Christchurch

After summer project, Ryan and I spent a few days in Christchurch to rest for a quick bit before heading back to work in Wellington. To be honest, one of the major highlights to the trip was our hotel room! We had been staying to backpackers (or hostels) for the past two weeks and it was so nice to have our own room...and for the first time since August, our own bathroom! No only was this OUR room, but it was so cool! It was super small (about the size of a bedroom/bathroom on a cruise), but pretty much the same price as a backpackers! I added a few pictures here in case you are interested :)

This little round area served as both the bathroom and shower (bathroom on the left, shower on the right):
And this picture was taken standing right next to the bathroom/shower cylinder. Small, but so perfect for our little stay. Oh! And one of Ryan's favorite parts. The alarm in the morning was a "natural" alarm, so it slowly woke you up with a light shining like the sun.

Anyway, when we weren't hanging out in our room, we went to visit the Canterbury campus. This is where Ryan spent his summer about 5 years ago doing ministry with StudentLife. It was really neat to get to go back and hear about all the Lord taught his that summer and see some of the places I've heard a lot about. It's crazy to think that in that summer the Lord put something on Ryan's heart, and here we both are back doing full time ministry with uni students. Amazing.

Ryan claims this is the best hot chocolate ever. Found on Canterbury's campus.

The other tourist attraction in Christchurch is to ride the gondola up to see Lyttleton Bay, and all of Christchurch.

And the view! Unbelievable.

We tramped (hiked) around a little bit once we got to the top.

And the last highlight of Christchurch is going to see the cathedral. There is a huge town square in front of the cathedral, and at night they light everything up which is really cool and there are a lot of performers.

The next morning before we flew out we went to the cathedral to go on a free tour. The building really is beautiful and every hour they pause for prayer. Pretty cool. Anyway, that's the end of our time away and now it's back to life in Wellington!