Queenstown

Day 1 in Queenstown.

At 5am we woke up this morning to take a plane from Auckland to Queenstown (north island to south island) where we'll stay for a few weeks. No more flying for awhile. Queenstown is much much smaller than Auckland, apparently around 25% of the population of New Zealand (4.1 million-ish) lives in Auckland, close to 6500 live in Queenstown. We couldn't check into our hotel when we arrived so we dropped off the bags and wandered around town a bit. Its beautiful. Think the Gorge in Oregon, and a town like Hood River but bigger and more intense in the downtown area. That's not exactly right but it gets it about right. The moutains here are more intense. On one side, reminiscient of the Swiss Alps. On the other, like the mountains in the high deserts of central Oregon. Instead of a river, we have a beautiful lake. The hotel room at Thomas's hotel overlooks the lake which Stacey had the foresight to put in a request. It is JUST AWESOME!

We got a bite to eat at Vudu cafe, saw a choir in the park singing some hymns and a battle song of the Maori people. We both liked the Maori song the best, and tried to get our bearings on the city and where all the things are one needs when vacationing. Internet, coffee, microbrewery, grocery, etc. We had some Thai food tonight, Stacey got 2 giant lamb shanks in curry sauce. Sat down for awhile and read through about 200 brochures on what to do, prioritizing, discussing, etc. Its quite a challenge with so much to do! I think we settled on a hike up the mountain and a luge ride down tomorrow. From here, it looks like a hike straight up, but they are never as steep but always 10 times longer when you actually start up the hill.

Lots of thoughts running through my mind right now, about life, about communication, about societies and common traits among civilizations. Lots out there in the world affirms my belief that sentient beings are only of minor computational interest to the universe and memevolution. Hope to say more on this later.

Pictures will come soon.