Australia

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Perth – Its all about Family

Isaac and Solomon have been great teachers during our stay in Perth: after some training we even managed the art of summoning / creating three-headed monsters protected by shields and equipped with powerful weapons - you would be truly impressed! The first 3 days of our stay in Perth we spent with Niels great-great-grand (she is really great 😉 cousin Astrid and her family. They live in Mandurah, a suburb located 70 km south of Perth. Astrid and Andrew (her husband) were great hosts, it felt like home straight away. The beach is only 200 m away from their house and the ocean was a welcome refreshment on these hot summer days. While being in the water the first time, dolphins passed by very close. How cool is that?! Having a swim in the morning with dolphins around. But for the boys it was just a normal thing and nothing unusual. At least Andrew seemed to be somehow fascinated.

@ Astrid-family: Thanks a lot for having us!!!

The next 4 days we spent at Heathers (the mother of Astrid, Eva and Lawrence) place directly in Perth. The beach was just across the street and the house is surrounded by a lovely garden with papaya trees, physalis and other fruits. Heather showed us the most remote city in the world with its beautiful beaches and wonderful weather. As well as Astrid, Heather was a perfect host and the best tour guide you could possibly wish for. She knows the best places and therefore we got to see some of the highlights Perth has to offer: a walking tour through the beautiful Kings Park (together with Eva (the other one;)), Fremantle with its beautiful port, some more suburbs like Cottesloe and of cause "Heathers hood": Scarbourogh. While not being busy with sightseeing we met Niels other great-great-grand cousins: Eva (the other one) including her soon to be husband Ben (welcome to the family) and Lawrence including his family. The last night Heather invited us to a revolving restaurant on the 33rd floor of St. Martins Tower in the city center of Perth where we had a delicious 4-course-dinner and an amazing view over the whole city.

@ Heather: Thanks for having us and being the best tour guide ever!

The time passed by far too quick and we had to leave our favorite country once more :/ But hopefully it's not long before we will be back.

First thing we saw after arriving in Perth03_Perth_02

Astrid, Andrew, Isaac ....                                                       03_Perth_03         03_Perth_05

... Solomon and Sandy 03_Perth_08

From the left Heathers children: Eva, Astrid and Lawrence on the Ocean dress party03_Perth_10

Beautiful beaches as far as the eye can see03_Perth_1203_Perth_50

Cute little fellows in a park03_Perth_2903_Perth_33

View of Perth from the Kings Park03_Perth_3803_Perth_4503_Perth_72

Niels on a dangerous mission - Part 303_Perth_41

City center of Perth 03_Perth_5203_Perth_53

Amazing views from the revolving restaurant03_Perth_54 03_Perth_56 03_Perth_60

Heathers precious alias papaya 😉 03_Perth_65

Heathers house is wrapped by flowers  03_Perth_66  03_Perth_70

Heather and Eva in Fremantle                              Eva and Eva shaking hands 😉03_Perth_501             03_Perth_61

Someone is enjoying the last rays of the australian sun03_Perth_68


Newcastle - Visiting Rob

Not only is Newcastle special because of Rob but also because we spend our first night with our camper on a parking lot in Newcastle 6 1/2 years ago - Welcome back to Newcastle!

So this time there was no need to find a place to park our wicked camper. Robs place is extremely nice – just 2 minutes from the beach. He picked us up from the airport Friday evening and we chatted till late night. The next days we met some of Robs mates, went to the beach, “chillaxed” and of course went out. The night we went out we discovered Australia’s greatest weakness - yes there is a "weakness"!: clubbing. No one is allowed to enter the clubs after the lockout. In Newcastle the lockout is at 1:30 am and most clubs close at 2 am already! Basically that's a children's birthday party. But Newcastle is still a nice place to hang out.

The day of departure turned out to be different than expected. The plan was to in the morning, catching the train to Sydney, meeting with Mus and Roman and catching our flight at 3:30 pm. If only the flight was at 3.30 p.m.... Everything worked nearly as planned. Having a great lunch with Mus and Roman until we found out that I (Eva) mixed up the arrival and departure time. By the time we found out it was way too late to catch the flight. Arriving at the airport I went to the Quantas counter and explained our misery. We got told that we don’t need to worry as there was another flight only 2 hours later. Both of us were expecting horrendous surcharges for the reschedule, once more Australia (Qantas) surprised us: we did not pay a single penny extra! However, if that wouldn't be enough: entering the plane the cabin crew gave us free champagne and snacks because of the stress we had.

The whole situation assured us even more that Australia deserves to be our favorite country in the world!

Newcastle - the surfer city02_Newcastle_11

Crazy Yoga master Rob02_Newcastle_01 02_Newcastle_03

02_Newcastle_x03

Some impressions of Newcastle 02_Newcastle_0702_Newcastle_10 02_Newcastle_15

No dresscode needed: even a towel enough!02_Newcastle_17

Our treasure - tickets for the flight from Sydney to Perth and ...02_Newcastle_19

... the compensation for being stupied. What a lovley world 02_Newcastle_x05


Australia – Mother of all perfect countries!

I arrived earlier than Eva did – at 6 am. So it was not until 12 pm that we could finally leave the airport and step into our favorite country. Being back was an amazing feeling: sunshine, friendly people and a beautiful country. Our host awaited us in his apartment (AirBnB), his wife – Nara – was still working. Carl is from Norway but migrated 12 years ago. If he hadn’t told us, we’d never guessed that he is no true Aussie. Entering their apartment we immediately felt at home. Their apartment is a cozy, warm place with a lot of charm.

After we did all the unpacking and so on we started exploring the city. Melbourne is comparably big to German city, it has 4.3 Mill. inhabitants and is rapidly growing (unlike German cities). It was very easy to find our way around because of the organized tram and bus system as well as a language that we could finally understand again. The CBD was even more built up than we expected it to be, with a remarkable amount of sky scrapers forming the skyline of the city. Still, Melbourne does not feel too dense. Also, the amount of different languages being heard in the streets and the great number of coffee places, bars and restaurants are impressive. There was no holding back – we fell in love with that city J

Over the next few days Mikaela (we met her on our trip through Central America) showed us around the different areas of the city and invited us to a very nice barbecue with her whole family on our last evening. Also that day we met Leon again, who Niels got to know 4 years ago at the AMCIS in Peru.

How could you possibly get into Christmas mood when the outside temperature is around 30 degrees? But anyway, Merry Christmas!Melbourne_11

View of the city from the St. Kilda pierMelbourne_001Melbourne_01

Famous seaside suburb St Kilda is home to the rich and beautiful Melbourne_08 Melbourne_002

Our cozy AirBnB stay in St Kilda @ Carl and Nara`sMelbourne_003

Brighton Beach and the colorful beach huts with MikaelaMelbourne_02 Melbourne_04

Nice skyline across the scenic Yarra River with its parks Melbourne_06Melbourne_004

Typical Australian Houses Melbourne_10


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