350 Dunedin.

350's big day of action was today -- a variety of events, in cities all over the world, all aimed to drum up support for fighting climate change. (350 ppm is the upper safe limit for atmospheric CO₂ concentration; levels are currently at about 390 and rising steadily.) In Dunedin, the biggest event took the form of a Spring Food Festival piggybacked on the usual Saturday farmers' market. Outside the usual stalls selling cheese, fruit, vegetables, fish, crepes, salami, etc., there was another block given over to stalls on energy-saving tips, organic gardening, eating local... A pickup truck converted to batteries displayed its square viscera. A sail for a small boat lay out with markers, inviting signatures, doodles, and messages on climate change. ("CO₂ + H₂0 <--> H₂CO₃ and the clams dissolve", one read. It's good to see someone acknowledging the scariness of ocean acidification!) A seed co-op offered free veggie seedlings to anyone presenting a used travel coffee-cup from the farmers' market coffee stalls. The atmosphere was very small-festival, helped along by patchy sun and warm air and music from the stand.

I'd gone down with Stina, Katy, and Jules. We split up to shop, colliding occasionally as we bought our groceries. I picked up what I needed, then split to enjoy the festival. I attended a twenty-minute workshop on preserving food, run by a terribly disorganized middle-aged lady and two long-suffering teenagers. It was slightly disappointing -- it focused on use of a dehydrator (which I don't have) and I was hoping for canning tips -- but still fun. It was one of several free mini-workshops: home brewing, beekeeping, seasonal cooking, and organic gardening were among the topics up for grabs. I'd have liked to attend several of those, had I had time.

As it was, even the preserving workshop cut off early for the festival photo. Out on the Railway Station lawn, between the boxwood knot gardens, 350 volunteers organized festival-goers into three big "350"s, written in people on the fresh green grass. As we shuffled into place, a fire engine sidled up to the curb and put out its supports. Two photographers loaded up into its crane basket; the arm extended, levering them precariously out over and above us. The resultant photos were pretty darn good.

Laura and I ran into each other (almost literally -- she all but tackled me!) during the 350 shuffle. Afterwards, we decided to check out a bead shop on the Octagon, where she had heard it's possible to make nice paua jewelry for a fraction of the cost to buy the cheap tourist kind. She was quite right. The shop turned out to be smallish but spare, the walls covered in fine bead-work where they weren't filled with rank upon rank of small plastic jars, each holding a different type of bead. They had everything from paua shell and carved-bone bits to Swarovski seed beads, palm wood, and tiny plastic bananas. I put together several nice pieces to give as gifts and walked out with a satisfyingly small receipt in my pocket.

At that point, although it wasn't terribly late, Laura and I were both hungry. (Ironically, the festivities had made it easy to forget lunch entirely.) I was under orders to take myself somewhere nice in celebration of a successful exam, so we prowled the streets awhile, looking for something good. The downside of doing all my own cooking is that I don't know much at all about Dunedin's restaurants. When we passed a friendly, classy-looking Thai restaurant, though, and I found out that Laura had never tried Thai food -- well, that clinched it! Dinner turned out to be a very nice creamy curry and a lot of excellent conversation. Good times.