How we spent my time off

Cute little Jesse

Well, now that my first semester is over and I have three weeks off, Matt and I got to do some fun things together. We went to Auckland for a week to visit our friends Angie and Clint and meet their little baby boy Jesse (such a cutie).

Their older boy Manaia, who is now 2, was very excited to see me (THE TINA) again. Whenever I wasn't around he asked: Where's the Tina? I guess I'm popular with the boys. :)

Clay pot - hmmmm so gound

Auckland was cool; not only did we get to spend some time with friends, we also got to eat lots of yummy Asian food (so far Dunedin's Asian restaurants have not impressed us, so some nice Asian was great).

At the food court

We also went shopping for things we couldn't find here (like a bamboo steamer) or couldn't resist and checked out some of the local sites.

Racing catamaran

Auckland Harbor Bridge at sun set

Enjoying the sun

Walk to the beach

The only not so great part about this trip was the drive to Christchurch from where we flew. Those four hours are THE worst drive in all of New Zealand. I know, in a country as breathtaking as NZ that does not mean much, but believe me driving to and through Toronto is more fun than that!





 Once we got back home it was time to expand our list of DIY projects.

Ready to go in the oven

We bottled Matt's wheat beer (which he can't wait to try on Thursday) and made some homemade yoghurt. Yesterday we then decided it was time to make Tiramisu, but because that in itself is too boring, we first made the mascarpone and lady fingers! It' crazy easy and we had a lot of fun (Recipes under the recipe section).

Looking good

The best part was when I discovered that the lady fingers taste just like a treat (called Teekuchen = tea cake) Mareike and I used to get when we went to Cuxhaven on the North Sea for our holidays as kids. We used to buy them whenever we went to the bakery around the corner with my grandparents. And if you know how much of a sweet tooth and cake lover my grandpa is, that happened quite often :)
So when I return to Cuxhaven with Matt and found out that the bakery no longer sells Teekuchen, I was pretty disappointed. Well, not any longer. The homemade lady fingers fresh out of the oven and just cooled taste JUST like it. How exciting! I'll have to be sure to bake some when Mareike comes to visit, she'll love them too! Psst don't tell her. :D

10min later - golden brown and ready

Extra strong espresso to soak the lady fingers with

YUMMY!

Oh, and to all those who have heard our complaints about the Dunedin weather, we take it back! While Auckland has lots of rain and storms, we have awesome weather down here. Dry and super sunny! The last two days we actually had our patio door open all afternoon and that in the middle of winter. Pretty cool. But I'm sure glad we ended up not going skiing,the warm weather makes for some not so great snow conditions.

Anyway, schools starts back up on Monday, so Matt and I will have to find some more fun things to do before then. One of them will be getting my hair cut, it desperately needs it. Won't be very exciting though. Just a bit shorter, nothing fancy or so I plan, but who knows. :)