Christmas and New Years during summer

Spending Christmas and New Years during summer was a first for me. I spent Christmas with some friends, we made pizzas and exchanged small gifts around our 30cm high fake Christmas Tree :

For New Year, we (Joan, Eugénie, AD and me) went to Muriwai beach where we first had BBQ:

And then went to the beach to bath in the sea and sunbath on the beach :-)

 That was all in the afternoon. We drove back to Auckland where we had dinner and then met with some more friends with whom we had a drink before heading towards the sky tower to watch the fireworks:

We had a lot of fun. I 'll admit that Christmas felt very strange to me, but I could definitely get used to spending New Years during summer :-)

I hope all of you had a great New Years and Christmas as well!!

Big hug :D

Delicious lunch

Hi there,

Just wanted to make you jealous about the delicious lunch I had yesterday:

We had this on a terrace of a bar nearby where I live. It doesn't fell like Christmas is getting closes at all since the weather is getting better every day. Summer is definitely getting closer :-)

Have a good day

Going to the Huka falls and lake Taupo

A while back I went to the Huka falls and Lake Taupo with Joan, Eugénie and AD. It was a beautiful day and  we even got to swim in the lake. Herewith some pictures:

Eugénie and Joan in front of the Huka river.

The Huka river.

Eugénie, AD and me, by the Huka falls.

Lake Taupo. Can you see the snow covered mountain in the back? It was beautiful.

 The girls admiring the Lake. It got a bit cold/windy towards the end of the day. But it was quite hot when we got there and we got to swim in the lake.

It was great day and trip.

Just FYI, none of above pictures have been edited. All the colours you see are the natural colours, they are even more beautiful in real life.New Zealand really is a beautiful country!!!

I'm sorry I haven't been as active on this blog lately, and it's probably not going to get better since I started working full time recently so I won't have as much time as I used to, and I won't have as much to tell you guys either. I'll try to post stuff once in a while though, so keep posted if you are interested.

Byebye

going out Kiwi style

Who needs shoes when you're in NZ???

We went to eat delicious dumplings with a bunch of friends and you'll notice in below pictures that 2 of the guys aren't wearing any shoes :p That's nothing unusual in NZ :-)

  After the dumplings, we played risk. I remembered playing this with my brother's as a kid and because they were always forming alliances against me, I came to hate the game. It was my first time playing since then, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit :-) I lasted until second to last, mainly cause all of the others were good friends and taking revenge on each other for past events :p

 Dan and Antz concentrating on their strategy to take over the world :D

All in all, it was a fun evening. 

Bye guys ;-)

Auckland museum

Hi all,

I had been wanting to go to the Auckland museum for a while already, and I finally did! We didn't get to see everything, but since it is free for Auckland inhabitants, I'll go back a second and probably a third time too :-)
For now, we could only cover about one third of the museum which was an expo of pictures shot in NZ and the main part about the Maori culture (both amazing). There is still a lot to cover though, which is why I really want to go back soon :-)
Herewith some pictures of very bad quality since they were taken with my phone:

A Maori traditional communal room (forgot how they are called):

 A Maori waka, which is what the Maori families arrived in, to NZ:

 The entrance of the Maori communal hall:

 View of Auckland from the museum: 

After visiting part of the museum, we decided to sunbathe in the Domain (the beautiful park around the museum).

 The Auckland museum:

 The Auckland museum from where we were sunbathing:

 A beautiful tree in the park!

That's it guys! Let's see if I find the courage to do another post, cause I'm running behind on telling you guys what I'm up to here in NZ. One thing is sure though, I am very much enjoying myself :D

North shore

Hi guys,

I have been very lazy when it comes to my blog lately... but I'm back :-)
Mid November, 2 friends from Belgium arrived to New Zealand. They are going to be travelling in New Zealand for about 5 months and are staying in Auckland until all the administrative things are done. They bought a car here, which they will use to travel around New Zealand and we, Liss, AD, the girls and me, have made use of it already by going to visit Dan, a friend, to the North Shore. The weather wasn't that great, but we had fun. Herewith some pictures:

 AD and Liss, looking for shelves and crabs :-)

 You can't see them, but Eugénie and Dan are on the top of that 

Liss, Dan and AD playing with the swing :-)

That was it for this post.

bye

More kiwi music

AD is preparing several TV ads for Kiwi bands that are soon to be on tour and thanks to that, I have discovered new bands. I just wanted to share this one song with you guys. The band is called Kora and this specific song is called "story ain't over".

I hope you guys enjoy their vocals just as much as I do :-)

Bye