Happy New Year

After I survived the dentist, the shark and the bees I am looking forward to a very busy and exciting 2009. It will be a year full of positive changes and challenges for us and I am looking forward to conquer them all :-)

Diving with Sharks

I was on the phone to my friend in Germany telling her about the recent shark attack just south of Perth and that I witnessed a shark alarm AND I told her that I was about to go diving the next day. After saying this I actually thought about it a bit longer! The diving trip with the UWA University Club (UUC) was planned about a week ago. And since I haven't dived for quite a while I thought it would be a good refresher. After all Ian and I met during a diving weekend with this club. The recent shark attack was like a totally different not at all connected event. Just after talking to my friend I realised that they ARE connected. We were about to dive only 20km off the beach where a man was killed by a shark only 2 days ago. [My parents are probably going to freak out reading this ;-)] But the guys from the club said that the shark is probably not hungry any more and that it is more likely to be hit by a boat that attacked by a shark while diving. Anyway, we had a very nice dive, saw colourful corals, lots of fish and NO sharks. But I don't know whether I would do this again...

Not Allergic to Bees

The other day we were waiting for friends when I saw this tree that look like an ideal tree to climb while killing some time. Coming closer to the tree I saw that the inside of the trunk was burned and I wondered whether the whole trunk would be hollow. So I got very close and peeked into the hollow trunk. My next thought was "OH SHIT!!" The trunk was a bee hive! But my sudden retreat was too late one of the bees had already stung my forehead. Another bee got caught in my hair, so this continuous buzzing next to my face made me thing the whole hive is after me now. I panicked and ran around like a headless chicken until Ian calmed me down ;-) Anyway, the good thing is - I am NOT allergic to bees and there is only one way to find out, right?!

Shark Alarm

Once every couple of years a shark attack along the WA coast is reported. This year two attacks happened at about the same time here in Perth and in Sydney yesterday. While the two kayakers in Sydney where rescued by a boat, the man snorkelling for crabs just south of Perth is still missing. This story even made it to the German news: link.
After we went for a swim in the ocean this morning we saw two helicopters circling over the beach. Then the shark siren sounded and we watched while everyone came running out of the water. I never witnessed a shark alarm before and watched with excitement. But I am glad that there are shark patrols along the beaches and I think especially after a recent attack they are extra cautious.

Post Christmas Thoughts

We had a very relaxed and quite Christmas - just what we needed! We slept and ate a lot and just enjoyed doing nothing. We had soo much food! Potato salad and German sausages on Christmas Eve, crayfish, prawns and scallops for lunch on Christmas Day and a big roast turkey for dinner.
When I thought about Christmas in Perth I was hoping to go to the beach in the morning. But in the end I wasn't too disappointed that I couldn't because it was quite windy and cold at the beach in the morning. And with temperatures around 28C it was a rather "cold" Christmas compared to previous years. Plus Ian's parents have a pool where we went for a swim.
But the most rememberable thing this Christmas was the phone call from my parents. They set their alarm clock to 2am in the morning, so they could give me a call on Christmas morning - that was sooo sweet! I didn't expect this at all. I felt really special and loved. Thank you!

Hot Christmas

This year is going to be my first Christmas here in Perth. The last couple of years I always flew back home and enjoyed a lovely cold and cosy Christmas with my family. This year will be quite different. And as posted earlier I am still not in Christmas mood. But I wrapped all presents, made Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) and bought German sausages from the German butcher - which we are going to have for Christmas Eve. [In Germany Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve.] We will drive up to the hills today where we will spent Christmas with Ian's Mum and Dad and his brother.

Annual Dentist Check-Up

I usually don't mind going to the dentist once a year for a check-up. I think I haven't had cavities since I lost my milk teeth. So unlike other people I know I go to the dentist quite relaxed and without feeling queasy. But this time he found a cavity!! In order to fill it he anaesthetised half of my mouth by giving me several injections! This was actually the most painful part. The rest was alright since I couldn't feel anything for the next 4 hours. I had to be careful not to bite my tongue or my cheeks. So when it is time for my next annual dentist check-up I will probably not be that relaxed any more.

No Tree

The house that we are house sitting at the moment comes with a artificial Christmas tree. I contemplated for a while whether to put it up or not. Finally I decided against it. I think I just don't feel like Christmas here. We had 38C on the weekend and we are having BBQs in the court yard. I need cold weather and snow in order to put a Christmas tree up. Sitting around the tree in shorts drinking gin and tonic is just not the same!

Sunflowers

They are one my favourite flowers. Just looking at them makes me happy! The other night Ian came home with this beautiful bunch of sunflowers. What a lucky girl I am :-)

ventriloquist

latest English word learnt: ventriloquist
from Latin ventriloquus - speaking from the belly - German translation: Bauchredner (belly speaker) I learnt this while watching Jeff Dunham :-)

Advent, Advent

Friends of us, an elderly couple from Dresden, invited us over for a typical German 'Adventskaffeetrinken'. And they chose the hottest day possible ;-) For the first time this summer the temperatures reached 38C and we were sweating the whole day. Fortunately by the afternoon a cooling breeze came in.
We were welcomed by a long table full of German Christmas goodies like Stollen, Zimtsterne and Lebkuchen. And afterwards, just like on Christmas Eve in Germany, we were allowed into the living room. They decorated a tree with real candles and a little Christmas pyramid was running. When we all assembled around the tree they opened a small metal box full of presents :-) They wrapped a little something for everyone! We really enjoyed this truly German Advent Sunday. It helped getting into Christmas mood.

Green Wing

Since we are living in a house with a big comfy coach and a huge flat TV ;-) we are watching movies and series much more often. Our latest favourite is "Green Wing" a British comedy set in a hospital. It is hilarious and quite bizarre sometimes. Below just a short scene but you will find heaps more on youtube ;-)

Cherries - Luxurious Treat

The cherry season just started and we indulged in a whole package of this luxurious treat the other day. They were so sweet and crisp *yum*. We have quite a few cherry trees back home in my grandpa's garden with usually heaps of cherries. Over here we have to buy them for about A$20 per kilo (and this is cheap!!)

Symphony in the City

After last years event was such a great success, the city of Perth launched another Symphony in the City. This time even bigger, including a video screen and a better sound system. The Western Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) was playing together with the Chorus several quite famous pieces like Carmen, Carmina Burana or Verdi’s Nabucco. When we arrived half an hour before the start, the big lawn of the Esplanade was packed already. There were thousands of people and we only got a picnic spot right at the edge. So we sat there while the sun set behind us over the river, eating delicious salads and drinking a glass of red wine :-)
The concert was great! The last piece they played was Tchaikovskies 1812 Overture with real cannon fire!
They even did two encores - the Radetzky Marsch and the Can Can. I've never seen people dancing, singing and laughing along to classical music. It was fantastic! Ian and I got up from our picnic blankets and started dancing the Can Can as well - it was really great fun! We truly enjoyed the whole evening!

Tools for Auction

Ian found out about an auction of old hire equipment. The company closed down so he was hoping to get a few bargains. On Friday I went with him to check everything out before the auction. And it was really funny to watch :-) All those guys, tradesmen, wannabe handymen and the such were prowling around the brick saws, trailers, drills, ... Some of them were eyeing a few things - but not standing next to one item for too long - or someone else might get interested, too. Ian told me not to talk or ask about prices! This was truly a men's world *haha* And no, I didn't go to the auction.

Red Glass Tiles

We went shopping again. This time we were looking for bathroom tiles. The excitement changed into 'tooMuchChoice' after the 3rd shop or so. We now have heaps of samples of red glass tiles for our feature wall. Now we need to choose...

Supa Golf

As part of the social committee at our department I helped organising this years X-Mas function. We hired a bus and drove out to the Swan Valley to play Supa Golf - the REAL Golf Game that EVERYONE can play - even computer scientist ;-) But it was good fun and good to get everyone off their bums ;-)
Supa Golf is like a miniature version of 'real' golf. We pulled a little golf trolley, had 4 different golf clubs to chose from and there were small lakes and sand pits along the way. The picture on the top is me trying to get my ball out of the lake :-) We had lots of fun and I think everyone enjoyed it.

Moon Smiley Face

Tonight we got a text message from a friend saying - "Have a look at the moon, it looks like a smiley face! I thought she might have been pissed ;-) but lo and behold there was a huge smiley face in the night sky. Jupiter and Venus were sitting above the half moon to form the eyes of a cute smiley face :-) You can read more about this here.

Busy Weekend

We had a very busy weekend - we went shopping! But not what you might thing... we went shopping for a dunny, taps and spouts, oven, cook top, range hood, dish washer,... It is fun - for a while... The good thing is we got most of what we wanted and we are getting closer to a newly renovated house!! But we still have to chose tiles, bench tops, cupboards,...

Noises

After living for more than a week in our new home we are now getting used the all the new noises ;-)
We heard the kids scream next door.
We heard the birds singing lovely songs in the morning.
We heard the toilet whistle ;-)
We heard the crows (but fortunately only one at a time).
I think we are starting to feel home.

Summer in Cottesloe!

We will probably spent the whole summer at our friend's place here in Cottesloe. If you don't know where that is - have a look here. In fact we are only about 1km away from a long white sandy beach! Living in North Fremantle it was also just a short walk to the beach. But the beach is directly next to the harbour and one has to walk along roads with heavy traffic (including trucks) :-( But now we just stroll down a nice quite suburban street :-) Can't wait to go for a swim and then have breakfast and then have breakfast at Barchetta on the weekend :-)

Break Some Bones

After we've been to the concert of Emilíana Torrini we bought her new album straight away. And since then we are listening to her music in the car, at home, at friend's places... This is my new favourite song:
*singing* Oh make some big jumps, big jumps, You're afraid to break some bones.
Come on make some big jumps, big jumps, Life is yours alone. *singing*

New home - again

We moved again... after living together with friends for the last couple of weeks we now moved to another friend's place. It was good in a way to have a place to ourselves again but it feels strange. We are staying at a friend's place, friends that we know quite well. And now we are watching TV in their living room, cooking in their kitchen, sleeping in their bedroom... But I guess we will get used to this.

Cyclone Anika

By chance we were watching the weather on TV tonight and guess what - then named a cyclone after me :-) Yeah, one of those big tropical storms with strong winds and flooding rain. But I think this one was just over the ocean and is spelt wrong anyway ;-)

Emilíana Torrini

It was a friends birthday so we accompanied her to a concert at the Fly by Night Club in Freo. Even though I didn't know the artist - Emilíana Torrini - and had no idea of her music I was really looking forward to it, because we hadn't been to a concert for a long time.
And we had a fantastic night! She is a great singer and I really enjoyed listening to her lyrics. We actually smiled and laughed the whole night because she just made as laugh :-) She is such a happy person and she is just cute. Did I say already that we had a really awesome night?!
This is my favourite song from the concert - Jungle Drum

Moving - Again...

This is our last week at our friends place. We are going to move again on the weekend. I can't believe that we moved in here already 4 months ago. We were really lucky to find another place to stay while we do our renovations. Friends of us are going to Singapore for a couple of months, so we will house sit their house next :-)

Korean Hair Stylist

A friend of mine recommended this new Korean hair stylist in the city called KThreeG. She said she had the best head massage ever! First I was a bit sceptical but for $38 for a wash, cut and blow dry I was more than willing to give it a go :-) I went into the shop on Pier St and as expected I was the only tall, blond Caucasian person the the whole shop ;-) And I am sooo glad I went! He first cut my hair (then unfortunately someone else washed it, so didn't get the fantastic head massage, but it was still good), cut it again and blow dried and styled it. I felt great and it made my day :-)

Girls Night Out

We had a girls night out at Little Creatures - one of my favourite pubs in Freo. It was a great night that I really enjoyed being part of. About 10 girls chatted about fashion, babies, pregnancy and gossiped about blokes while while tucking into delicious food and enjoying the busy atmosphere. It was great to catch up since I haven't seen some of the girls for a long time. Great night!

Tomato Plants

Just in time for summer :-) Looking forward to salads made with fresh tomatoes from our garden.

Home Alone

I am home alone again this week. Well, not quite.. We are still living together with very generous friends of us, so I don't have live on my own :-) But since Ian changed jobs he travels quite a lot. This time he is off to Florence for a week. Oh - I am so jealous! ;-)

Asbestos Fence

We wanted to start our renovations by demolishing parts of the boundary fence, so we can enclose the car port with a brick wall. The fence was built in the early 80's so we thought it would be made of fibre cement. But now we learnt the asbestos was used in WA until at least 1985. So to make sure we actually had a piece of the fence tested in a laboratory and yep, it is asbestos :-(
Fortunately Ian painted the fence before moving in. The fence itself is not harmful but when it starts to break down the toxic fibres may get, so the paint is a good protection against this.
Anyway, a asbestos removal company equipped with gas masks and overalls came on Friday and removed parts of the fence. And we also know the much cheaper and easier way to identify asbestos fences now :-) Just count the corrugations - 7 means asbestos, 5 means fibre cement. When they had to replace the mineral asbestos fibre with cellulose fibre they also changed the design so that one could easily differentiate between the two :)

Rainy Week

It is real shit weather! It is cold, rainy and stormy. But today was the last cold, rainy, stormy day!! The forecast for the weekend and the coming week looks fantastic!

Friday       Fine.      Min 7      Max 21
Saturday     Fine.      Min 8      Max 24
Sunday       Fine.      Min 12     Max 28
Monday       Fine.      Min 14     Max 30
Tuesday      Fine.      Min 15     Max 29
Wednesday    Fine.      Min 13     Max 26

Melbourne Cup

One of the highlights this week was the Melbourne Cup. It is the biggest Australian horse race and apparently the one that stops the nation because everyone watches the most important race - which takes only about 3min.
Our secretary organised a sweep. She cut out the details of each horse from the newspaper and folded them. Then everyone who was willing to spend $2 could draw one of the horses. The person with the winning horse would win the whole pot. I draw horse number 10 - Viewed. And guess which horse won *bigSmile* It was the closest finish ever.

It smells like summer

Rainy weather the whole week and on the weekend 25C, sunshine and clear blue sky! So we went down to the beach and had the first ocean swim this summer - I could also show off my new bikini :-) Sunscreen, sand, salty water - it smells, feels and tastes like summer already.

New Gadget

We have a new gadget here at my university. And of course all the PhD students got to use it :-)

Back Home

It was really great to be back home in Germany again and to see my parents, family and friends again. Our little trip to California was good, too. But after constantly travelling for 4 weeks we are quite happy to settle down here in Perth again.

Sydney

Before flying back to Perth we visited Ian's brother in Sydney. I've been there before as a tourist about 4 years ago. But driving through the suburbs now I was quite impressed with the lovely old houses and the flare. Everything is so close to the water because of the amazing natural harbour - it's great.

We went to Bondi Beach for a swim and had a fresh seafood platter for dinner *yum*

P.S.: We sat next to Hugh Jackman in the shuttle bus at LAX. Most of our Australian girl friends were quite excited about that :-)

La Jolla

We drove back from Malibu to San Diego to catch the plane back to Australia. On the way we stopped at La Jolla, a suburb north of San Diego right at the coast. It has a beautiful coast and we actually went for a swim there. It was bloody cold!

Last Dinner

Just down the road from our B&B was this veeeery fancy restaurant famous for its game. So we went there for dinner on our last night in Malibu. I hesitated a bit spending that much money on a meal, but I was worth it! It was just divine! We had
Wild Fijian albacore sashimi with pea tendril salad, toasted hazelnuts, garlic chips, scallions and melon cilantro vinaigrette

Wild mushroom agnolotti with ricotta salata, roasted wild mushroomsand shaved summer truffles


Seared New Zealand elk tenderloin with parsnip mousselin, parsnip chips, sweet potato gnocchi, ragout of braised bacon and cherries - This was my absolute favourite!!!

Warm farmers market peach beignets
caramelized whipped cream and toasted hazelnuts

Venice & Santa MonicaWe drove down to Venice and walked all the way up to the Santa Monica Pier and back. The beach is very wide and lined by a tourist walkway where they want to sell you anything - our favourite was medical marijuana ;-)
The Santa Monica Pier was a bit disappointing - much too touristy and without real flare. But I loved walking along the beach and watching people and characters showing of. Everyone likes to be seen here. And again the brown haze along the horizon, since we are close to LA again. The only good thing about that was the sunset! The haze made it look even better.

LA & Malibu

From Palm Springs we headed westwards on highway number 10 towards Los Angeles. The traffic got denser, the highways got wider - up to 5 lanes each way and the smog got thicker. There was this really brown haze at the horizon that gave it away - LA must be near.
But once we passed the civil commotion of the big city we drove through Santa Barbara and up along the coast to Malibu. There is this long wide stretch of beach, lined by houses, next to which is a 4 lane highway and next to this are cliffs. Not not much room and not at all quite like Cottesloe Beach here. We tried just stopping there to have a look around - $6 for parking!!


This is the Malibu Pier where we had a nice dinner watching the sunset and drinking Margarita - our new favourite drink since Mexico :-)

Palm Springs

We left Joshua Tree in the morning end headed east towards Palm Springs. Just before arriving in Palm Springs we were surprised to see a huge wind farm - hundreds of wind mills were lined up there. I didn't know that America has its green spots ;-)
We went on a short stroll through the centre of the city of Palm Springs, which was a party town for the Hollywood stars back in the 1950's. Some of the old houses and fancy architectures back then are still there. We then boarded the world's largest rotating tram car - the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which took us up from 800m to 2500m in about 13min. We went from the middle of the desert to this alpine forest ontop of this mountain - yes, alpine forest. The temperature dropped by about 15C on our way up. We walked through the forest, watched the sunset and enjoyed a lovely meal :-)

We spend the night camping again in the Whitewater Nature Reserve. This was a old trout farm which has been converted into a nature reserve for people to have picnics or to camp the night in the canyon.

Joshua Tree

After having enough of camping in the desert we drove back to our motel. We bought some drinks and drove back into Joshua Tree National Park just in time to watch the sunset while sitting on one of the many boulders.

Joshua Tree is a paradise for rock climbers. There are about 6000 marked trails in the park. But it is also a town of artists - we saw beautiful paintings in a funky little cafe where we had breakfast.
We also checked out the local pub where we had a burger with coleslaw. When the chef took our plates said 'Oh, you actually ate the coleslaw' ;-)