First Days In Christchurch

We arrived in Christchurch on Friday, July 10th, and were picked up by our friend Tim Bell, who took us to our house near the University.  It's a nice large house with plenty of space for us, though it's a bit of a shock going from 75-80 Fahrenheit in Wisconsin to nights here in Christchurch that dip below freezing.

Cindy in front of our house on Waimairi Rd.

Frosty leaves in our back yard

Paul seeing his breath this morning

The layout of our house is quite interesting.  We have to go through 5 closed doors from the bedroom to the toilet, which is located in a room at the back of the house with permanently open glass window slates.  The result is that the toilet room is almost as cold as the outside (and it got down to 27 Fahrenheit last night).  We just pretend we're camping.  It is difficult to get up out of a warm bed, trudge all the way through the cold house (no central heating here) and have a rude awakening sitting on the cold seat.We found out that many homes in New Zealand have toilets this way - in older times outhouses were out back, and when toilets were added to houses, somehow builders thought they should continue to be separated.

By the way, our house does have two extra bedrooms.  If anyone wants to visit in the next four months, let us know!  We'd love to have company.


Paul is settling into to his office in the Erskine building at the University of Canterbury.  Last time we were here, about twenty faculty shared one large office due to half of the building being closed because of earthquake damage.  Now the offices are repaired, and everyone, including this visitor, gets their own space.  There's still construction and repair work going on, however - notice the crane behind the tree in the reflection in the window below.