Sometimes you have to go a little bit out of your comfort zone to experience beautiful things :)

Nobody wants to wake-up extra early on a Sunday morning and be at the train station at 4:53, but when we got to our destination, we realised that quite a few made the effort!


The international food festival in Sydney organised a special breakfast on the beach event: Breakfast on Bondi! bring your breakfast picnic or buy something from the nice foodstalls around and enjoy the sunrise with a didgeridoo and then a 50-piece orchestra playing in the background! :D


Unfortunately there were clouds and so the sunrise wasn't as beautiful as expected, but that didn't stop people from being in a good mood and enjoying the beautiful music in this amazing setting!


It was so nice to see all these families and group of friends sitting together, indulging in their picnics :)


We had some fruit salad followed by home-made banana bread made by Stacey and some iced latte, mmh mmh mmh :d



After a bit, even the Sun decided to start peaking through the clouds


At least enough for some courageous to adventure themselves in the water


and for other to take advantage of the heath to have a little morning nap


but even with a nap, such early morning calls for coffee, a lot of coffee!


and maybe a second breakfast? enough yummie stuff around, choice of healthy granola muesli


fruit & yoghurt


or a nice bacon & egg roll or maybe two?


An early, but perfect start of a chill-out day on the beach, reading the newspaper and going for my first surf in Australia! :D


After all that, the hunger is there again and calls for a nice lunch in one of bondi's many cafés. This time a classic, the BLAT toasted turskish bread (Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato)


And of course another coffee ;) but too nice&warm weather to have a hot coffee, i go for the spanish version, café con hielo, perfect!


And i don't know if it was the tiredness, the Sun or my first surf that got to me already, but on the way home i got myself a little gift :)


although, i have to admit the 70% off did help a lot in the decision of purchase as well ;)

ice-cream woman

When i was little (and i mean very little) i wanted to become an ice-cream woman :)

Yes, you read it well, an ice-cream woman... you know, like the ice-cream man that drives around his ice-cream van in your neighbourhood and plays that stupid melody everybody hates for the sound, but really loves because of what it means, to tell you ice-cream's around... yes, that one! but then, a woman :)

I was going to have a beautiful van, with cool paintings on it and loads of colour, i would have the coolest music, something everybody likes and i would drive around with my Lassie (as at that time, i really wanted a dog and collies were my favourite) and sell ice-cream and eat ice-cream all day long. It was going to be the best job/life ever! :)

Today, i think i can say with ease, 23-25 years later, I find myself thinking about my dream job again and what i really want in life and while looking for a notebook to gather my thoughts in, i found the above one last Sunday... i thought it was perfect :)



And then, yesterday, i found this picture...

Most people that know me, know i DREAM of someday owning a campervan, most preferably an old VW one. I saw this picture and i thought, 'that's it! Ice-cream woman in an old VW campercan! It's PERFECT!' ;)

relaxing weekend :)

Spring in Sydney is perfect! The Sun is getting out, but is still just gentle enough for you to actually be able to enjoy it. Last weekend, we had perfect spring weather and activities, Birthday drinks on Friday evening to finish off the work week with ease, easy Saturday morning at home, doing stuff in the flat, baking for the afternoon, grocery shopping in the neighbourhood with a stop at my favourite local cafe, where a friend joined me for coffee (i love having friends living closeby! :D ) and a boardgame afternoon & dinner at another friend's place with the nice evening Sun shining right into the flat through the balcony, beautiful :)

Then Sunday just continued in the same way, my friend Sandra, who moved 5min away from me a few months back and has been repainting and settling in since then, organised her first little gathering at her place: brunch in her lovely courtyard at her beautiful wooden table she found second hand

came along a few friends and housemates i hadn't met yet

Saul (who just moved into a new place literally 1 street away from me, another neighbour, yeay :) ), Kim and Francesco




Our brunch, savoury first :)




Me and the beautiful host



After a little break, savoury made place for tea and home-made sweets & pastries,
i made cinnamon rolls for the first time, a recipe to repeat for sure! :d



Sandra



After the brunch, I went for a walk around the city and it's beautiful galeries



got myself a nice iced latte, went the top floor of the QVB and sat down, relaxed, wrote down some thoughts and just enjoyed the place, the light and the few people passing by at that time of the day :)

28 and loving it! :)

So I turned 28 the other day, Saturday 17 September 22011. For once that my Birthday was on a Saturday, I thought I should definitely make a party day out of it :) Plus, I was actually born on a Saturday! So it was extra special ;)

As I am getting older, wiser (?), I thought I should start the day with something classy this year, something a bit more sophisticated ;)
I opted for a champagne brunch picnic in the Sun with some of my favourite people here and one of my favourite views of the city: the Opera House and the Harbour bridge from Kirribilli suburb :)

on the menu: pink sparkling with lychees, strawberries...


crumpets with sour cream & smoked salmon, home-made scones with whipped cream & mama home-made 3-berries jam brought back from Belgium...
(Amy, James and me)


cheese, quince paste and crackers...
(Stacey)


All that was left to do is indulge and enjoy the beautiful sunshine :)
(Amy, Michael, Tommaso and me)
(Sandra)



Home-made ginger beer by Michael, i got for my Birthday :)


After the brunch and the nap in the Sun (that is still not too hot and thus allows you to just lie in it without baking :D ), I went back home with Amy to prepare the flat for the party i had planned in the evening. Yes, I'm getting older, but not thaaat old that the whole day has to be sophisticated and i want to be in bed by 10pm! ;)
so party it is! :D and i actually think that the older you get, the bigger party you should throw! as getting older is not always that much fun and can be depressive, but who doesn't look forward to a good party??? exactly! this way, you will always, always look forward to your Birthday! perfect, no? :D

anyways, back to the 17th, while i went back to prepare the flat, this happened behind my back: Stacey and James went off on their side to prepare me my Birthday cake :)



and what a cake it was! A giant cupcake that was just TOO BEAUTIFUL to eat! I'll never thank Stacey and James too much! It was AMAZING! and tasted so GOOD! :D


It even suited the mini cupcakes i prepared perfectly!


And it suited my outfit even better! :p


oh and another little present i received: home-made nutella by Izabela and Tomas, called tomizella! Who knew you could make nutella at home!!! It is DELICIOUS! I'll need to get the recipe from them and try it out myself some time! mmh mmh mmh :d

Christmas in July

So Christmas in Australia is a bit strange... it is the middle of Summer, it is HOT, you're walking around in a skirt/shorts, the Sun is up late... and still, you can come across a Santa Clause here and there, the centre of Sydney has got a huge christmas tree that is lit up end of November with fireworks and all and shops have got christmas decorations all around and play christmas carols all day long... so people do put in the effort to bring the christmas feelings up in you, but that doesn't mean you'll feel like eating a proper christmas dinner with Turkey and all and drink mulled wine in that heat!!! Maybe Sangria with loads of ice-cubes, but nice and warm mulled wine... :-/ i don't think so!

That is one of the reasons Australians came up with Christmas in July! :) forget about celebrating the little man's birth, midnight mass, etc.... NO! this one is pure for the fun of it! :) and because in July, it is actually cold here in Australia! and you do feel like a hearty meal and you do feel like warming yourself up with nice and warm mulled wine :) especially in australian houses that don't have any heating!

plus, for once, you get to celebrate christmas with your friends instead of with your family :)

Christmas in July might sounds strange to us Northern hemisphere people, but when you think about it, you realise it is a brilliant idea! :) this year, Micheal was as nice to host 24 of us thinking the same way about this feast!

Our host Micheal, preparing the méringue for the Pavlova desserts

and patting the Turkey :) and let me tell you, it is not an optical illusion, that was one BIG Turkey! 6.5 kg!


I joined Micheal early to help him prepare. I was in charge of the Turkey stuffing! :D a


Happy Micheal and me with our delicious looking Turkey


The feast: stuffed Turkey, extra stuffing on the side, glazed Ham, Cranberry sauce, roasted vegies, garlic potatoe mash, danish red cabbage, mmh mmh mmh!


dinner, everybody is ready to attack the buffet!


The Turkey drumstick had my name on it since the start! not sure how i'm going to eat it though... :-/


ah, just put your teeth in it! ;)


pretty happy with the result :)


I think we did pretty well on the food...


but no Christmas party without dessert! Amy and Hannah preparing the Pavlovas in secret. A typical australian dessert, méringue, whipped cream and fruit (strawberries, kiwi and passion fruit), yamieieieieieie!!!!


short-bread star christmas tree, nearly too beautiful to eat!


Our dessert buffet: Pavolva, minced pies, shortbread stars, christmas pudding, warm custard and vanilla ice cream :d and without forgetting the mulled wine of course!


Dessert aftermath


Cold weather, good food, a lot of good food, good people, great atmosphere, same after-dinner feeling as normal Christmas (=having had way too much to eat, but feeling very satisfied :) ) Christmas in July was definitely a hit! Can't wait for next year's :)