10K Race

We slept through our alarm but still managed to catch the train for Bryce's 10 K this morning, which started at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.


It was absolutely awful conditions, cold southerlies and rainy. But Bryce finished at a time better than he expected; our theory is he ran faster to get it over with.


Emma picked us up at the train station and took us to Floriditas for breakfast. They had these beautiful jars of jam for sale at the front counter.

When we got home I did NOT feel like running at the gym. Then I realized how lazy I was compared to Bryce so I dragged my buns down there. Pretty proud of myself, my knees let me run a whole 30 mins, whoo hoo! I made the mistake of telling B, who said I'm ready to run 5K's now. The 5k's they start back up in August-- they're on the waterfront Tuesdays after work. I usually like to sit and have a beer on the water while he runs, so well see.

Chai Latte

I have discovered something new and wonderful and that is a chai latte. Yum. It's like Christmas in a cup. Some girls from the Porirua office and I met downtown and shopped Cuba street. I got a nice little black cardi at Glassons and some lollies at the candy store. We went for coffee at this great little cafe called Midnight Espresso (where I had the chai latte initiation).


This morning Bryce and I went out for breakfast at the German Bakery in Petone. We brought some danishes (which we think were called "dutches" or maybe "deutches"??) and take-away coffee back home, where Bryce mentioned that he "could be convinced" to move to Europe one day. I had no luck finding an SLP job on an air force base in Europe when I looked, but Bryce pointed out that the last time I looked was 2 years ago. Lets forget about the fact that Bryce isn't fluent in German, I'm going to go ahead and look again. One visit to the German Bakery and all of a sudden we have aspirations to move to Europe. It was THAT good of a breakfast ;-)

Homey

There's a great new tradition starting in the Wood household: going out for breakfast on the weekends. Ahh yes. With all the cafes around here, we can go to a different one every time and never have to repeat a place if we don't want to. We're really liking nearby Petone with its cute shops and easy parking. We had breakfast at Go-Bang-- I had poached figs (which looked like slugs) on muesli. It was good despite the slug-ness.


Our landlord thinks that it is somehow cost-effective to try and assess our 10-20 year-old tv to see if it's repairable. So we dropped that load off and was told it would take a few days to get fixed. (grr)

We had friends over for dinner-- we had tacos and made pumpkin pie. Ok pumpkin pie is sorta hispanic and goes with tacos; pumpkins were a New World discovery afterall right? New learning today: whipping the cream too much is NOT a good thing for pumpkin pie (but IS a good thing for butter).

I am feeling more and more at home each week now; I had no idea I was missing out on that feeling until recently. Bryce and I really have a routine going on the weekends which is really comfy. I think it all starts with a good breakfast. Out. :-)

Cafe Hopping

Skyped with Sheryl and Herb, and then Roy and Tammie, for most of the morning. So nice to be in touch with family, it makes us feel way less homesick. Sheryl said she found flights from LA to Auckland recently for only $399; we told her to definitely jump on those tix and visit if she sees them again.

We drove to Miramar to try out the famous Chocolate Fish. This cafe, when it was in its old location, was the favorite hang-out place for the actors on the Lord of the Rings movies. The cafe has since moved to Maori land so it's on a restricted license-- it doesn't have the best view and it can't have a kitchen so all the food is sandwiches served on paper plates. Their sandwiches were nice but we didn't stay long. The old Chocolate Fish must've been amazing. The present cafe that that bought out their old building is in a gorgeous location.


I made a new cafe rule-- that if we don't get coffee with lunch, we're allowed to go to another cafe for dessert and coffee. Bryce decided he liked this rule, so off we went to Cafe l'Affare in CBD. It's a great Italian cafe with an awesome vibe. It's yet another cafe recommended by Sally at work. (Sally has also recommended our other favourite cafes: Havanna, also in CBD, and People's Coffee in Newtown). I had a pear-ginger slice and Bryce had a blueberry sour cream square. We walked around the shops after coffee but the city pretty much shut down at 4:00. It's still hard for us to get used to the condensed hours of operation of most stores.

Wellington

Wellington is well known for its cafes. They have the best ambiance and yummy food too. A woman at work loves to show off the best cafes to me and some of my other coworkers. She recently took some of us out to Havanna cafe, a cool spot that you would pass right by if you didn't know it was there. Tucked into a wide alley, the tiny place is full of light and is filled with old fashioned furniture and espresso machines. I took Bryce there today, he loved it.

Right now summer turns on and off like a switch-- we sat by a beach for as long as we could until stormy weather forced us out.