Our first (and last) football game, Te Papa

We had an early wake up so we could drive downtown by 7am to catch the UM-OSU game on the Wellington wireless network. Since it was Sunday there was free parking all over the city, and we got a great spot outside our favorite mall (Courtenay Place) from the night before. Nathan was hoping the signal would be strong enough to pick up the wireless network from our campervan and watch the game from our bed. At the first parking spot we tried the signal was a little weak, but moved closer to the entrance of the complex, and the signal was perfect. The video came through well, and we had a great time seeing all of the players we’d been listening to and reading about all season. We couldn’t believe that we were up 21-12 in the 4th quarter and thought the game was a lock, but then Ohio State kept playing well and this time managed to score on a couple mistake-free drives.

The loss put us in a bad mood for a while, but after some 10:00 lunch at the food court and a walk to Te Papa museum in town, we let it go and enjoyed the rest of the day. Te Papa is an amazing museum with a lot of Maori and European settlement history. We also really enjoyed an exhibit called Awesome Forces that explained a lot of natural disasters and phenomenon around the world through interactive exhibits. We walked around the museum for a few hours before reaching our limit on info, and then walked the popular shopping streets of Wellington. There was a Christmas parade going on (a little early don’t you think?), and that nicely kept the cars out of our way for the rest of the day. After a little shopping we went back to Trina and drove to the Top 10 for dinner. Nathan got out some hot dogs and used the free grill, and we had an easy dinner in the camper. After dinner while Susan sat down to watch Batman Begins, Nathan took his doxycycline pill (for acne) like he did every night, but something went wrong this time. He is supposed to take it with a full glass of water, but instead he finished off a water bottle in 2 gulps and was looking around in the fridge for an apple to help wash it down. When he stood back up to rinse the apple, he burped, and all of a sudden he could taste the powder from the pill. A second later his whole throat and nose were burning from the powder and his eyes started watering. It seemed that the directions were more than just a cautionary step, and Nathan was in uncomfortable pain that didn’t seem to go away. In addition to the burning, his nose started to run pretty seriously and his saliva glands were working overtime to try and wash away the burning, but nothing seemed to be working. After over an hour of misery, Susan went out and got a couple cokes at the vending machine to help him cool the burning. While she was out she also got the address and phone number for an after-hours clinic from the front desk. We gave them a call, and the woman at the clinic was very helpful and suggested that he take a hot shower and do some more steam inhalation to diffuse the powder. The steam worked wonders and after a 10 minute shower and about 20 minutes sitting over steaming cups of water, he felt much better. After that surprising episode, Nathan wasn’t in the mood to start reading the 4th Harry Potter, and we sat down to finish Batman Begins before falling asleep.