Gypsy Tapas Bar

Together with a couple of friends we went out for dinner at the Gypsy Tapas Bar. The restaurant has this great deal where everybody pays a fixed price and they keep bringing tapas until you are full. Tapas are small entree size dishes that apparently originated in Spain. So we had sardines, chorizo, garlic mushrooms, feta stuffed meat balls, ... and a fantastic delicious chocolate mouse for desert. Great night.
[I am also wearing the scarf that my lovely boyfriend gave me for my birthday. It was really a very nice gift! :-)]

Homemade Jam

I've been given homemade jam for my birthday. My friend and office mate made the jam all by himself - well nearly :-)
But what a great way to start into the weekend - the jam is sooo yummy!

Trash the Dress

While researching the internet for wedding stuff I found this new trend from America - Trash the Dress! It is what the name suggests - brides trash their beautiful gowns after the wedding and document this in a photo shoot.
My first thought - After spending thousands of dollars on a dress, why would you wanna destroy it afterwards?!
But then I had a look at some pictures here and here and here.
My second thought - Why not? After spending thousands of dollars on a dress that I only wear once, why not have another photo shoot? And instead of burning or cutting the dress or messing around with paint you might as well just do water shots or something that doesn't completely ruin the dress.

Matching Colour

Now that I have a dress, I still need matching shoes, maybe a veil, a shawl - or something that keeps me warm in the church, jewelery, a handbag,..... but so far so good :-)

My perfect wedding dress

The marathon is over! I found my perfect wedding dress! Together with 3 friends I went to bridal shop number 9 and 10 on my list. After 1,5h in shop number 9 I was about 80% certain that I found my dress. But still wanted to have a look at shop number 10 before I decided. I really liked the shop assistant there. She was helpful, not pushy and asked me to tell her my absolutely honest opinion since she would do the same. I only had to try on one single dress - my dress :-) And like girls told me before - "You know when you found the right dress." - I knew :-) I just love this dress! It didn't take me long at all to decide this :-) For the rest of the day I just walked around with this big smile on my face - I was so happy!
We finished this girlie day by watching "Sex and the city" in the cinema. What a fantastic chick flick - I loved it.

My Birthday

What a wonderful birthday I had! The day started with unwrapping presents my family sent me. They arrived already weeks ago and I had to contain myself not to open them earlier :-) At uni my colleagues invited me for lunch and we had apple strudel birthday cake after wards *yum*. And as the prefect finish for the day Ian took me out for dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant there was a bunch of red roses already awaiting me at our table - yep I was spoilt :-)

Generation Y?!

I was asked to help supervising high school students as part of a students-getting-to-know-the-uni-scheme. For one week in July we will show two students around our lab and they will also play with our equipment and software.
Anyway, earlier this week we very invited to meet-the-scientists. All participating students as well as the supervisors from various universities and research institutes came to getter to meet for the first time. When the first students showed up I already noticed quite a large number of accompanying parents - and I am not talking about primary students, the students were all between 16 to 18 years old. Apparently they are all part of the so called Generation Y?! So when we finally met our two students one of them was accompanied by both of his parents and the other one came with his dad and a representative of the school!

Bridal Shop Marathon

No, I still haven't found my perfect wedding dress. But to make my life a little bit easier I wrote a list of all the bridal shops in Perth that I've been to or that I want to visit. I also created a map and put all the shops and their location in. Maybe someone else finds this useful as well. You can see the map here.

Wild West Party

One of my friends turned 40 yesterday and invited us to join them for a Wild West Murder Mystery Party. The location was a winery just an hour out of Perth. I haven't been there before and was quite surprised how beautiful it was - green lush meadows, rolling hills, horses running around - quite idyllic :-)
We all had to dress up and since Ian still had his mohawk from last weekends P-Party we both went as American Indian. I think he was the best hair dressed that night ;-) The Murder Mystery Game was good fun, too! I was Dana Badthing and Ian was Big Shot and he came really close to being the murderer. It was a really nice afternoon / evening and we enjoyed being amongst our friends.

North Port Quay
A newly proposed concept for a development just in front of our door (A)

For more information have a look here and here.

Wedding Expo

I went to the bridal expo last weekend together with a couple of girl friends. I was manly interested in seeing different wedding dress designs rather than all the other stuff like flowers, music / DJ, ... since we are marrying in Germany anyway.
I got some more ideas and saw some interesting designs which I am going to try on in the next couple of weeks. But there are two things that I noticed:

1. I took part in a raffle to win a wedding dress and I had to tick the second last age group box! Am I really that old?! Compared to a lot of Australians I probably am, they all seem to marry in their EARLY twenties *gosh*
2. There was a stall where young couples could inform themselves about buying a house. Apart from marrying very young many Australians are also trying to buy a house in their mid 20's! The attitude in Germany is completely different.

P- Party

We went to a house warming party this yesterday - it was a P - Party, which means that we had to dress up as something staring with P, like priest, police man, pirate... We decided to dress up as punks! A friend of mine has been a punk in her teenange years and she gave me some tipps and I went shopping at Good Sammy's, Bunnings and I bought red and black hair spray. And I was very happy with result :-)

Pre-Anniversary

Ian and I will get married in May 2009 so we were actually able to celebrate our -1 wedding anniversary ;-) We were actually too busy on that day but we reminded ourselves that it is our pre-anniversary and that it is now 'only' 1 year to go :-)

Rotto in June

Just like last year on the long (Foundation Day) weekend we went over to Rotto - my favourite island! Together with a couple of friends we stayed in Geordie Bay directly next to the beach :-)
The weekend started with a heavy thunderstorm and it rained pretty much the whole day. But I actually enjoyed it - sleeping in, reading a book, listening to the rain, smelling the fresh rainy air... - up to the point when the water started dripping down the kitchen fans and pressing through the window chinks and coming in under the door. These units aren't built for stormy weather.
But Sunday and Monday compensated for all that. It was sunny, blue sky and we even went swimming. I went fishing for the first time in my live. I always thought of fishing as a really really boring 'sport' and my opinion hasn't changed :-) But I have to admit that I got all excited when I actually caught a fish!! And we caught lots and lots of Herring which all ended up on the barbie :-)
One afternoon a little honey eater flew through the open window into our unit. And as soon as we put honey on our fingers the litte bird would come close and lick the honey from our fingers.

Imagine a clear blue sky, sun shine, you are on a boat anchored close to a beautiful little beach, the water is crystal clear, the coral reef full of fish is just a short swim away, eagle rays swim around, being on board surrounded by great friends drinking a glass of chilled white wine and eating freshly caught calamari - what a fantastic finish of a great weekend!

Children's Day

Today is Children's Day - at least back home in Germany. And since I can remember me and my sister would always get something from our parents - just something small. Like last year, my parents sent me the 'Annika' number plate. And even though I am almost 27, I still get a little gift for children's day - which is great!! So today I got a book voucher, which we are probably going to spent on travel books :-) But I wonder when this is going to stop - after the wedding? - after we have kids? - never? ;-)