In Christchurch

I flew from Madison to Christchurch yesterday and today.

I think we flew over the International Date Line at around 3AM or so, meaning that I jumped directly from 3AM Dec 31, 2009 to 3AM Jan 1, 2009, so I missed the coutdown to 2009. However (and probably because of that) the plane wasn't even half full, so I had a couple of seats to myself ... a big luxury on a 13.5 hour flight!

Once I got to my hotel, I changed into shorts (it's 75 degrees right now), read my email and RSS feed and chatted with my wife, and then made the pilgrimage to Dux de Lux, a local vegetarian restaurant with really good beer and a wonderful outdoor patio that seats maybe 100 people. I sat outside for an hour reading, eating and drinking a beer.

I'm going to try and store up as much of the warmth as I can!

Tomorrow I'm going to head back to the Christchurch Deployment Center (by the airport) to get my ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear.