Long Lost Family

Reunited and it feels so good!  So this Thursday I got to see the parental units for the first time in about 2 and a half months.  All in good fun, they didn't find New Zealand to be as wonderfully taken with the country (and Wellington) as I knew they soon would be.  They came in on the worst day of weather we had yet in Wellington and even a good bowl of Pho couldn't fix.  Don't worry, even though they aren't city folk like me their opinion of the country has much improved from that first yucky day.
We spent two days in Wellington, I took them to my favorite places and we went to Te Papa, the National Museum of NZ, they got to meet my friends and  enjoy a much nicer day in Welly.  After that we had a very early start (at least in my book, though for some curious reason I was already on grown up time and waking up around 8 or 9 every morning without an alarm-gross) and made our way up the coast to Napier.  A nice coastal city with a big Art Deco thing, we got to see a lot of pretty buildings and put our feet in the Pacific.  Mother and I did some wine tastings, and I must say it was smart thinking to bring along our chauffeur, Charles.  We ended up spending an extra day and I skipped my Monday classes to take the bus back in the evening while they went on for a couple days in Taupo.
In Napier and Hawkes Bay we stayed at a very nice YHA hostel but due to a fluke of fate my cheap bed in the dorm room ended up being a queen in a nice corner room I had all to myself both nights while mom and dad got a prison cell with bunk beds.  Not that their room was bad, it was actually a really nice hostel right on the beach, with a little farmers market in a parking lot just a little walk away.  After our little farmer's market fix we headed to Hastings to the big farmer's market, one of the nicest I've ever been to.  There was everything from blueberry ice cream made right in front of you to wine tasting and gourmet honey.

We got some melt in your mouth herb cheese (a nice addition to all of our wine tastings in the afternoon, especially since we hadn't eaten much else) and some fantastic figs, not to mention all the other loot we came away with (it was a trip for the pallet).
Speaking of deliciousness, we ate Indonesian for the first time and it was amazing.  We had a tapas type meal called a Rjjenstolrdshjrasdkhjfe... or something of the sort. It came with a bunch of small dishes all of which were delicious and then for dessert I had something that translated to "bacon cake." Which was delicious, but sadly contained no bacon.

After a windy bus ride back where I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life, I made it back to Welly for a couple days of class, then off for our South Island adventure! Stay tuned!