Nov-Dec 2012

It was hard to get back into work-mode after our long holiday. It always seems like whenever we return from a trip, we already start planning for the next one. :)
We had our annual Melbourne Cup festivities in November, but didn't pick the winning horse this year...maybe next year.
We had 2 Thanksgiving dinners this year! :) One with Mario, Steffen and their friends, and one with Leah and Andrew. I went over to help Leah with some cooking, and she had a yummy menu planned - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberries and even pumpkin pie. It was almost like being home. :)

We had our last wedding party with our friends in Sydney. We wanted it to be very casual so we just had a bbq at Tamarama Beach (next to Bondi). About 50 of our friends came, and we had a great day. It was about 35°C so lots of people went into the ocean to cool off. I tried, but the water was still too cold for this Florida girl.
We kept it very simple for our birthdays this year since we had just gotten back from our honeymoon, but we did go to the casino for Kai's birthday, and he ended up winning about $500!
The rest of December was filled with Christmas dinners and parties. Christmas Day was pretty quiet for us, and on Boxing Day we just had a bbq at Jess and Trey's house.
For New Year's Eve weekend, we drove up to Forster (in our new Audi that we got on Christmas Eve!) to camp, and then we went to Port Macquarie to spend NYE at one of Kai's friend's house. It was a small group of about 10 of us, but it was really nice. We went to the beaches there, had a bbq and made s'mores. We even had some fireworks and sparklers for midnight.

Honeymoon Trip - Oct 2012

After our wedding, we geared up for our 4 week holiday around the world. We went to Denmark, Germany (for a reception with Kai's family and friends), Florida (for a reception with my family and friends), the Dominican Republic and Tahiti.

We went to Copenhagen first and just spent a few days in the city. After that, we spent a little less than a week in both Germany and Florida. It was a short visit with family, but we had both just been back a few months earlier, so we decided to only stay for our receptions and spend the rest of our time on our actual honeymoon. My mom and my sisters did an amazing job putting together our reception in Florida. They did a travel theme - little suitcases and luggage tags as favours and the tables were labeled with countries that we've been to with photos of us. I couldn't have imagined anything better! It was so nice to be able to celebrate with our family and friends, and we had a great time.

Dominican Republic
We flew into Santo Domingo and took a bus to Las Terrenas. We found a cute little hotel there with WiFi and breakfast for only $35. We spent a few days there doing some day trips. We hiked to the El Limon waterfalls. The water was a bit cold, but I managed to get in. :) The next day we went to Los Haitises to see the mangroves in the national park. We walked through some caves and saw lots of birds, mostly pelicans, vultures and frigates.
We were quite surprised at the number of people who spoke French in this region. Most people spoke Spanish too, but sometimes it was difficult to communicate.
We had planned to continue on to Las Galeras and Playa Rincon, but Tropical Storm Sandy came through. It rained so much that we just stayed in Las Terrenas and had a lazy day before going back to Santo Domingo.
We stayed at one of the worst hotels in Santo Domingo - Bettye's Guesthouse. It was $50, compared to $100 everywhere else, but since we were only going to be there one night, we decided to save some money before spending it all in Tahiti. We did some sightseeing around Santo Domingo. We saw lots of churches, including the first church in the Americas, and we wandered around Zona Colonial.

We flew back to Orlando and had a stopover for the night at Christina's. We had dinner with my brother and sisters and their families. It was really nice. I read Brynna her Purplicious book as her bedtime story - such a cutie!
We stayed up for hours that night repacking our bags. We had accumulated so many things that even with the new suitcase I had bought in Florida, it almost didn't fit!

Tahiti
We flew into Papeete, but just stayed for the night and took the ferry the next morning to Moorea. We stayed at the Sofitel resort on all the islands.

In Moorea, we had a beautiful beach-front bungalow. When we weren't enjoying our room, our patio and great view, we were out exploring as much of the island as we could. We rented bicycles and rode 40km out to Cook Bay and Opunohu Bay. There was a pretty big hill to get up to the lookout point over the bays, but we made it! Another day we went diving and saw dolphins, eel, coral, black tip reef sharks, a big turtle, an eagle ray, and lots of other fish. We also went snorkelling at our hotel. There were so many fish, and they came right up to us! To keep a little active, we went paddleboarding and kayaking. The activities at this resort were so much fun! We walked to a little viewpoint right above our hotel. It was so pretty to see all the overwater bungalows and the blue-green water. A preview for our next hotel. :)
In the evenings, we hung out on our balcony, watched the sunsets, and Kai played his new guitar that he bought in the States. It was perfect!

Bora Bora
We took a short 45 minute flight to Bora Bora, and then we took a boat ride to the Sofitel Private Island Resort. They mixed up our rooms the first night, but we ended up with our overwater bungalow that we had been dreaming of for the last couple of months. We took the shuttle boat over to the main island and had a Hinano beer at Matira Beach to watch the sunset. The next day we went on a snorkelling day trip. The first spot was nice, but we thought the snorkelling in Moorea was better. Then we went to a place that has dozens of stingrays. They had their stingers taken off so they weren't dangerous, but it was still a bit scary. We finally got into the water with them, and our guides baited the stingrays with food to crawl on us. They were so slimy and scary, but it was fun! Our next stop was a site that had dozens of black tip reef sharks and huge lemon sharks. The lemon sharks aren't dangerous and don't attack humans, but they look so big I was still a little cautious of them. We swam around with them for about 45 minutes until we had to leave. For our last stop, we anchored just outside of Matira Beach, and our guides played the ukulele, cut fresh fruit for us and gave us some Hinano beer. A perfect ending to another perfect day.
In our overwater bungalow, we fed the fish from our window on the floor. We had a great room. It was on the very end, so it was private, and our view was of the ocean and another smaller island nearby. We spent a lot of time on our sundeck reading and playing the guitar. We also got some snorkels and swam around the entire island. It only took about an hour. We didn't see too much, but it was fun. We walked up to the top of the small hill on the mountain to see the sunset.
On our last day, we spent as much time as possible on our sundeck and in our room, and then we went to the beach for a bit before we had to go back. We took the ferry ride back to the airport, and even that was nice!

Our last night in Tahiti was back in Papeete. We did some last minute souvenir shopping and had a delicious dinner at the resort. All in all it was an amazing holiday. Very expensive but also very nice. We are so lucky that we got to have our dream honeymoon!

Our Wedding Day

We had such an amazing time on our wedding day. It was just a small, short ceremony at the registry in Sydney with only 3 of our friends. Then we went to take photos for 2 hours in The Rocks, Observatory Hill and La Perouse. We were so impressed with our photographer. The photos were gorgeous! Afterwards, we met up with our friends at the bar in the Shangri-La hotel to have a couple of drinks before Kai and I went to dinner. Our dinner at the Shangri-La was the best dinner we've ever had! We were there for almost 3 hours, and everything we tried was just delicious! We ended the evening with some nice champagne that my mom had sent to our room. A perfect day!

May-Sept 2012

The second half of last year was so busy; It really just flew by! In May, I ran another half marathon, and got a personal best – 1 hour and 42 min! We went to see Sydney Vivid – a display of lights at the Opera House and in The Rocks. It was really cold that night (I had on 4 layers of clothes!), but we did a lot of walking and drank some Gluhwein to warm up.

In June, we went to see the Nutcracker. It was the first time I had ever seen it. They have it on during the Australian winter, but it felt weird that it wasn't Christmastime as well. We went to see some Jazz bands play a couple of times in Surry Hills. I also went away to the Hunter Valley with my soccer mates for a weekend. Zoe was leaving to go back to the States, so we went away for a relaxing weekend of eating nice cheeses and chocolates and drinking some great wine.

I felt so great after my half marathon that I decided to sign up for the full marathon in September. I had only done a marathon once before in 2008. I ran it in 4 hours and 4 minutes, and I didn’t even train for it. This time I decided to really try my best, so I started a 4 month training program. Painful 5.30am mornings to run in the cold, but I was determined to stick with it.

July was a month of travel. Kai went to Germany for 2 weeks. As soon as he got back we went to Cairns together for a long weekend at Trinity Beach. And the very next week I went back to Florida for a visit. I was there for Deanna’s Housewarming and Adalyn’s First Birthday. A fun-filled 2 weeks with family and friends!

Martina, Kai and I did our annual City2Surf run in August. The weather in Bondi was a bit windy and cold after the race, but we had a great time. Because of all the running I had started doing for my marathon training, I decided to pick up yoga again. It was probably the best thing I could have done, and I don’t think I could have managed without it.

And the big news for the year…Kai and I got engaged! We started planning straight away and decided to go ahead and get married in 2012 instead of having a long engagement. We set the wedding date for 29/September, giving us only about 6 weeks to plan!

August and September were a bit of a blur. Between the usual stuff - work, dinners with friends and training - we had to find time to also plan our wedding and honeymoon. We decided to have a small, private wedding in Sydney and then travel around the world to see everyone.
My big marathon was a couple of weeks before the wedding. I felt great and really prepared. I ran it in 3 hours and 42 minutes - 3 minutes faster than my target time so I was so excited about that!
I had a fun girls' night at our soccer prom the following weekend, and then the weekend after that, it was The Big Day. :)

January-April 2012

So, it's been quite a while since I've written. I was going to say that not much has been going on, but then when I actually thought about the last few months, we've actually been very busy.

January
It was hard coming back to work after our 7 week holiday. Of course, I tried to hold on to that relaxed, "on holiday" feeling for as long as possible, but that only lasted for about a week. :(
Because the very inconsiderate owners of the house we were renting decided to sell the property while we were away on holidays, we had to frantically find a new place to live in 2 weeks, which is not an easy thing to do in Sydney when you have a dog. Luckily, we found a nice little 2 bedroom townhouse in Glebe, and we were able to move in there on the 18th of January.
We got back into doing the fun summer things in Sydney....soccer, the beach, bbqs and catching up with friends.

February
We saw loads of music concerts this summer. Soundgarden and Cage the Elephant in January and Roxette, Bush, Staind and Marilyn Manson in February. They were all great!!
I also finally decided to get laser surgery on my eyes to correct my vision. It was pretty scary, but I'm so glad I did it! Everything went well, and it's so nice not to have to worry about contacts and to be able to see things when I wake up in the morning.

March
I took a 2 day photography course to learn how to use my digital SLR properly. Now I can actually take photos in full manual mode. :)
Kai's brother and his brother's girlfriend came out to Australia and New Zealand for a little holiday, and they stayed with us for 2 weekends. It was nice to see them again and show them some of our favourite spots in Sydney.
Before the start of our official soccer season, a few of us went up to Forster for a 6-a-side soccer tournament. We made it to the semi-finals, and we had lots of fun! Our house was right next to the beach, and we just went back and forth between the soccer fields and the beach all weekend. :)
I also ran my first half-marathon for this year in Centennial Park. I hadn't been training all that much, but I managed to get 1 hour and 46 minutes, which is a personal best for me. I have a couple of more months to train before my next run in May.

April
Kai and I went out to WA for the long 4-day Easter weekend. We bicycled around Rottnest Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottnest_Island) where we saw some quokkas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka), took a wine tour through the Swan Valley and went out to Cottesloe Beach and Fremantle. It was great to get away for the weekend! Photos of the trip are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/104309237244678964808/albums/5729266652552240705?authkey=CKT_kJnrzJmrNg

This past weekend, we took a sushi class. It was so much fun! Our first rolls were a bit of a disaster, but by the end, we were making some beautiful, delicious sushi. We'll have to try to make some more at home now.

Bush Concert

Photography Course

Spit to Manly Walk

Forster Soccer Tournament

View from our soccer training field

Sushi Making Class

Dubai

More photos here: http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com/

We arrived early, but our hotel room wasn't ready yet. We were so exhausted from not sleeping on the plane. As soon as we got our room, we just slept all day. We stayed at a 5 star hotel. It was so nice! A rooftop pool, gym, huge rooms, and a nice buffet breakfast. That night we went to the Dubai Mall. We had ticket to go to the top of Burj Khalifa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa), the tallest building in the world at 828 meters (2716 ft). It only took 1 minute in the elevator to get all the way to the top. The views were amazing, of course!
Afterwards, we went to see the huge aquarium in the mall with loads of fish, sharks and stingrays swimming around. We loved the food in Dubai! I found a great vegetable jalfrazi for dinner...just like how I remembered it in India. The next day we went to Open Beach. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We went all over the city - to Jumirah Mosque, Burj Al Arab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Al_Arab), the Mall of the Emirates (with the indoor ski resort), Burj Khalifa - again :) and the Gold and Spice Souks (markets). The city was so big, and everything is so spread out. We normally like to walk everywhere, but it wasn't really possible here. We took taxis and the train everywhere.
When we checked in to the airport, the flight was full so the very nice ticketing guy upgraded us for free to business class! We were so excited!! We spent a couple of hours in the airport lounge before our flight. We got to see the New Year's fireworks on the TV. Mario even came in to say hi and have a beer with us.
We enjoyed Dubai - great sights and yummy food. But there were also bad things about it. Very difficult to find a beer, and no one talked to me, only to Kai. Women are just not considered equal here. We realised that we could never live here because of the cultural differences.

FL - Christmas 2011

More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/104309237244678964808/FLChristmas?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCK6QpbXF-qq96AE&feat=directlink

A short but wonderful weekend in Florida for Christmas. The only bad thing was that Kai was not there. I got to catch up with Heather finally! :) I spent most of my time visiting with family. It's so great having little kiddies in the family now. They were a riot opening their gifts - hugging presents, kissing presents, giving high-fives, jumping up and down....adorable! Another good thing was that winter had not really hit FL yet, so we got to enjoy a beautiful sunny 28 degree day on Christmas day.
Left FL to spend a couple of days in Germany with Kai and his family before we left for Dubai.

Colombia

More photos here: http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com/

Santa Marta
When we arrived in Cartegena, we took a bus straight to Santa Marta. We were a bit shocked at first...It has been a while since we've been traveling, and we forgot how chaotic everything can be. That night we shared a Cuban cigar for Kai's birthday. The next day, we took an all day hike through Tayrona Park. We went to an indigenous village and to Pueblito (a smaller version of Ciudad Perdida). Then we went to Cabo San Juan beach. There was a large camp ground there. Seemed like a fun, hippy spot. We ate lunch at the restaurant by the water and laid at the beach for while. On our way back, we walked along Arrecifes and Cañaveral beaches. Unfortunately it rained almost the whole 2 hours back to the bus. Then, because of the rain, our bus ride back to the hotel took two hours instead of one because of all the accidents and fallen trees. We weren't sure if we were really going to make it back to the hotel. There was a bar next to our hotel that played very loud music from 11pm until sometime in the middle of the night. It was very difficult to get some good sleep. We took a bus over to Taganga beach and Playa Grande. It was a very nice beach, and there were a string of shops and restaurants along the water.

San Gil
We took an overnight bus to Bucaramanga, and then on to San Gil. The night buses are freezing cold, and we had to dress for winter even though it was 30°C outside. We found a cheap hotel, but soon realised why it was so cheap...no hot water. :( We went whitewater rafting in San Gil. It was only 2 & 3 class rapids so it wasn't too hard. The water was freezing though. We went with a group of other Colombians on holiday. They were hilarious. At one point, everyone jumped into the water to go swimming...everyone except for me of course! I was getting a bit tired of the standard plate of beans & rice. I've been eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past couple of weeks, but there really hasn't been much of an alternative. We took a day trip to Barichara, about 40 min from San Gil. It's a cute old town in the countryside...very quiet but lovely.

Medellin
Another cold night bus to Medellin. We stayed at a nice hostel (mainly so I could use the kitchen and cook), but we had the smallest room ever! It just barely fit a small bed in there. The city was huge, modern and fairly clean. We did stumble across a bad part of town during the day though. Just one block away from a main plaza, we found the red light district with junkies and prostitutes roaming the streets...scary. We found a great veggie restaurant called Govinda's. We loaded up on tons of food for only $3. We walked all over the city and went to the botantic gardens and to Cerro Nutibara, a hill with great city views and a replica of the old Colombian towns called Pueblito Paisa.

Salento
All day bus journey to Salento. We stayed at the best hostel, Ciudad de Segorbe. It was run by Luis and Enrique, and they were amazing hosts. We felt very much at home there. The next day, the rain finally stopped and we hiked the 5 hour Valle de Cocora trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocora_valley). The track was very muddy from the rain, but we had rented some gum boots from the guys at our hostel so we managed to keep our feet dry. We went to the Acaime house where dozens of hummingbirds were whizzing by our heads. Truly an amazing experience. In the afternoon, it rained a little bit, but we were still able to see the huge wax palm trees in the valley.
The next day, we had breakfast on our patio, watching the hummingbirds, then we did a self-guided walk to the coffee farms. We walked about an hour to the first finca (farm), La Brisas (owned by Don Elias). He was a cute little old man and took us around his farm, showing us how he grows the plants, harvests them, dries them and roasts them. It was great to see the whole process. At the end, we were even able to grind our own coffee and have a cup. The next finca was Finca El Ocasa. It was a bit bigger, but they basically had the same process, just with larger machines. A cute black and white dog had started following us when we left the village, and he followed us the whole day. When we got back, we found out that the roads to Bogota had been opened and closed a couple of time because of the landslides. Enrique and Luis found out from the bus terminal, that even if the buses went, they were taking 14 hours to get to Bogota instead of the usual 7. We decided to fly instead and be there in 1 short hour.

Bogota
We splurged and stayed at a really nice hotel in Bogota, our birthday presents to ourselves. :) We went to see the churches in the La Calendria area, and we visited the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). We found 2 very delicious veggie restaurants where I could eat lots of food finally! At night, we went to the main plaza to see all the Christmas lights and Christmas tree lit up. The next day we went to the top of Cerro de Monserrate. There was a little church at the top, and it had great views of the city. We walked around the city a bit more to the Parque de Indepencia and to the Botero Museo. This museum was very unique. It had pieces from Dali, Renoir, Monet and Fernando Botero. Botero is a Colombian artists who likes to draw and sculpt fat people, cats and horses. Very strange.
This was our second trip to Colombia, and we loved it. Most of the people were very friendly, and whenever you spoke to anyone, they would always say "buenas" (hello) and "con mucho gusto". We had a great little trip, but I'm looking forward to Christmas with my family...and being able to ditch my bag of emergency food. :)

Cuba

More photos are here: http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com/

Havana
We arrived in Havana and stayed at Casa Lunass. The "hostels" in Cuba are not really hostel at all. Many people in Cuba rent out a room in their home and offer cooking services, and these places are called hostels or casa particulares. Casa Lunass was run by 2 very friendly, helpful women. They were able to tell us all about Havana and recommend several good casas to stay at in other cities around Cuba. We walked around the city to see the Plaza de la Revolution, Havana Viejo and Central Havana. We really enjoyed the culture and atmosphere of Cuba. It was very safe everywhere (compared to other Central and South American countries), and everyone was so nice and friendly. We were also amazed by the old buildings and all the classic 50's cars driving around the city. I think we must have taken more than 100 photos of just cars. :) That night, we went to a restaurant for dinner and on the patio of the restaurant a very talented local band was playing. They were truly amazing!

Playa Larga
We stayed at Casa Marietta, and our little house was directly on the water. The town was very tiny, but it was nice just to enjoy the beach. We had a great dinner at Casa Rosalita - the best grilled fish in Cuba! We went to Cueva de los Peces (about a 10 min drive from our casa) to do a little snorkeling. There were a few fish and some coral, but we heard there was a better spot in Trinidad so we planned to go again. We decided not to wait for a bus to get to Cienfeugos, and we took a taxi instead. The car was great - a 1951 Dodge with a Mitsubishi engine (according to the driver).

Cienfeugos
Loved the quiet town of Cienfeugos! A nice walkway along the water, beautiful old houses and churches. Kai tried "peso pizza" (street pizza cooked in a make-shift oven) for the first time here, and he was hooked! We also went through the painful bread buying experience. Apparently there are a lot of things in shortage here, including plastic bags and bread. We waited in line for about a half an hour before the freshly baked bread was ready to be sold. There was a queue a mile long outside the store, and I'm sure not everyone got a piece. It was unreal. We ran away from the hole-in-the-wall shop so excited to have scored a loaf of bread. We carried it around like a major award because we had forgotten to bring our own plastic bag.

Trinidad
A lovely little town. It's supposed to be one of the bigger cities in Cuba, but it's still pretty small. We went up the tower by the plaza and had a nice view of the city and the surrounding hills. We took a day trip out on a boat to do some more snorkeling. It was definitely better than Playa Larga. Lots of fish and colourful coral. The water was a little cold for the Florida girl though. :)

Viñales
Absolutely loved Viñales! It's small country town, probably only 1 km in length. We stayed at Villa Reiner (El Ñañe). This casa had great food, rocking chairs out front (for our beer and cigars at night) and hot water available all day (a necessity for showers). There were so many dogs on the streets that were literally starving. You could see every bone in their body. It was so sad. I found the skinniest dogs and fed them food everyday. We rented some bicycles one day and rode around the countryside. We saw the Mural de la Prehistoria , a 120 meter long painting on the side of the Mogote (limestone mountain) of Dos Hermanas. Then we biked up a very big hill to Hotel Los Jazmines. It was a bit touristy, but it had great views of the valley. Then we went to a couple of caves - El Palenque de los Cimarrones and Cueva al Indio. El Palenque was very small and again very tourisy, but we really enjoyed Cueva al Indio, where we got to take a boat ride through part of the huge cave. We watched the sunset at La Ermita hotel at the top of another hill behind our casa. We ended the day in our rocking chairs smoking our first cigar. :)
The next day we took a bus out to Cayo Jutias beach (about 1 hour from Vinales). Beautiful beach and a very relaxing day.
After our lazy day at the beach, we decided to do something a little more active. We took a 5 hour hike through the local farms and mogotes. We stopped at a local tobacco farm. The lady who lived there had most of her teeth missing and her fingers were stained form the tobacco, but she was very nice and explained how she grew the plants and made her own cigars. Then we walked to another cave, where we went inside with a flashlight to a pool at the end. Our guide wanted us to go swimming, but the water looked a little too creepy. It was so nice to spend the day away from all the cars, buses and gasoline fumes. Dinner was huge but delicious. I loved getting our homemade meals at our casa...I was actually able to get a little variety in my veggie meals and not just beans and rice. :)

Havana
Stayed at Casa Lunass again. Our last day before flying out to Colombia. We walked around Central and Old Havana again, to do lots of shopping. We walked along the Malecon by the water and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. We went back to the restaurant where we ate at the first night. Unfortunately the band we saw wasn't there, but we managed to get a CD of them. I tried some street spaghetti from Sanway for 50 cents, and it was surprisingly pretty tasty.
Overall, we loved this place and would love to come back again one day. The people were so nice and friendly, and it seemed like everywhere we went, we could hear music playing. Such a fun place!

Florida - November 2011

The two weeks in Florida in November went by so quickly! I arrived on the 12th and had a bit of time to do a little shopping and visit with family and friends before Deanna and Dave's wedding. Kai and his mom arrived the day before the wedding and stayed through Thanksgiving. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was loads of fun! It was great to be able to spend so much time with everyone. Our two Thanksgiving dinners were delicious, and I made sure to enjoy all the great foods that I've been missing in Australia! :) As always, the visit seemed too short in the end, but I was happy to know that I would be back in only a month for Christmas.

more photos are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104309237244678964808/FLThanksgiving?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNHA7MLOzcjv3wE&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/104309237244678964808/DeannaDaveSWedding?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLP4j4Ge_evlDA&feat=directlink

Sept 2011

More photos are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104309237244678964808/PaulLibbySWeddingSept2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOLf1tSmjZnGhAE&feat=directlink

Not much has been happening over the past few months....just getting back to normal, everyday stuff....soccer, running, work, German classes...

Kai and I ran the Sydney half-marathon last weekend. It was a gorgeous, sunny day. Some say it was too hot to run in, but not the Florida girl. :)

Two weeks ago, I surprised my family with a weekend visit to the States for Paul's wedding. I was only there for 3.5 hectic days, but it was worth it. I had such a great time, and the wedding was beautiful. I'm already looking forward to my next visit in November...not long now! :)

Easter Weekend

Photos -

https://picasaweb.google.com/dulcem77/Easter2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCPbpuOfn0M7xSA&feat=directlink

We had a 5 day weekend for Easter and Anzac Day so we decided to finally go see Australia's Capital, Canberra. We've been told there wasn't much to do there, but we still felt like we should visit at least once. The highlights (and probably the only things to see there) were the Parliament House, War Memorial and the lookout point at Mt Ainslie. We only stayed one night, but we felt like we got to see all of Canberra.

Then we continued the road trip to the Snowy Mountains. We stayed in Jindabyne which turned out to be a nice central location for all of our hikes. We did a 22km loop from Charlotte's Pass to the top of Mt Kosciusko, Australia's highest peak, which is only 2,228 km high. We were so lucky with the weather. It was warm and sunny all weekend, and the hike was beautiful. The next day we went into Thredbo, a ski resort in the winter, and we rode the chairlift up and took an easy 10km walk down the mountain. When we got back to Jindabyne, we walked a bit around the lake there. It was so gorgeous with all the leaves changing colour. We really enjoyed the long weekend. I would love to go back to the Snowies more often if it wasn't so far away, but hopefully we'll make it out there again soon.

Coming to the End of Summer in Sydney. :(

Photos from August - December 2010 are here.

Photos from January - April 2011 are here.

It was such a gorgeous summer in Australia! We took several small trips over the past few months - to Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road and to the Blue Mountains a couple of times. Of course we had quite a few bbqs and spent many weekends at the beach and having picnics at Sydney Harbour. I started taking German classes two nights a week, and soccer season has started up again. I went to Griffith for a weekend soccer tournament. We didn't end up playing too much soccer, but we enjoyed the countryside, wineries, and local pubs...a great girls weekend! We went to see a couple of German films for the German Film Festival, putting all my German lessons to good use. :)

We have a long 5 day weekend coming up for Easter and Anzac Day so we're hoping to get away...We're thinking of taking a road trip to Canberra and Mount Kosciuszko.

I know I haven't been writing as regularly, but there's just not as much going on as when we were traveling all over the world. :) I'll try to be better though....at least I'll try to keep the photos updated.

Return to Sydney

Everything seemed to happen so quickly as soon as we got back to Sydney. Within a month, we had moved into our new house with Roxie and were back at work. It was very difficult for me to adjust to being back in a normal routine, but since we had been gone for over a year, things almost felt new. We've spent the last few months catching up with friends, going to the beach, camping and enjoying our favourite restaurants. We even had a Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, which helped to make it feel more like the holidays. The past few weeks have been hectic with all the birthday and Christmas festivities, and we're looking forward to celebrating the New Year here in warm, sunny Sydney. :)

Bali

new photos: http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com

Bali
Spent 6 days at Kuta Beach on our way back to Australia. It's really beautiful! Didn't really do much else. Kai went surfing every day, and I laid on the beach getting some sun. :) A great way to end our trip before going back to the real world. We're back in Sydney now, very busy trying to get everything together….start working, find a house, etc. I'm so excited to see all of my friends again!!! We're going to run in the City to Surf 14km race this weekend. Not sure how we'll do, since we've just been beach bums lately, but it will be fun. :)

Berlin - July 2010

Had a great time in Berlin the past few weeks...watched the World Cup games, went to the beach, and had picnics in the park. Turned out to be a beautiful summer in Germany.
Going to spend a few days on the beach in Bali now, on our way back to Sydney!