Zelma’s Trip

On the Sunday I got up and headed to the craft market at the Arts’ centre that my taxi driver had recommended to me the previous day.  It was quite funky with the usual offerings of tarot readings and horrible, knitted woollen hats.  There were some other more interesting additions like New Zealand jade and a ridiculously young pair of jugglers as well though.  After pottering around Christchurch during the day I headed out for a couple of beers in the evening.  Unfortunately the "quiet pub" I picked was actually about the only place in the whole city which stayed open late and before long I was talking to people and my couple of quiet drinks was not so quiet.  The place was called "The exchange" and was so-called as there was a computerised stock exchange type set up with the drink prices going up and down all night.  It was a novel idea but must have got slightly annoying for the bar staff as people stood there gawping trying to figure out if they should really substitute their Pino Grigio for a GnT based on the price varying by some negligible amount.  One girl I met was truly insane and was called Ruwa.  I made the mistake of actually replying to her on more than one occasion and she seemed to think that this was an invitiation to talk to her.  After a rather longer night than I had initially hoped I headed back to my hostel.

The following day I organised my next relocation and pottered around the centre of town.  I decided that (no libel cases or the like here please) Christchurch was full of weirdos.  I’m sure there are a lot of lovely people that live in the city, it’s just that, for the duration of my time there, I managed to meet the people who were, erm how should I put this….Special?!  On more than one occasion I was randomly shouted at by people in the street.  Nothing offensive, just strange things and on another a guy clearly on something followed me from place to place.  Again this was not offensive or even particularly worrying, just very strange.  I don’t know why but the place did have a strange feel about it.  Apparently the whole city was built on a swamp, so maybe that had something to do with it.  It was nice in its own way though and was relatively pretty, I guess.