It was a wonderful week here in Dunedin. It was a nice pace for a vacation, just the right mix of sightseeing, relaxing, and hanging out with family. The total immersion in rugby was really awesome, just to have a game on all the time, and to have almost everyone you meet also interested in the same thing. It was really great to catch up with the Krumm family and meet their little one.
Left: Long way from home, right: a night away from the wee ones!
Some of the highlights of the week (for me) was going out to dinner at Scotia, a fantastic restaurant specializing in all things Scottish. Delicious haggis, over 300 bottles of scotch to choose from, and the most amazing salmon I have ever had. It was supposed to be all the adults, with our host Jan babysitting the little ones after they went to bed. That changed when Connor threw the fit of all fits, which necessitated Grandma putting him to bed. (Thanks Mom, we love you!) One nap time some of us went to tour the Cadbury factory. While I was expected to eat some delicious chocolate, I wasn't expecting the tour to be so interesting. We got to see the whole process, see 1 ton of molten chocolate dumped into a holding tank, and probably the highlight, eat a little cup of fresh from the factory melted chocolate.
Left: the boys just hanging out, right: on the Cadbury tour
As with any time spent in a foreign country, it was fun just to be there and see all the thousands of little differences that make a place somewhere else. Going to the grocery store, ordering pizza, even walking to the park were all little mini-adventures. But the things I enjoyed the most were the tiny almost unnoticed moments, the hanging out with Bruce while we watched our little guys get into trouble, the morning tea shared with my parents discussing the rugby game of the night before, the walks to the park through neighborhoods with Ali and Connor discussing what our life would be like if we lived in NZ. I hope to always have these memories of my whole family being together in one place on the other side of the world.
Left: the Scrymgeour family on the last day, Right: the proud dads and their offspring!
So while we had an absolutely wonderful time in and around Dunedin, it was time to move onto the next stage of the adventure. We were heading off to Christchurch to pick up our campervans for a weeks worth of touring on the south island!
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