I went to an open market on Sunday. Lots of good food…Indian, Greek, Chinese, Hungarian, Lebanese. Fantastic woodworking, pottery, sweaters, candles, everything. I bought a pair of boots. Yikes. I had to. I have tried on pairs of Ugg boots in the US, the ones that are made out of sheep wool, incredibly comfortable. But, I have never wanted to pay for them, just because the celebrity association has made them so expensive that the pricing is ridiculous. Well, I found a booth with boots MUCH better than the stupid Ugg brand, made with local sheep skin. Absolutely gorgeous, hand-made, much higher quality than Ugg. Plus, they were only $100 New Zealand, which is $70 US. Those boots would have been over $200 in the States. I love them. Very comfortable. So far I have worn them almost every day in the lab (if you didn’t catch that by now, I am writing this as an update, many days after the fact. So, don’t pay attention to dates, I am just sticking in arbitrary dates so the photos will fall in the right order. I didn’t have email access in New Zealand, at least where I could upload photos, and the first week on the ice was filled with activities like snow school and the first busy flight days….more on that later.)