Awww…the lovely Garden City. I arrived in Christchurch a few days early so I decided to spend those nights in a youth hostel in the square of Christchurch before heading out to the base. The city is quite pleasant, and very conducive to travelers. I decided to spend most of my day in the botanical gardens right in the heart of Christchurch (hence the nickname Garden City). It was…as you could assume, breathtaking: literally miles and miles of gardens of all sorts, people lounging in the vast amounts of luscious green grass. And everybody chatting with kiwi accents added a bit more warmth to the picture. It was quite nice to go from the brown ugly winter in Texas and come to thriving plants in summer weather here in New Zealand. I also went to a wonderful art museum in downtown Christchurch. It was a great display that I thoroughly enjoyed. While at the Art museum I ran into a middle aged Aussie on "holiday" as they call it. I then ran into him later and chatted with him a bit more. It was quite interesting his view of Texas and America. You see, he knows quite a bit about Texas given the fact that he is a rancher in Australia so he visits Texas for his job quite a bit.