Back in Action

After my little fall off the emotional roller coaster the other day (four months before a breakdown is pretty good, I think!), I'm back to normal. I decided that I needed to not think about how much anything cost (as I'm staying with people most places, so don't have to pay for accommodation or dinner), and start throwing dollars around and just have fun.

With that in mind, today I went down to the coast to a town called Akaroa (means long harbor). The area was formed about a zillion years ago (or 6,000, if you are Sarah Palin) by a bunch of volcanoes, so it is hilly and gorgeous. I wandered about the sweet little town for a while, then went on a boat ride out to see the dolphins. (They handed me a glass of wine upon boarding the boat, and cookies when I got off. Who needs dolphins???) We saw a bunch of Hector's dolphins, which, at 4 1/2 feet long, are the smallest (and most endangered) aquatic mammal. We also saw a bunch of seals sunning themselves, and a few little white flippered blue penguins (which I kept hearing as "little flipping blue penguins" and I didn't understand why the skipper was so angry with them). It was all gorgeous.

I went to the Akoroa Museum as well (it started with a movie, which is always good), and while I was in there, I could hear masses of sirens going off outside. Sounded an awful lot like tornado sirens back home, and when I looked around, the museum did seem to be empty. Of course, how many people want to go into a museum on the history of Akoroa? I wandered to the front desk just to check that I didn't need to seek shelter or make a final call to loved ones, and was told that it was just the volunteer firefighter alarm. (But it was an old WWII air-raid siren, so my instinct to duck and cover wasn't far off.)

As I've mentioned before, I find myself mis-reading signs a lot. I don't know if my eyesight is going (probably), or if things are out of context (or I just expect them to be out of context), but it has happened a lot. (Like the store called Fire and Ice which sold "OPEX"... when I got closer I saw it actually said "OPEN".) On the drive down to Akaroa this morning (narrated by a nice old guy named Graham, which was entertaining unto itself), I glimpsed a sign that I thought read "Lifestyle for Sale". I made a mental note to check it out on the way back, which I promptly forgot until we were on our way home this afternoon, and I glimpsed another sign that read "For Sale-- Lifestyle Plus". What? Now I was keeping my eyes peeled for that first sign, and eventually I did see it, and it really did say "Lifestyle for Sale". Alas, my eyes weren't quick enough to catch the phone number to call for that new lifestyle.

Tomorrow I head inland and south to Lake Tekapo, then onto Queenstown and the Milford Track. Woo hoo! (See, I'm all better now. I "woo-hoo"ed.)

(By the way, in Queenstown I'll be staying with the nephew of the daughter of a friend of my aunt. Oh yeah, that's a solid connection!)