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!)