Day 57- Back to Christchurch

We woke up and got on the road again. Today was a long drive- we had to go all the way back to Christchurch, around 400 Kilometers, much of it through windy mountain roads. We stopped for lunch at lake Tekapo, a small settlement on an astoundingly blue lake- there seem to be a lot of those here. We briefly lost Kristen, because she went into a café and met a childhood friend from Minnesota. By this point we were fairly sure that God was playing a practical joke on us- “See, it really is a small world!”. We shook our heads- surprise had turned into expectation.

We eventually made it into Christchurch with a few hours of daylight to spare, and checked into our hostel, which was a historic building. We walked around city center, and saw cathedral square (where there was a fire juggler). I picked up a free book I found on some steps- they were given out all over the city. We wandered through historic squares and streets, and eventually decided to stop for food. We chose Chinese, but barely over a Russian restaurant. After eating (the atmosphere wasn’t great, but the food sure was), we wandered around and decided to visit an Irish pub for a drink. We enjoyed a pint, and on our way out, we hit another preposterous coincidence; we met Mareka, a German exchange student from Student Village- we eat dinner with her at uni more days than not. The chances of seeing this German girl we know, in an Irish pub, in a city of 360,000, is remarkable. It was almost like the icing on the cake for us- just to drive the point home that this was a truly phenomenal series of events. We walked home and slept in the most comfortable beds I had ever laid on. I slept like a baby.