, this effect hit me once again, like an old friend playfully punching you in the gut (albeit slightly too hard).

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You know, one of those weekends where you have big plans, but in the end you just stay at home, sleeping late and being too lazy to even consider going to one of the many parties that I could have gone to (ok, ok, concerts – I’m not the type that gets invited to many parties). The snow didn’t help much either – even going to the gym was an ordeal, and then I had a flat tire to boot!

Oh well, I finally got to play some guitar again (although the deep cut I made in my index finger is making life tremendously difficult in that regard as well), saw Crossroads (not the Britney Spears one!), The Hangover, Charlie Wilson’s War, and, at the urging of The Nostalgia Critic, The Rescuers Down Under. I also thought some very deep thoughts about my thesis, and now I know what I am supposed to do again, so I guess it wasn’t a TOTAL waste, but still … it’s one of those weekends that just leaves you feeling slightly guilty. At least I didn’t have a hangover.

Only in Berlin can you brave half an hour of snowy streets to watch one slightly underwhelming (but promising) rocksteady ska band (loved the Skatellites cover, guys!), then one AWESOME Japanese ska-punk band (Japanese ska NEVER seems to disappoint – great stage show, great energy, great metal riffs hidden under the 2tone, and of course bowler hats!!), only to move on to a bar three doors down to play foosball with a bunch of coked-out Greeks who were way too good for our humble skills, before stumbling back home at about 3am.

Man, I love this city… Read the rest of this entry »