Portofin-e dining

This weekend Brad and I met up with his Mum and Gram for dinner along the waterfront. As it was around the 5th there were meant to be fireworks on the waterfront at around 9 that night so a lot of the restaurants were fully booked. We aimed to go to this Italian restaurant Portofino along the waterfront that wouldn't let anyone book so we just turned up and although it was a wee bit chilly we managed to get a lovely table outside on the waterfront. As soon as we got the alcohol and warm food in us it was nice and warm. Now I'm a really picky eater so it was a bloody miracle that I had a hard time deciding what to have for dinner, usually I don't have a choice. I ended up going with the Pollo Camembert which was obviously lovely grilled chicken covered with melted camembert, apricot and a bloody marvelous creamy sauce with potatoes and vegetables. I'm not a very foodie person when it comes to savoury meals but I could eat this again and again my god it was amazing. After stuffing ourselves with dinner and sides of cheesy pizza bread we decided to dive in for pudding as well. But not before we sat at our table and watched the beautiful firework display from the water, I actually didn't take any photos I'm afraid as I just spent the time taking it all in - but you know what fireworks look like, just imagine huge really well composed fireworks. Then came the desert, a glorious caramel cheesecake that unfortunately I couldn't get all the way through. We then pretty much rolled all the way to his family's hotel where we had to get a taxi as we were so stuffed we couldn't manage walking all the way home! 

Things To Learn: Yummy things

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Yesterday while I was waiting for my amazing boyfriend to start the dinner I was browsing Pintrest to feed my empty stomach and came across so many great dishes that I wished I could create. Now when I say waiting for him to start dinner I mean I'm the fabulous sous chef that does all the basic kitchen jobs like cutting sausages and defrosting vegges and grating cheese. I just sometimes wish I could've learnt to cook proper meals at a younger age so I wasn't stuck at 20 with the amount of dishes I can cook counted on one hand. Savoury dishes I might add, I'm not actually all that bad at baking I make a fab brownie *cough cough*. I thought as this summer whilst I was at home with nothing to do while everyone has jobs I could do a few things with my spare time and that's where this new set of posts is coming from! Over the next few weeks until summer I'm going to be posting a few things that I want to learn over the holidays for next year so I won't be struggling along in some areas. Stay tuned! 

Another year older, another year wiser?

It was my 19th birthday yesterday and weirdly not the first birthday I've spent away from my family even though I've only just moved to Uni but this was different to all those other times at camps and things. I guess it was just that I wouldn't be going home in a few days and can have my presents and cards then instead. Here it would be another month and a half til I went home so my mum sent me down a few little presents (I'd received my iPad mini a few weeks ago) and a few cards that had already arrived. Unfortunately as most of my cards are airmailed from England they didn't arrive in time for when Mum sent me down the package but hey ho I can get over it. 

My flatmates and Louise went to the big deal of making me cakes; flatmates cute chocolate heart shaped cakes and Louise made cute little cupcakes with the writing on above. Both were equally yummy and god it felt good to have cake! On the day I trudged off to uni to endure class that I really would miss a lot if I skipped like I was planning to and waited patiently until freedom. Louise and I went out to dinner at Nandos and then went and saw Oz: the Great and Powerful. Both were really good and the cinema turned out to be a lot cheaper than Tauranga so we've made a pact to go more often as treats. 

Overall it was a pretty decent birthday besides not being able to be with my family I did end up skyping them so that was alright hehe x