The one where I rode and met

So I was talking to a cutie in the hostel in Wellington while we waited for a bus to the ferry over to the South Island—she’d recognized me from the Tongariro Crossing walk a couple of days earlier. Then she sat down near me up on the top deck, and again when it got windy and we both went inside. Then, (and here JohnJohn will be mad at me but I think it worked out for the best), I abandoned her to sit with a coupla nice forty-somethings.

Beth and Lourdes are profs in the States who were in NZ for a conference. Beth, especially, knows LOTS of people around the world, and especially in Greece (which is why I went to talk to her) and, it turns out, Uganda and Kenya! She gave me several people to contact when I got to East Africa, and at one point even took my journal, opened her address book, and started writing down people and places.

(Lourdes knows more people in Central/South America; Beth’s computer is named Leroy, not George. They’re also recruiting—they think I should teach when I get back to the States…)

Anyway, I left the ferry and caught a bus to Nelson. It’s a nice small town, lots of artists and galleries and cafes and such. And the Museum of Wearable Art and Classic Cars, which I really wanted to see (for the Art, not the Cars) but didn’t get a chance to.

Pictures from the ferry are here.