Lena boards first

Day 17

Everyone in NZ says “sweet as” as slang for “cool” or “nice” or “sounds good”. When they say it though it doesn’t quite sound like that since they never actually say what the situation is as sweet as. So instead it just sounds like they are complimenting my body. I don’t mind.

Spot the Mormon doesn’t count during church or in Utah. Half points are awarded at Disneyland.

We woke up and went to hotel breakfast. We upgraded to the hot breakfast which included hash browns, French toast, baked beans, and green curry. I ate eggs French toast hash browns and toast with orange juice. Becca ate hash browns toast and fruit with orange juice. Oh and we both had spirulina green smoothies.

Then we walked to church which is close to the hotel. There was a bridge going over a creek to get to the church building. I think all church buildings should have bridges, but probably not moats.

We started with relief society. As soon as we walked in we realized that upgrading our breakfast was the wrong thing to do. There was a huge Christmas feast with cake, fruit, chocolate, meat pies, punch, hummus, and more. We had a 5 mins lesson about Christ and then we ate and socialized. Tis the season. I didn’t eat any because I was so full from breakfast. Becca had chocolate and Pavlova which is like a meringue pie.

During sacrament meeting becca was coloring on her iPad. The 6 kids in front of our pew was fascinated by her skillz. Two seminary graduates spoke. Turns out you can finish in December. #christmasmiracles and then a older missionary husband spoke about how his muffler fell off on his way home from the slc airport at 3am. I don’t remember anything else he said.

The church is right next to Mona Vale which is a nice garden. There are different flower sections. We went to the rose garden, fuchsia area, and the fernery. Then we walked back to the hotel because Lena wasn’t feeling good with all her allergies.

We were supposed to pick up our rental car today. There was a slight miscommunication with the rental agency but we figured everything out after becca called the urgent hotline. Becca says it’s nice being back in a small car. She’s an expert now. It’s an interesting car… the agency is kinda sketch. It came with half a tank of gas and it’s own spiderweb. The middle console is cracked. Becca speculates someone uses a wheelchair on it. Or a dog. Also all the buttons are in Japanese. Based on all the button pushing we’ve been doing we are stuck listening to the Gotye CD we can’t figure out how to eject.

We ate dinner at Pepes Mexican grill. When we went in the server asked if we’d been there before. We said no. She explained it was like subway where you choose your Mexican base (burrito, nachos, or salad) and then you choose your toppings. Becca got a salad bowl. I got a baby rice bowl with crushed chips as a garnish. I also got refried beans. The server was nice enough to explain to me what they were. Crushed up pinto beans. People here probs don’t much about Mexican food. She was a very good at explaining.

Then we headed to a Christmas light show on the edge of town. Turns out we passed this show on our first day on the South Island while we were driving so many hours with Thai food at night. We thought it looked random and cool and that we’d never see it again.

It was… an experience to say the least. It sort of just looked like a dude that put together a bunch of Christmas lights and decorations and then charged people to watch it. It reminded me a lot of the crèche in the sense that year after year it got more and more exponentially out of control. The lights were all synchronized to songs by New Zealand bands. But like… not Christmas songs. Just heavy metal songs. Imagine a bunch of Christmas Santa decorations and lights synchronized to Evanescence. We thought it was bigger than it was. It definitely was smaller than the crèche. My favorite was the Halloween skeleton band with Santa hats playing fake instruments. A bat dropped down and scared a little kid. I got a kick out of that. I’m a terrible person.

Tomorrow we go whale watching!