In 4 weeks New Plymouth ...

... we visited the Tawhiti Museum. It sounded pretty cool on the flyer, telling the history of New Plymouth and Taranaki. When we arrived, we had to choose a part of the museum, each costing $15. We chose the part that we had seen in the flyer. It was set up like a water ride. Through a dark tunnel, we passed holes in the walls with dolls sitting in them. Hannah immediately thought of the Berlin Dungeon, and I hate horror rides, so we were just waiting for someone to jump out and run back to the car as quickly as possible. But that didn't happen. Instead, we were greeted by a nice man who told us a bit about the history and then put us in a boat with another man. The boat then took us through different landscapes, each portraying the history of Taranaki with figures, similar to Madame Tussauds. Pretty cool, but not really worth the $15. It cost us more to get there ...

... we were at the horse racecourse across from the hostel. There are seven races there each year, and one of them happened to be during our time there. I didn't really understand it, and I still wonder why they need jockeys. The horses can run just fine without them ... my theory was immediately confirmed when a jockey fell off the horse right after the start, and the horse still participated in the race. And not even slowly! But it was cool to experience that. At the beginning, we had to show our IDs to get our wristbands: alcohol allowed or not allowed. When the guy saw our passports, he just said "Germans!" in a tone as if we had brought Hitler with us. But he let us in anyway xD

... we went to the Festival of Lights. It was held in the park right behind the racecourse, and all the trees, waterfalls, and boats were illuminated with music and food. Very beautiful!

  

... we celebrated Waitangi Day. It's the founding day of New Zealand. In New Plymouth, there was a family festival with live music. We really liked the last band, Shady Rudy. Unfortunately, they only have a Facebook page. But it was very nice for the two hours we were there.

  

... we visited the Whitecliffs, saw the way leading there, and immediately turned around xD Instead, we had lunch, played card games, and went to the cinema to watch Maze Runner. We both liked it, although we were confused for a while. I somehow felt like I hadn't seen the second film completely.

(Going up and down 10 km wasn't worth the view for us. The rocks in the parking lot were nice, though)

... we had flea infestation again. This time, they didn't itch, but the bites increased every day, so we finally went to the pharmacy and asked what it could be. Ta-da! Fleas. We told the hostel owner about it, and after some discussion, she promptly (well, after a longer discussion) moved us out of the dorm room and into a private room to fumigate our dorm room. The bites quickly decreased, and we had to move back to another dorm room. That room was a mega hole. Even when it was cloudless outside and we opened the curtains, it was dark in the room.

... we repeatedly spoiled our appetite for dinner with double cheese pizza from Pizza Hut as a 'snack'. But it was delicious!

... I went to the cinema again to watch 'Call me by your name'. I read the book on the flight there, and I thought it was pretty good. Some scenes were a bit

but overall, the film was pretty good, and the soundtrack is really beautiful! The film didn't play in a regular cinema, but in a gallery, which looked pretty cool from what I saw.

... we celebrated my birthday. Thanks to the fleas, I was able to spend it in a private room and take the day off. In the 30 seconds I went to the toilet in the morning, Hannah decorated the table and there were gifts as well. Appropriately, a large bar of chocolate of the kind that I only eat here, and the first Harry Potter book with the new cover that I liked so much! After Hannah finished work, we wanted to make waffles. But there's no ready-to-use batter for it here, and we couldn't make the quark waffles because we couldn't find quark. So, what did we do? We used pancake batter ... who knows if we can still call it waffles xD (Yes, we are aware that we could have simply used a different recipe.) We ate them with cream, Hershey's Kisses, and Reese's Pieces, and they were delicious ... after two "waffles," we were extremely full. In the evening, we went to Little Glutton for dinner. It's a restaurant we had passed several times, and it looked really good. We reserved a table for my birthday and had a very good meal!

... we had a day at the beach. Quite little if you consider that we live near four beaches. For our beach day, we chose Back Beach, which is right next to Paritutu Rock and which we thought was beautiful during that hike. But of course, we didn't consider that tides also play a role at such a beach, and because of high tide, we couldn't reach the ocean. Or at least we couldn't lay down there. So, we stayed up top, but it was still nice. We might have even seen a dolphin there, we're not quite sure. But it had fins and looked quite similar to a dolphin if it wasn't one. In the evening, we drove back again to watch the sunset after a snack. It took a while, but then the clouds actually mostly cleared away. I stole the pictures from Hannah, because she has a proper camera with her.

... I went to the cinema for the third time. This time to watch 'The Shape of Water'. It wasn't a bad movie, but some scenes were just ... weird.

... we experienced Tropical Storm Gita. When I was going to the cinema, I was already wondering why it was so windy. Really windy. At times, I was glad to have the traffic light to hold onto, so I wouldn't fly away. Trailers were already rolling across the parking lots. Branches were falling down everywhere, and the sand gave me a nice peeling. The next morning, we read about Gita. A few hours later, we received the warning on our phones to not drink tap water anymore and to boil any water that is used. Due to a water pipe destroyed by a fallen tree, no drinking water can be distributed in Taranaki. Which is great when you mainly live off tap water. Countdown quickly sold out of water, Pack'n'Save gets a truckload of water every day, and there are signs all over the hostel asking not to drink anything.

On the same day, we went hiking on Mount Taranaki again until we were surprised by a shower. We quickly got very wet and turned back. We looked a bit like hobgoblins with our backpacks under our jackets.

By the way, regarding the weather or the differences between Germany and New Zealand, there's also a good video that we can agree with on everything.

https://youtu.be/AtHEePgIl6k 

... we finally gave Flo a thorough cleaning. With cleaning supplies and a vacuum cleaner in the hostel, we had a cleaning day and cleaned, sorted, and packed. Now it looks presentable again.