Hawkes Bay

Over the weekend Kel and I ventured up to Hawkes Bay again. We got a brief visit of the area during our first road trip. It's a beautiful little area made up of Napier and Hastings (two towns). Napier is the more elegant of the two while Hastings is the hard working industrial side. Napier is known for its Art Deco buildings because of a huge earthquake in the 1930s that demolished the city, and then was rebuilt in that time era. We stayed the weekend in Napier and had planned to get into town, rent some bikes and go tour the vineyards again... but the weather held us back.

We made it into town at 8:30am on Saturday morning and headed over to Starbucks to start our day out in Seattle style, considering the pouring rain that would keep us inside all day. We spent about two hours there just drinking our coffee and talking.... Kel and I have been together nearly none stop for the past month and a half, yet we still can sit in a cafe and talk for hours!! It's amazing really. After Starbucks we walked around the town and tried to do some shopping, though neither of us actually bought anything! (I'm trying to figure out souveniors to take home but can't really come up with anything... if anyone wants something from New Zealand, please don't hesistate to ask!)

Luckily, I had recieved the email address of a girl, Hillary, down here from Seattle also doing her Student Teaching in Hastings. I emailed her earlier in the week to let her know that we were heading up for the weekend. She would be in town and actually spending the weekend in Napier with her direct supervisor, Leigh, who is also my indirect supervisor. In the afternoon on Saturday we met both of them for more coffee at another cafe. We chatted for a while and it was nice to get to hear someone elses opinion on the benefits and disadvantages of student teaching abroad. Also, it was nice to have three Americans and one Kiwi in the situation so we all had a few good laughs about the differences! We departed ways after our coffee and decided to meet up later that night for dinner and drinks.

Leigh came down to our hostel in the city center and picked up Kel and I. We went out and got a take away noodle dish and headed back up to Leigh's house.... which was beautiful!!! The house is gorgeous and sits on a bluff overlooking the Bay and the two cities below it. It was really nice! She has two children and a great husband that we got to meet as well. After dinner at her place, Leigh took us down to a few of the bars nearby. We got a couple of drinks and there was a big Rugby match on (Wellington versus Christchurch) so the atmosphere at the bars was very serious and into the game since those are two big rival cities. The best example of the rivalary would be UW vs. WSU or something along those lines.

We called it a night pretty early and headed back to our hostel, then got up in the morning to meet up with Leigh and Hillary again and go to The Filter Room, which is a brewery/cider house a bit outside of the town. We headed that way and tasted a few different beers and ciders, then met up with our ride to take us back to Wellington.

It was a fun, yet relaxing weekend which was a nice change of pace. Now its back to the school week for me and Kel has one more week in New Zealand!! Oh, which I don't think I posted about.... She was supposed to leave on May 5th, but decided to cancel her flight and stay for another month. So she's here until June 3rd now.

This week, school picks up for me and I'm pretty much taking on the classes full time now. Then this weekend is the 'Queens Birthday' so we have no school on Monday. This worked out well, and Kelly and I have decided to stay in Wellington for her last weekend. On Sunday we are going to see the musical CATS that is in town, and stay in the city in a posh hotel instead of a hostel!! How nice! I'm very much looking forward to that!

Hope all is well back home and the weather is turning into a lovely summer. It's winter down here and seems to be a lot like Seattle with the cold and rain, so it is bearable.... though it isn't the dead of winter which I hear gets extremely cold!! I'll keep you posted.....