School started about two weeks ago! The first week was basically just getting classes straightened out and figuring out where to go. I worked out my schedule so that I only have classes on Tuesday and Wednesday mainly. I finish for the week Thursday at noon and go back Tuesday. I have a nice long weekend, every weekend! Before diving into school I figured it would been good to get out of town once more. I arranged for four friends and me to go stay at a hostel for a night in Paekakariki. The town is very small with one main street. It has a small grocery store, cafe, bar, pizza place and that's about it. So we took the train 45 minutes out of Wellington Thursday afternoon. We were really excited about our weekend not having a plan and just wandering around the town for a few days. The train ride was beautiful and the hostel even better. The owner was a nice man in his 50s that enjoyed talking to us travelers and helping us get situated. Once settled, we had afternoon tea on the porch over looking the ocean! Our dorm style bedroom was kept open the entire stay, with bug nets over our beds while we slept. That evening we shopped for food and wine and eventually made a gourmet dinner. We ate outside as the sun went down, it was pretty perfect. We had a great night walking all over the beach and getting to know each other. 
The next morning we said good bye to our new friend at the hostel and made our way down to the cafe. We had a great breakfast and got ready for a day on the beach. When leaving from the cafe, we talked to a man in his 60s. He was really nice and told us about a music festival the next day in the town. We actually ran into him again later the same day when coming off the beach. It was windy and kind of cold so we came back early. This same man, Francis, said he had come up with the great idea of letting us stay at his house for free! We hesitated at first but then decided that it could be fun and a really great experience. Francis took us to his house, showed us where we would stay the night, gave us a key and said see ya later. His house was amazing. He had everything from pumpkins to lemons to grapes growing in his yard. We hung out on a swing and read while eating grapes off the huge vine hanging above us. What an experience!
We went to the one bar for the night and saw some local music. Basically it was an acoustic jam session and a lot of fun! The next morning we were going to head out early and get out of the way but Francis and his wife insisted we stay for tea and breakfast. They even played us their son's CD and burned us a copy to take with us. It was a blast! Sadly, we didn't make it to the music festival because it rained hard the entire day.
I really learned so much from this experience. The others were a little worried but I wasn't. While I wouldn't do this by myself I felt perfectly safe and fine with the four of us. People say Kiwis are really friendly and I feel like I can totally agree now, I understand what they're talking about. Paekakariki was beautiful and I really enjoyed our stay to the fullest.
By the way- they had a place you could go and yard bowl! It was like a bowling alley and a golf course mixed together!
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