Balmoral

Balmoral is our local beach. Sydney has many beaches but this is the nearest to our house, although it's too far to walk the way from where I live. Not having found a car yet, I always go there either with one of my housemates, or with Michael, the guy from next door.

It is hot again these days, but luckily not as horrid as the heat wave that currently strikes South Australia with more than 40 degrees Celsius. Here in Sydney it's quite hot in the city, but just lovely at the beach with temperatures around 28 to 33 degrees. "STAY COOL" was a skywriting ad from Lipton Ice Tea today and I thought it might make for a "cool" picture with me below. (I need to buy sunglasses sometime for an even cooler look... ;)

The moon

We had a beautiful new moon tonight, setting scenically in a cloudless deep blue summer night sky over the city lights in the West to the chirping of crickets.

Those of you in the northern hemisphere will note that the waxing moon (der zunehmende Mond) here looks like the waning moon (der abnehmende Mond) in your place. That's why this place is called Down Under!

☾ in the northern hemisphere looks like ☽ in the southern hemisphere
☽ in the northern hemisphere looks like ☾ in the southern hemisphere
but it's always the same moon, and it's in the same phase and visible from both hemispheres

Those who know me know that I love to combine romance and science ;)

Rainy Australia Day

Today is the national holiday Australia Day, which coincides this year with Chinese New Year.

So we have two lovely reasons to celebrate, but the weather is rainy here in Sydney and not nice to go out. So I stayed home and completed the last of my work, which will officially end tomorrow.

Fish Market

This morning I've been to the Sydney Fish Market with my flatmate Lochy. That was quite a show -- so many kinds of fish and seafood. Look at that giant crab for example, and the beautiful shells.

We bought a nice big 2 kg snapper for our dinner tonight, and I tried an oyster for the first time in my life.

Frangipani

I noticed that my view, reflected by my camera, changed from the big panoramic scenes I shot in the beginning to more detail ones, now that I'm settled and a certain daily routine has emerged. This may change when I start travelling again next month. I'm developing the idea of buying a campervan and finding a travel mate to go south to Melbourne and Tasmania for a couple of weeks holiday.

Here is a Frangipani flower, a gift of Nature that to me combines visual beauty, sensual touch and lovely fragrance in an unsurpassed harmony. Forget about roses: this is the flower that deserves poetry perhaps more than any other.

The flower fell by itself from a tree in our street and the picture was taken this afternoon in our front yard. ZEN in 1944 by 1944 pixels.

One month

I'm now in Australia for one month. What can I say? Coming here was the best decision I made in a long time.

Barbie

Aussies love Barbecues. We had a couple of them already since I moved in here and we're having another one tonight, so here is a picture I just shot 5 minutes ago. We'll put the meat and sausages on in 10 minues or so, so please excuse me, I'm getting hungry. :) I made some nice antipasti and Greek bifteki from lamb's mince.

Oh, and regarding this posting's heading. As you have probably figured out already, it's an example of Aussie slang. A barbecue is a barbie, a breakfast is a brekkie, Tasmania is Tazzie. (I felt tempted to think when they go to a funeral they go to a funie, but I don't dare to say that aloud.)