I woke up yesterday, looked out of the window and...

:)

Lovedale Long Lunch: where it's all about the wine, the food and the good times! :)

Every year, there's a weekend in May where the region of Lovedale in the Hunter Valley (wine region North-West of Sydney for the ones that don't know yet ;)) attracts thousands of people for 2 days of fun in the Sun! Seven wineries and restaurants work together to offer the best wines, food and music to the visitors. Travel from vineyard to vineyard and spread your lunch over the whole day, tasting a bit here and there, buying when you like and enjoying the superb scenery with the music of life bands in the background...

You start early in the morning, so first stop is all about getting in the mood with a cup of coffee and letting the heat of the Sun wake you up :)
Welcome to Sandalyn Wilderness Estate




Time for some food at Gartelmann Hunter Estate


Cured Ocean Trout with a carrot and cucumber salad, creme fraiche and salsa verde and 2009 Gartelmann Jessica Verdelhoto accompany this


No red wine without a nice piece of cheese, right?

The end of the day is approaching at Allandale Windery, last chance to taste the wines, red? white? verdelho, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot, Semillon, sparkling, Muscat... I ended up buying a Chambourcin from 2003... never heard of this one before, but definitely nice, will be perfect for a nice steak dinner! :d


Long days and a lot of people = a lot of wine


Time to go home already, the day went by way too fast! but at least we get beautiful views to say goodbye... and see you next year for sure! :)

Earth Hour candle light dinner - first dinner in our new place! :)

While trying to safe our planet participating to Earth Hour, I thought it was the perfect occasion to have our first dinner in our new flat, even with still zero furniture in the living room...
a few milkcrates, some cardboard and fabric Julia had lying around and tataaa we had a table! :-D


I was afraid our little tea-lights wouldn't give enough light, but it actually was just perfect and we ended spending the whole evening with just candle light instead of the 1 hour of Earth Hour


What's better than home-made dinner (first time I made carbonnades à la flamande!!! yammm :) with australian beer though, couldn't find brown belgian beer here :( ) with friends and candle light?

New flat with open view on the west = B E A U T I F U L sunsets! :-D

We found a new flat and I LOVE it!!!! Especially our balcony with open view (up to the blue mountains! yes yes, come and see yourself if you don't believe me ;) ) out to the west! I can tell you it's always an amazing pleasure to be home when the Sun is going down:

:-D




pictures of the flat itself will follow once we have it properly sorted out with a sofa and all :)

Presenting Julia :)

Now that I've been talking about her already and will certainly do again so in the future, I thought it was time to present you my wonderful new flatmate, Julia! :)
Really really cool girl (from Sweden, but did fashion school here, so has been in Sydney for 4-5 years now!) with which I share the same secret wish! That was our first connection at the Couchsurfing Halloween party last year, then climbing and spending time together and both moving out of our home at the same time, I dropped the idea of finding something together and we did! WOUHOUOUOU! I'm so glad we did as I am absolutely LOVING the little cosy home we're making ourselfs in our flat here right now!

Julia at Tropfest (short fim festival) with her selfmade big glowing fluffy dice :-D I love this pic!


Me and Julia earlier on at Tropfest showing off our plastic wineglasses! living like princesses on the 26th floor of our palace, we couldn't have normal plastic cups to drink our wine out off, right?! ;)


ps: the film festival had 'dice' as theme so we had big dices with us for people to find us easier within the crowd... in case you were wondering... ;)

Princess for a month ~<:o)

Coming back from the workshop, Julia (who i was looking for a place to live with at that time. We found one now! :)) had found us a temporary place to stay at while we continued our househunting. What an amazing place that was!!! Sharing a studio for a month, but that didn't matter as we were living in a palace! :-D Centre of the city, 26th floor of a building of 45 floors, B E A U T I F U L views and, the best part of all, a rooftop terrace with swimming pool!!! wouhouhouououou :-D

The poor view we came home to every day... ;)
Sydney Harbour Bay and Sydney Cathedral in foreground



Yes it can be bad weather in Sydney! So bad it eats up Sydney tower...


Very cool studio we had, with an actual vintage oven/stove!!! It is one of the oldest buildings of Sydney and the person living in the studio before apparently never used to cook, so a vinatge oven, but looks brand new!

very confusing when your used of just having dots... ;)



and of course the "horrible" rooftop... ;)


Sunset over Sydney Town Hall

well belated Snowy Mountains

OK ok, I know, I am way too late with my blog, but I am catching up lost time and posting up my upside down adventures :)
1st up: The good side of doing a PhD - Conferences/workshops in amazing places! :-D
One week in the snowy mountains beginning of February (not so snowy during the summer....). Workshop from Tuesday till Friday morning, I went down 2 days early with Nem and Nick to enjoy the mountains. Great walk of 20km up to Mount Kosciuszko, highest point on mainland Australia! :-D

The track we followed

Did I say no snow? we found one little patch!!! wouhououou ;)


Enjoying the view (Nem, Nick and me, the Astrophotonics crew ;) )

aaaaaah :)





Little fellow we met on the way...


Finally got there after a good walk! On top of Australia! :)




On our way from Jyndabine, where we stayed the first 2 days, to Lake Crackenback, where the workshop was, we saw this huge eagle from really close by on the road! AMAZING!!!!! unfortunately I only got pics from them in the sky... (papa tu vas adorer ici!!!)


Arrived at lake Crackenback, I go on the terrace of the appartment we stayed in


Not to bad ey to stay for a few days?
especially with the morning meditation/yoga/stretch along with the kangoroos!!! :-D

Little personal photo session with one of them after morning stretch




The Macquarie photonics group


Nick and me in front of our first posters :) Nick won 2nd price for his!!!!
(That's pretty good for being a 1st year PhD student and having only 3-4 months of work behind the back!)

1 day back in Sydney and straight into the game!

Got back in Sydney a Thursday morning and on Friday evening got invited already to get back into Sydney busy life and go to the Luna Park! A little amusement park next to the Harbour Bridge! Small, cute, no superbig rides, but still quite some fun! :)

And amazing views of the harbour by sunset:


and by night (see the Harbour Bridge in the back? :))


Long enough legs to become a supermodel??? ;)


Fun group in front of the Luna Park entrance
(German, Nina, Chrissy, me and Carlos)