Mother and Son Make The World Their Classroom for a School Year: January 17, 2015

Today was a mellow transition day. I woke up early and got my blog/journal updated since I had fallen asleep every night after not even typing a sentence. It was nice to get caught up and put down all the thoughts and experiences. Sam woke up around 9 a.m. and we said our goodbyes to Gill. It was nice to get a chance to chat with her this morning. She is a lovely and capable and incredibly artistic woman. You can tell a lot about someone by their home. She reminds me a lot of Ruby Hatch- who can make any space beautiful and doesn’t need a lot to do it with. I was happy to hear that she said I had inspired her to go travel sooner than later. She is in her mid 60s, very healthy and vibrant and has had plans to travel but now deciding …. why wait! So excited for her. I couldn't agree more. She was a perfect hostess, ...grateful to have gotten to know her.

After Sam was up he showered and started on his math homework in the kitchen overlooking the garden, so beautiful it really is a distraction, but plugged away on math while I got us packed up and loaded into our rental. We then set out to Sam’s new favorite breakfast joint- Best Ugly Bagel. It was really rather amazing. It had been 2 days since we first visited there- our first stop in Auckland. When we walked in the guy working at the counter said, hi Karen and Sam. What?! The guy had remembered us. He must have had hundreds of people’s whose orders he had taken, but remembered our names…. we felt local ;) We asked his name, Cam. We like Cam, I swear our bagels tasted even better because we were remembered :)!

We only had about an hour before we had to head to the airport for Queenstown. We decided to go to the Domain, the large park on the hill overlooking the Harbor and the home of the Auckland Museum. The park was huge and beautiful and at the top sat an early 20th century monument/museum. When we went in we thought it would be small, but it was HUGE! It was like a Natural History Musuem, a National Art Museum and a bunch of the Smithsonsians all wrapped into one large cultural center. They had a special exhibition of Wearable Arts "WOW". There were essentially costumes, or art pieces that were way out there but that could be worn #bestfashionshowever! We also were fascinated by the Maori arts and musical instruments displays as well on the whole area delegated to Volcanoes. New Zealand being made from erupting volcanoes, knowing the volcanic history is important to the country and it’s history.

We caught our flight to Queenstown and proceeded to our hotel with a brief drive through the center of town. It is such a charming town on the water’s edge. The only lake that has tides. The setting is spectacular with steep mountain peaks and rolling gold and green hills with a large body of water in between.

I spent an hour organizing our upcoming adventure plans, including Sky Diving on Monday! It began raining in the evening so we went back to our room, Sam worked on his math and I went through email with the doors open, cool breeze coming in and rain dropping on the deck and railings outside. It sounded like a rainy evening in NH in the late summer. It is so beautiful and relaxing. We opted for dinner in the room since we had no lunch come 6 p.m. so we had a delicious in-room dinner. We are staying at essentially an apartment a mile and a half outside Queenstown overlooking the lake,... and we have a washing machine! Just ran another load of laundry which is so great and helpful to be able to do. Rain is making me a bit nervous about the Milford Track, but I am sure it will be ok. We have all the rain gear, just want to keep the feet warm.

After dinner we chose to ride the shuttle into town and find the best ice cream place around. As we explored and asked around town and the water front we spotted the Ice Bar, a place the Indian couple on the bus yesterday had told us about. We decided we needed to check it out. We pay for a drink and some extra to get a warm coat and Uggs before going into the -5 degree Celsius bar. Everything is carved out of ice. We had a cold Mocktail served in an ice glass and enjoyed the cold carved surroundings. After a tasty beverage and a few dozen photos we headed for Queenstown's famous ice cream at Patagonia. I had Cookies and Cream and Sam had Banana Split- both so tasty. The place came highly recommended by all locals we asked. One man said his wife will even drive from hours away to just have this ice cream. It was yummy! Tomorrow we are looking forward to church and exploring the bird park and other sights. It might be raining, but hoping it will clear by Monday so we can do all our adventure sports. We love NZ!