Wellington

On Tuesday 06.12 we extended our spooky AirBnB apartment for another night and stayed until Thursday - we didn't even have to pay for it, just clean the kitchen and make the beds fresh.

We also booked another AirBnB for the following days (until our departure on 14.12) - but more on that later.

In the evening, we got pizza from Dominos and I caught up on the new episodes of Vampire Diaries - finally having decent WiFi.

On Wednesday the weather was still really bad, so we decided to do laundry, finally cook, and do a few things like answering emails, etc.

On Thursday 08.12 we packed our things quite early and drove to the museum - we could only check in at our new airbnb at 7:30 PM in the evening, so we had to pass the time.

The National Museum 'Te Papa' was a good solution - it spans across 6 floors and after about 3 hours we had only seen 3 of them - we needed some fresh air. So we strolled through the city - unfortunately the weather was still very bad, Wellington deserves its nickname 'windy welly'!

We first had some fries at Burger King before heading to a small vegan bakery in a backyard - here I got a donut ice cream cone with 3 scoops of ice cream - pretty tasty but definitely too much for one person!

Fritz got a 'mylkshake' which apparently was also really good.

In the evening we finally drove to our AirBnB - but unfortunately no one was home when we arrived. After we finally reached Richard (the owner) he just told us where to find the key and that we should just make ourselves at home - we did as he said.

Friday (09.12) the weather was finally nice, it was so warm that you could walk around in shorts - we prepared pasta salad and then went to the city center.

A special highlight - Cubastreet, here the hipsters, goths, and all sorts of 'alternative' people are everywhere - so just pretty cool.

On the way back, we stopped at the food alley and I got a smoothie.

We also went to Topshop and I fell in love with a faux leather jacket - since this doesn't work so well in a backpacker's backpack (especially in the upcoming summer), I just ordered the same jacket to Germany.

We spent the evening at the harbor and watched the people passing by.

Saturday we just lazed around all day and in the evening went to the food market on Cubastreet. It was much smaller than I had hoped, but still nice.

On Sunday, first we went to the 'Wellington Hill Sign' - a small replica of the Hollywood Sign. Wellington is also called 'Wellywood' here, as this is where New Zealand's film studios are located.

Afterwards, we went to the Massey Memorial, from here you would have a great view over the harbor of Wellington. We drove along the coast and stopped at beaches here and there or watched the surfers.

Monday 12.12:

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEONARD HENSEL!

Today I finally had vegan cheese again in a tomato sandwich, totally awesome.

Also, I booked the bus for Wednesday: for me it's back to Auckland and for Fritz it's on to the South Island.

I will spend a week in Auckland and then cross over to Whitianga to Papa's girlfriend. I will spend Christmas & New Year's here and hopefully do some more work before I also go to the South Island in January.