Advent

Decoration is out. Santa getting ready. Like every other year this year I want to get ready in time, write cards, buy present and send them to Germany and Ireland, get the holidays organised and finish everything at work on time. Well let's see.

Lunch time

Rose Bay lunch between site visits. There is this lovely chicken shop with super friendly staff and the most amazing salads. Today I devour a mango chicken salad which is absolutely delicious. The beach is almost empty as big dark clouds roll in. A couple is taking their dog for a walk, that water sounds friendly, sand between my feet. I have been living in this city for more than 9 years now and I am still amazed how it never fails to impress me all over again. The changing colours of the sky and the water, still finding new hidden spots of amazing beauty along the harbour. I will be back.

Must Read for Germans Down Under

I love my Kindle and my new black denim cover. It took me a while to get used to it since I really enjoy flicking pages in a real book, especially to flick back to a page I really liked or just to browse a bit. But now I like the Kindle especially the fact that I can read a German book at any time, I just need to download it. I did some book reviews before but this is my first e-book review, so here we go:
Friedrich Gerstäcker: Australien

While browsing the Kindle-shop the other day I came across this book. Its title and price (0 Euro) convinced me to download it straight away. I got hooked after reading just a few pages and I did some research on the author who's name I had never heard before. Friedrich Gerstäcker was born in Hamburg in 1816 and was able to travel the world and live of the sales of his travel books. He is most famous for his books about Northern America. In 1849 he sailed to Sydney. His plan was to built a kayak and travel from Albury to Adelaide on the Murray river. This book is absolutely fascinating for me, especially his detailed descriptions of Sydney, the Australian landscape, aboriginal people and the daily life of immigrants, gold diggers and farmers. All that he does with great humour and sarcasm and often I was laughing about his descriptions. Even in dangerous situations like attacks from aborigines, travels on a stagecoach at breakneck speed or loss of his kayak the author sticks to his humorous attitude. He visited a lot of places that I got to know too, only 150 years later. Some things have changed a lot (state of the roads) some have not (number of drunk ladies on the above).

Jeannie Pitjara

I can't say how excited I am about this painting. Not only is it the first original piece of art I ever purchased, but it is also incredibly beautiful. I bought it on Ebay, directly from the artists community in Alice Springs and could therefore get a much better deal than I would have in one of the overpriced Sydney galleries. So when the rolled up canvas (150cm x 90cm) got delivered a few days later I was happy and could not wait to have it hanging on our wall. I got it framed (finally all the framing shops everywhere made total sense) and I managed to hang it without a nail in the wall (in Australia you are not allowed to put a nail into a rented apartment's wall, but this is another blog topic).

The painting is about “Bush Medicine Leaves” and I really like the colours and the gentle movement of strings of leaves.

Interestingly there are two museums in the world entirely dedicated to aboriginal art, one in Virginia (USA), the other in Utrecht (Netherlands).

Aussi Holiday

 

About three hours drive north of Sydney there is a beautiful holiday spot called Port Stephens. It is pretty similar to Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) except no big city has been built, the main town is called Nelson Bay and it is nowhere near the size of Sydney. There are beaches along the inner harbour (great for little kids) and beaches along the ocean (great for surfers). We went to a little place on the harbour side called Fenningham's island and rented a cabin. Sausage sizzles, horse riding, swimming and fish and chips. Perfect Aussi holiday.

Happy New Year 2013!

No, I did not take this photo. I have to admit that I never watched the Sydney fireworks from this viewing point. In order to do so you have to be there at 7 in the morning and wait for 17! hours sitting in your spot without alcohol. Not an option for us so we went to Balmain (great view of the Harbour Bridge from there), had a Picknick at Mort Bay Park and watched the 'family fireworks' at 9pm before heading back home. Kids were asleep by then but we dragged them out of bed at midnight and walked up the hill to watch he 12pm fireworks too. Since we watched from a distance we could also see the City and North Sydney fireworks. Back to bed in no time.