This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

Shit, son.

I biked across town last Saturday night after work to go hang out with Bitch Vanilla and pals, and didn't really see where I was going at night. He lives on the northeast edge of Christchurch's "central city", the bit that got cordoned off after the especially nasty quake on February 2011. They've been slowly shrinking that cordoned "red zone" as they tear down unsafe buildings - for someone like me who doesn't venture into town too often, each trip in yields new old familiar roads to tromp down. Most of them still don't have anything resembling the traffic they used to sport, so potholes and cracked paths and poor road markings notwithstanding it's a decent place to explore by bicycle.



This part of town I was pretty familiar with, and this had been my first opportunity to travel down this particular road. Weird to think I can pretty accurately remember when I last took a particular road (this one would've been January/February, 2011). The still-intact building on the left of the image is a former Post Office building; it survived the quakes and the old tenant (a boutique movie rental store) decided to stick around once the cordons finally retracted enough. They just finished building a thirty-eight seat theatre adjoining, and one of my favourite pre-quake cafes is moving from its former site across the street into the same building.

None of this really registered; I was more taking in the skyscape of cranes'n shit when I took in the view.

It wasn't until I thought to - y'know, just for morbid curiosity, I guess - look up Google Street View that it really hit me in the face.

I was staring across where my friends' apartment used to be. The windows (in this angle) on the top floor overlooking the lane? Theirs.

's frigging surreal.