walk in the rocks, sydney

bondi living

Living in Bondi. It feels like home but with a giant beach in the front yard. I found a job to keep myself occupied. No in fact, I found 2 jobs. And... The second job found me. I'm a receptionist at a company that sells medical products... and the other job is a little more exciting. I started working as a freelance graphic designer and my first project is a project that I only could have been dreaming of! More about that later.

I thought the autumn would have started by this time in Australia but I was wrong. The weather is still great, the sun is still shining. Except for the first day when I started working... I arrived soaking in my clothes thanks to a lovely shower while waiting for the bus. Good first impression, check. But I can't complain. When I wake up, the first thing I want to do is jump in the ocean and swim all day long. This endless summer is the best. We have barbecues on our ocean view balcony and now and then I actually go for a little swim in the sea. I'm a little curious what 'winter' will be like but I have a feeling it will be nothing like a real Belgian winter. I don't think that months of snow, melting snow, rain and more rain will be part of the season!

sydney these days

Life is Sydney, another update... I recently moved into an apartment on Bondi Beach with Michelle. We felt at home immediately. We have the BEST ocean view since we're located on the beach and that makes sure I wake up with a good feeling every morning. We decided to start a healthy lifestyle by doing some morning jogging on the beach every 2 days. And I decided to look for a job for real now. Finding a job in graphic design seems impossible so I did a barista course which I loved and now I'm hoping to find a job in a nice café or coffee bar. The pictures are from the past week, some random pictures in and outside Sydney. Still enjoying the great summer/autumn weather and the days off for now!

Havaianas in a vending machine... Only in Australia.

The view, the first morning that I moved in... Not bad hé ;-) !!

beach hopping - manly and palm beach

On Jolien's last days in Australia we went to Manly Beach and Palm Beach. We went there by ferry which was an attraction by itself, especially because we were sitting outside and got some free showers :-) yes, the sea was a little wilder than expected... You might recognize Palm Beach from the television series of "Home and Away". No, we didn't see any famous Aussies or crazy drama scenes in live action. But it was a nice little trip with a very relaxed atmosphere. These are the northern beaches of Sydney!

byron bay

I finally uploaded the pictures of Byron Bay. I flew there two weeks ago to join Michelle and Jolien on their trip at the east coast. We were pretty unlucky with the weather (tropical showers every day) but had a great time. We were staying at the lake cottage (not as fancy as what it sounds like) of a great hostel called Art Factory. A room that we shared with a Canadian girl and about 1000 cockroaches. We tried to get rid of them (attacking them with bug sprays and travel guides) but that didn't work out very well... We had some other neighbors like lizards and turkeys, living in the garden!

Byron Bay was exactly what I imagined East Australia would be like. Relaxed, nice and beautiful beaches and lots of surfers in combination with some weird animals and tropical plants. This is a place where I definitely could live. Or own a place, for the holidays ;-). We had a good time snorkeling at the Julian Rocks. Where we were swimming with a couple of turtles, weird looking fish and even saw some dolphins there. In one word: amazing!

The last day I was there we rented some bikes to go to the lighthouse. We still had to walk a few kilometers because of the stairs but it was worth the good view! We passed the most eastern point of the Australian mainland and burned about one million calories because of the big climb and the sun that finally started to come through. Tired but happy I returned to Sydney to go back to the 'real life' (yea not really) and work at the internship!