sunday routine

Sundays have become the day we venture downtown to shop for veggies. Today the rain fell off and on throughout the day. Occasionally the sun shone through the rain, something I've rarely seen outside of Oregon. Everything was wet. Everyone commented on how cold it was (one store had a sign on their closed door that read "yes we are open, its just a bit chilly outside today").

But that didn't stop us from shopping at the veggie market. I remain amazed at how far $20 goes at the market. We can get all the fruit and veggies for the week, and then go to the local butcher for our meat, eggs, and dairy needs. If we stick to this and completely avoid the grocery store, we save a ton of money and eat yummier food.

Then we took a detour on the way home and stopped into te Papa

and discovered that there were schedule events all day long as part of the museum's celebration of Matariki. It was incredible to listen to the music and the crowd that gathered. I found it all very moving; yet another moment were I pinch myself and say 'I'm in NZ!' with still a bit of disbelief.

I wish I could say that we went to the museum because of the great cultural events, but sadly I was unaware of them before I entered the museum. Instead, we tromped over there because we had free coffee vouchures for the museum's cafe!

which we thoroughly enjoyed as we watched the birds.

I was particularly amused by this posted photo when we bused our table.

We think it is a photo of a plane/surfboard that is used as coffee cart. We both thought it was very very cool - flying and coffee, too pasions of ours, although we can only afford one at the moment.

Another inexpensive way to enjoy rainy days is to walk along the waterfront. Above and below are bit of what you can see from the city wharf.

But the best bit for me remains this incredible playstructure. This is just the little slide. On the other side is a HUGE one, that I still am getting up the nerve to try. Its is significantly taller thatn the slide they took down at the GC elementary school... Not something you'd want to get stuck in either!