Coffee in Christchurch

I’m in Christchurch for work this week. I last worked here in summer, and now the city is covered in gorgeous autumn leaves. On my flight down, one of the pilots welcomed passengers aboard and announced that the captain would not be able to update with flight details until he had his third cup of coffee. Now, I thought, here’s a man I’d get on well with. Half an hour later, as we began our descent, the captain informed us that he had now had his third cup of coffee, so he was finally permitted to talk to us. ;-)

He brought up a good point. I knew I had two full-on work days (and a late night) coming up, so coffee sounded good to me. So it was back to my Christchurch regular, Café Metro. The coffee here is usually pretty consistent; it’s strong, but even if the beans taste slightly scorched, their milky drinks (cappuccino, latte) are good. The food is great, though; I had a tasty Caesar salad, very stylishly presented, and even my colleague’s humble chicken pie looked tarted up and not a bit out of place.

Instead of going out to one of our usual Colombo St places for dinner, we decided to go for cheap and cheerful and bring takeaway Thai Star back to our apartment. The wine flowed and ‘intelligent’ discussion began: company policy was elaborated upon and presented with increasingly colourful language, personalities were explored and examined, and a plot to overthrow a government (or two) were discussed. All in a day’s work, really.