Extreme pizza

Seen in Mantua, Ohio

Funky Monkeys

The Cleveland Zoo says this is a behavioral study. I think it's nice of the Zoo to let the monkeys express themselves.

Going Green

New Zealand may be a few steps ahead of the US in turning autos into rolling advertisements. There are more cars sitting in private drives that appear to be decorated specifically as advertisements. This one just goes a little beyond most.

Traffic Control

Auckland uses speed bumps and traffic cameras to control traffic, but they also use these lane shifts. They seem really successful at slowing traffic.

Nappies

You know you're away from home when they're called nappies.

You would think wizards would know better

How much can enchantments help when you put up a muggle sign at the corner? One would assume the Order knows better. Maybe it was so the pizza delivery could find the house. ;-)

4 a.m. Fire Alarm

This is the view in the hotel courtyard when you are standing outside at 4am for a fire alarm. :-(

Hotel rooms in New Zealand

I bought three plug converters for the computer and two battery chargers. The converters are great, and work perfectly except the room has only two outlets unless you plug your room key into this wall switch. Without it, only two outlets function and only one light.

South of the equator ducks

I always heard water ran counterclockwise down a sink south of the equator. Now I know that ducks swim upside down too. :-)

Lada

I never expected to see one of these old Soviet Union relics on the streets of Auckland. This Lada was parked in front of a home in one of the pricier neighborhoods and appears well kept.

$4.87 per gallon

Think gas in the US is expensive? NZ$1.709/liter converts to $4.87/gallon US.

Mixed Tree?

We stopped for a cache at Gibbs Hill Cemetery and saw this tree on the grounds. There are actually two of them. The bottom looks like some sort of cypress while the top looks like a spruce. The trees have not been grafted they just morphed into some other shape with a totally different type of needle. Strange.