XMAS, Appartment etc..

Yay! Just found out yesterday that I have a place to live in once
I move back to lappeen Ranta (my uni town) in January..
I applied for a flat with a friend of mine ( a two-share),
and although it usually is difficult to get one that both residents
leave at the same time, we somehow managed to get a place!

Should be good.. :)

But hey, long time no hear again! No surprise that I've been
working and travelling and that pretty much it, now we're just
waiting for Xmas, only 9 days to go! We'll be spending Christmas Eve
with my parents and probably on Tuesday heading up to Tahko
with Elisa's parents for New Year. Then on the first week of
January I'll move my stuff to LPR and start getting ready for school!
I've been managing my courses as well, and at the moment it would seem
that I'll try and write my grad.thesis work this spring for this company
(Peikko OY Finland, that is) and at some point expand that to my master's.
I still have, what, 7 courses and 3-4 exams to go so it should be a year,
year-and-a-half..

But who cares, I'm just too pumped about the appartment!
Joni (my flat-mate-to-be) is a good friend, we've been jamming
with our guitars, singing, drinking, having fun on more than a few
occasions, when I got back it was his friends' place we went to
at the coast for water-skiing and rafting. (I hope I mentioned that
sometime earlier :) So you can imagine how cool it is going to be :D

What else..we've been planning to go hiking up to Lapland
sometime next summer, that should be a reoccurring topic
later on (if I manage to get on track with this blog that is!),
I bought a new phone (Nokia N73) that I completely and
utterly adore, a real treat with the 3,2Mp camera, MP3
player, 3G..like it like it like it!

AND XMAS IS ALMOST HERE!!! :D

There is a certain blue feeling to moving away from Elisa
of course, but then again, it was always a known fact of life
that it would happen, and it is great to be back in LPR,
catch up with friends, have another go at the much
talked student life and after all it's only for a few months
before summer.. :) So no worries, it'll be great and things
will, as they always do, work out just fine!

But bye for now again, maybe I'll write again, in a year
or so :)

3 week update :)

As usual, a hectic three weeks passed again with
not so much as a peep from me but I guess that's
normal so not a big surprise to anyone :)

After my last post (when I promised to write soon ;D)
lots of stuff happened that more or less
hindered the progress of actually living up
to my promises or writing about the OZ east coast
-trip. Few days after that my laptop
started acting up, the harddrive making
hairy noises and just freezing up again and again,
and after a while just stopped completely..needless
to say I didn't have all the Australia pictures burned
to CDs yet so it was a tight spot for a moment there :)
Luckily the guys at the computer store managed
to connect the drive to another computer
and get it going again, it seemed that everytime the
drive started to warm up it would just go haywire..
it took a few days to get it running again and
the week I got the laptop back with a new harddrive
and the pictures it was time for our trip to Germany with
Elisa!

Mostly before that it was just work work and work
still, been pretty busy with everything here at
Peikko, new supply chain management program
and lots of changes and development projects
that I really don't feel like going into in detail..
But during those few precious hours between
getting home from work and going to sleep
I just didn't find time to write anything :)

The trip to Germany was exactly what I needed though,
taking time off for a week and just relaxing. We left
on Sunday from Tampere, Pirkkala Airport on flight
operated by RyanAir and landed to Frankfurt Hahn
19.30 in the evening. My sister and her husband
(Mari and Mackillo that is) came to pick us up
and gave us a ride to the village of Bauerbach where
they are living, about 2,5 hour ride from
the airport. Marburg is the big city, just a hundred kilometers
from Frankfurt, old univeristy town with a castle and
the old part of the city surrounding it. Bauerbach
is a small village of just a handful of people about
8km from Marburg. As it is getting really wintery here
now, snowing already and temperature minus somethings
it was nice to have a little warmer climate for a change.
Monday and Tuesday it was raining a bit, Wed-Fri
mostly sunny and temperature in the near twenies.
What we did was mostly just cruise the surrounding
areas by foot or by car, visited some really nice
villages and towns, took the train to Frankfurt
on Wednesday and just take it easy, eating good food,
drinking wine and some good german beers, watching
movies..It's really easy travelling and seeing places
in that area as there are small villages very close to
each other with churches, castles and such..just in
a few hours you could cruise around 5-10 villages
easily.

Again, all the pictures are on my home comp and
I'm at work so no pictures yet but hey, I promise
to add them later so you can rest assured I'll do
that before the end of the year..maybe :D

On saturday we had this sauna thingy at the water
tower overlooking Lahti with people from work,
sauna, beer and general discussion about the
state of the company, productionwise..and then
some more beer and sauna, some pizzas delivered
and oh yeah, some beer for good measure :)
After the official part of the evening was finished
we took off to the city and to Jackalope,
this bar in the city centre. Got home around
2.30 in the morning..deducting from the
white faces at work some of the people
there continued improving the production cycle
and reviewing this past year through a pint
well in to Sunday..:) Me myself on the other
hand just took it easy, we went for a long walk
with Elisa (first snow fell just on saturday morning),
watched a movie and just relaxed.

But alas, all good things must come to an end
as did my week off and now it is back to business
at work, which is what I think I should be doing
right now :)

4 months is NOTHING!!

I'm not going to even say I'm sorry..:D

But I AM!!! There's just too much to say about all the stuff that
has been going on since..um..well, the roadtrip :D But I figured if
I'd finally get around to writing at least SOMETHING I'd feel
obliged to actually write about our trip with Elisa up the east
coast during July, my returning to Finland, starting work,
moving in together with Elisa, settling down, how things
are going travelling from Helsinki to Lahti 5 days a week
to work and back, work in general, future plans, upcoming
trip to Germany to see my sister..EVERYTHING! :D

I don't even know myself what happened..I only had my
internet connection for a few days more after my last post
and then NO INTERNET for a whole month (can you imagine?!)
while we were travelling, the first week after returning back
home was to say the very least hectic..and I just kinda
lost track of time and everything..My parents mentioned
my blog maybe some time ago that they would really
like to know about our trip and how everything ended
and I promised I'd try to get around to writing at least
something about it, think I even mentioned to Elisa
that we should sit down one night and write about the
trip but I guess you know how it is..:)

I think I at first avoided writing "a conclusion" to my
semester abroad because of the feeling of closure,
and then it just became easier to just not even
remember the whole thing :) But now I promise
I'll start working on a MEGAPOST to give the full
story of the last month and time after that!

At the moment I'm in Lahti, working, seem to have
some extra time for a change as I've done most
of my work for this week already! Need to explain
also what it is that I exactly do here, and I truly
hope that won't take another four months! :D
Only 2 hours to go before it is time for me
to head back to Helsinki once again. Later tonight
it's badminton with Elisa at Kumpula RC.

But yeah, indeed I am still alive and kicking!
Next post it's going to be Sydney, Brisbane,
Fraser Island 4WD Safari with Elisa and friends
from UTS, Sailing the Whitsundays for three
beautiful days, chilling at Magnetic Island,
Diving in Cairns..the works! And a LONG flight
back to Helsinki via Singapore and a 7-hour stop
at London, moving, working and EVERYTHING!!!!

Sorry once more, I'll try to be more active
from now on, no more slacking!

ROADTRIP 24.-30.6!!!

Greetings from home! I JUST arrived maybe two hours ago, just enough to unpack, have a shower, some tea and get some laundry going..And have a little breather after probably one of the best times of my life!! As the exams are finally over and time for saying goodbyes grows near, we did a roadtrip to the far reaches of Victoria with our flatmates this week and last weekend. I'l just give quick idea of what we got up to here on a day by day basis :)

Day 1: 24.6.2006

Come saturday morning (after a friday night of wine and movies, changing a bust tire and searching for another one to come with as spare with no success :) we packed the car, me, Cristy, Mark and Sarah and turned the wheels towards Canberra! Bethany went beforehand as her parents live there. The first stage of the trip was the 250km drive to the capitol of Australia in the heart of the ACT or Australian Capital Territory. We met up with Bethany in a small suburb near Canberra central and had some light lunch (naturally we stopped for a healty daily dosage of McDonald's on the way, the backpacker style :D) We were supposed to be on the road already at 9am, but with all hassling got out of Sydney just before 12. In Canberra we visited of course the War Memorial and did a quick drive-thorough of canberra, as in the Parliament House and surroundings. By this time the next batch of Geegalians joined us (Carlos, Jamie and Snitha) and joined us for dinner at Bethany's parents' place. Here I just have to mention that now I understand some of the complimented australian hospitality, as our dinner was just awesome with chicken kebabs, rice, potatoes, chicken wings, corn, bread, three different cakes, apple crumble and ice cream for dessert..just magnificient. Naturally as it was Bethany's home turf we headed out to town for the evening and stopped by at the North Bar -nightclub and Old Something something irish pub :) We were all bit tired from the exams and everything still so we didn't turn it into a massive night, just drove home around 2.30am (to beds made for us by Bethany's mom..Mrs. Kennedy, THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN!!!) All in all with good food, chilling and little relaxing at the bar with good friends it seemed that our roadtrip had gotten off to an excellent start! :)

Day 2: 25.6.2006

The following morning we woke up relatively early (to a breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast and juice and coffee and and...what kind of backpacking is this?!), packed the cars and started for Melbourne before noon. Now there was two cars with good people and good music, great weather and fast roads all the way, about 550km or so..We didn't stop much, couple of technical stops before Albury and then dinner there (well, Hungry Jacks but anyway :) Here unfortunately our group was cut down to half as Jamie, Carlos and Snitha decided they wouldn't continue any furter as they needed to be back the following evening..so after saying goodbyes we headed for Melbourne towards the sunset and organized ourselves into an YHA Hostel for the night :) Evening come, we arrived to Melbourne! The city of fashion, shopping, the promised land of cafés and markets. We unpacked at the YHA and headed for town for some late snack and possibly a beer as well :) After walking 40 minutes we finally found ONE place that was open (the time was something around 11-12 I think and the city was just dead quiet, or we were in the wrong block completely :), which actually turned out to be a really cool artsy underground bar. And who walks into us at the door? Alexandra and her sister!! There was a whole bunch of Geegalians, people from Sydney and the UTS down there just chilling, as they were on their own roadtrip down to the Great Ocean Road as well! After a few beers we decided they would suffice us nicely for the day and headed for the hostel. Bethany left to meet up with her boyfriend that was in town as well so we had a room for four that night, and luckily in a quiet hostel in a quiet neighbourhood.

Day 3: 26.7.2006

And just to give emphasis on the "road" in "roadtrip", monday morning brought with it some more serious driving :) After a nice early morning and a french breakfast at the Queen Victoria Market we caught up with Bethany at the hostel and started to make our way toward the Great Ocean Road. And yes indeed, finally it was my turn to take the wheel. After few interesting adaptive trials and errors I pretty much got the hang of the whole driving on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car -concept and got us going on the Great Ocean Road. Though I have basically done this same trip before for the Melbourne F1, I have not one single regret that I chose to do it again. The weather was on our side with sun and some clouds every now and then, nothing more than the slightest drizzle at some point. The sea was calm, vast and beautiful as ever and the little towns along the way just as appealing as I remembered them. We stopped for lunch at Lorne, had some pizza and chips and such, and then drove thorugh Apollo Bay and stopped for the night at Port Campbell. Port Cambell is just this little seaside village near the end of the GOR, with just a couple of shops, few hostels and cabin villages, restaurants and a bar with a bottle shop. We booked ourselves our very own cabin from the cabin village, and as we arrived there we just unpacked, got the heater running, had some evening tea and headed out to check our surroundings. As it was long past daylight as we arrived we just went for a nice restaurant that seemed reasonably priced, had some quick salad and then stopped by the bottle shop for a few bottles of wine and beer, and after doing a little moonlight walk on the beach went back to the cabin with our drinks with which we just basically sat all night, talked about probably everything imaginable, played card games and just relaxed after three days of driving and driving..:)

Day 4: 27.6.2006

Some wine after just a light salad and certainly we managed to sleep in the next morning :D I woke up just after 10 (when we were supposed to be out and driving already) I took the wheel and drove us naturally about 40 km's astray with help from my mapreader Cristy :D After spending a couple of hours just basically driving in the totally opposite direction we got back on track and found our way to the 12 Apostles, that was the goal of our journey in the first place. As I had already seen them, it was kinda funny to be back there. When I left the apostles the last time I was thinking that there is a change that I might never come back here, and now there I was.. very odd..Well, there they were standing as static as ever with the water forever eroding them, or creating the next apostle to be at the waterfront. From the apostles we drove pretty much as fast as we could back to Melbourne. We stopped at Apollo Bay for dinner which was actually the best dinner of the trip. We found the tiniest little italian restaurant, that actually once in the inside revealed an intimate little dining room. They were supposed to open in 45 minutes but the owned showed us in as we were looking at the menu. We had the BEST pasta dishes I have seen so far!! I mean, they were big, tasty and very, very delicious each, I had a carbonara with Cristy, Bethany had a Napoletana, Sarah had a chinese one and Mark one with salmon..for dessert we had espressos, hot chocolate and a strawberry crepé dish divided for us five..and all this came down to $20 dollars each!!! So remember, Apollo Bay, "Lou's"..And Lou was just the coolest guy ever with a thick accent and good stories to tell. I recommend warmly :) Once we arrived to Melbourne, Mark's boyfriend Take was there already and had booked us a bed for the night at his hostel where we arrived around 11pm. So far things had gone really well with the Hostels and this wasn't an exception either, a very nice though old hostel with comfy beds and adequately warm water for shower :) The night went by nicely as we went to see the magnificient Crown Casino, had drinks there, gambled a bit..:) It was the first night that we knew that next morning there would be no need to jump in the car so we could just relax, take it easy and put our feet up :) We left the car in the Crown Casino parking lot as it was $8.50 flat rate, so we could basically park there for the two remaining days for just that sum. In the early hours of the morning we headed back to the hostel and after chilling for a moment in the common area just went to bed, as the next day would be the ultimate shopping day and probably a partynight as well :)

Day 5: 28.7.2006

Phew..long trip already behind but still we had the energy to keep on moving. We extende our stay for the second night in the morning, and found ourselves a nice little café for breakfast..$18 dollars for sausages, toast, egg, fresh juice, mushrooms, big mug of coffee, tomatoes.. we were so full I almost went back to the hostel for a nap :D But no, we got moving and basically shopped the city clean! I don't think I've ever seen so many clothes stores in my life! Well, the girls got their boots and jeans and tops and whatnots, and even I found myself a pair of jeans and a T-shirt :) (You have to buy SOMETHING while in Melbourne and I failed to do that the first time)..:) Around this time it started to sink in to the group that these are actually the last times we'll be chilling together, as Mark was staying in Melbourne with Take, which meant that he and Bethany wouldn't be seeing each other anymore..: For the last night we wanted to make it something special, so we went to this "Post-Deng" -chinese restaurant in Chinatown where we had a six-course meal with wine and fried ice cream for dessert..:) Very delicious and a very big meal! So there we just sat and talked or mostly tried not to talk about leaving and going away..that was the rule that had been in effect during the course of the trip, you don't talk about it :) Post-Deng was an interestingly red little chinese restaurant that just adored Deng Xiao Ping..you just should have seen the paintings and adoration apparent everywhere. From Chinatown we stopped by the casino as we had to move the car from a to-be-cleaned area to another and continued down Flinders Street to Transport club, which I think I've mentioned earlier as well as we stopped there on the F1 weekend for the pre-race party :) Somehow everybody was feeling pretty depressed thinking that the next day we would be leaving, and in a last attempt to liven things up we went to Cherry, probably the dodgiest place in Melbourne :D Again, you can only understand if you have been there, it's like nothing I've ever seen, anywhere..some of the wannabe dodgiest bars in Kallio, Helsinki are the Hyatt Lounge Bars compared to this place :) After couple of rum-and-cokes we got a DJ to play for us some roadtrip music and through some miraculous cheer-up got people on the dance floor and some party actually happening! It had been fun though a bit sad so far but in the end we just danced until 2.30am! ..feeling pumped and happy again we didn't actually feel like going home so me, Mark, Cristy and Bethany stopped at "The Joint" for a few beers still on our way home, this little place on Elizabeth St..one beer and bag of Doritos stretched a bit and in the end we went to bed at six :D Few cries, lots of laughs, joy and sadness..an emotional but also a very important night, we talked about lots of important things and really probably realized for the first time actually how good friends we have become during this semester..

Day 6: 29.7.2006

Well, not much to tell here actually :D In the morning we checked out, feeling miserably tired, went for breakfast at McCafé, got Bethany a new phone, packed the car and left Melbourne..loyal to our ways we drove first 20km in the wrong direction (way to go Cristy!!) before getting TOTALLY lost and finally finding the beginning of the Hume Highway taking us to Sydney. Changing drivers and stopping for dinner at a service station we made our way in about 9 hours back to Sydney, some 800 km. And here I am :)

This trip..just was something unbelievable. We had so many good laughs, few good cries, some immortal flying phrases that just won't ever make any sense to anybody else but will make us smile for years and years when we hear them..lots of CD's gone through the player, 5 especially burned by Mark that were playing and came to be the theme songs of our trip..Lots of unhealthy food, beer, wine, driving (after a responsible recovery period of course), tired mornings, late nights, shopping..nothing got lost, nothing got stolen, everything went actually just perfectly..I feel confident to say that this was one of the best memories I will cherish from here so far with my friends, and thanks to you guys from the bottom of my heart!! Ps. Pictures later, now tired and off to bed..;)

No bonus for the socceroos..

Well, as it turned out the brazilian
engine overwhelmed the socceroos 2-0
last night (or should I say morning,
as I went to bed at 6 in the morning and
woke up at 2 in the afternoon :),
but as an experience a good match!
We ended up going to Circular Quay
in front of the Customs House as
the city had provided a big screen there,
with participation somewhere in the thousands
from aussies and brazilians alike, brazilians
with their drums and dancing and aussies
with their general jollyness and the
"Aussie Aussie Aussie, OI OI OI!" shouting
it was an experience to be remembered!!

There was a BIG crowd of us Geegalians and
people from Gumal alike as well, and we
had a relatively good spot to watch the game
from too. The weather was OK, no rain and
although it started to get quite cold around
3am the crowd around us kept us nice and warm.
As I failed to acquire an australian flag
I still managed to bring my finnish flag
and explain everyone I was there in the
role of a representative of the Finnish-
Australian Society ("5 MILLION PEOPLE
CAN'T BE WRONG, SOCCEROOS FOR GOLD!!!" :D)

And of course, what would a soccer match be
without those lovely individuals that bring
red flares and fireworks and such to occupy
the police and security force :)

Australia - Brazil...SOCCERFEVER!

Tonight is the night of nights!
Sons of the country Down Under have
the ultimate opportunity to rise above
us mere mortals, to be glorified into eternal
awe and reverence, as their strenght,
stamina and general position in the favour
of football gods is put to the test!
Yes, they are taking on The Country That
Put the other C in Soccer!

..I have no idea what that is supposed to mean :D

But yes indeed, Socceroos of Australia are
facing the ultimate opponent, Brazil
tonight, kick off 2am EST..And of course
there we will be, at Star City Casino to
cheer our boys to victory or cry
bitter tears as they get totally and
utterly pummeled! :D

It's been in the water for a while now,
but tonight the anticipation is just
tangible. Anyhoo, it will definetly be an
excellent match no doubt about it.

What lately..just one exam to go,
International Business next thursday
and I am trying hard to muster some
motivation to struggle through the
remaining 400 pages. My sleeping cycles
off the charts though, I go to bed at
around 4-5am and wake up at noon, start
studying, study for 3-6 hours, then
spend the evenings doing whatever..:)
Last night we had a really nice
party in Redfern, a house party
with lots of exchange students, austrian,
mexican, german, french..and of course
one loud finn! :D There was an actual
band playing in the appartment, one that
plays thursdays at Broadway Café (the
one where I sometimes go to study because
they have wireless internet)..and Chris
came by and he had his guitar with him
so of course we had a supporting act on the
terrace :D ..or at least we did until the cops
came by around 2.30am and shut the party down :D
..wonder why..:) Was really nice to meet
lots of people especially from the other
housing units I haven't seen for a while, it
was actually a farewell-party of sorts because
so many are leaving in the followin two weeks..
From the party we went to Bar Broadway to have
a couple of beers to finish the evening, I
ended up talking with this Aussie bloke about
WW2, Finnish heavy music and the murders at
lake Bodom..:D It's weird the stuff people
in other countries know about your country,
if anything.

Beyond that it's mostly been Lansdowne or
any random pub to have a beer (just one..maybe two)
with the guys and watch a soccer match or two in
the evening, eating, sleeping, the usual :)
One night turned out to be of the interesting
sort as we witnessed the most interesting pick up
at a bar with Carlos, this 50-year old
transvestite (formerly man) was hitting on this
30-year old guy who seemed to be drunk enough
to be totally oblivious to the fact that his
potential partner for the evening had some
potency of his own to share when the push
comes to shove :D (sorry for the crude
pun, but I'm sure you can imagine
our well-hidden amusement at the situation:))
..you just never know in a city like this..

Just two weeks to go until Elisa arrives!
in 14 days I'm going to be quite
jittery as her flight arrives tomorrow morning
at 5.15..:) Before that just one exam and
oh yeah, I think I've failed to mention
that we're going to do one last little
roadtrip with the flatties and friends,
we're going to go on a roadtrip to
Canberra, Melbourne and the Great Ocean
Road!! YAY! Everybody's REALLY looking
forward to it, me included, as it will
most definetly be and excellent excellent
trip!

But now I'm off to do something
productive (probably lie on the bed
and watch the paint dry or something:),
before we leave in about two hours for
Star City..so I'll be back later to
give you full briefing on the match! :)

By the way..:)

00 Months, 19 Days, 9 Hours, 59 minutes, 00 second!
2 Full Weeks, 19 Days, 465 hours, 27959 minutes..
1677560 seconds..:D

GO AUSTRALIA!!!!

Excellent performance Socceroos!
Australia - Japan 3-1, we went to see
the match yesterday night at the Star City
Casino..a very, very entertaining match
and the reaction here was just HUGE..

So indeed, the World Cup started and
as Australia is in the game for the first
time in 32 years, people here are quite
into soccer at the moment :) Big screens
in every bar, nook and cranny,
"GO SOCCEROOS" - posters everywhere,
"Every Match, Every Goal, Every Replay"
bars here and there..few sports bars
like Cheers are open until early morning,
showing the games all night. And when
the Socceroos are playing, everybody stops
and supports :)

The Star City Casino Showroom was
just packed, luckily we managed to
get a good table from where we
watched the game..Japan scored
the first goal (a controversial
goal at the very least, the
goalkeeper was pushed!), and
then no goals before the last 10 minutes
and Australia scored three times!
You can just imagine how the crowd went
wild :) Two goals by Cahill and one
by Aloisi, substitutes both of them..
As we were walking back home the whole
length of George Street was in total CHAOS :D
Every car honking their horns, people dancing on
the streets, flags, drums, banners,
supportersongs blazing everywhere..:)
Have to hand it to them, the Aussies sure
know how to be proud of their boys abroad! :)

As the exams are quite near now, tomorrow
to be specific and the day after, my days
have mostly gone by sitting at home studying.
I wake up in the morning around 11am, start
studying, study until 6-7pm, do something
(these past few days been watching soccer
or having dinners with friends),
go to bed around 2-3am and next day do
it all over again :) I'm struggling with
myself at the moment, whether or not
I should study just a bit more
for tomorrow or not, I've made a little
bulletpoint card with basically
all the stuff I need tomorrow, and
mostly remember it by heart..but you
can never be too prepared right? :)

Saturday and Sunday were a welcome
change though, as there was a big
Jazz Festival in Darling Harbour!
Lots of local and international acts,
James Morrison, Marcia Hines,
The Blues Brothers Show..:) I had a
day off from studying on Saturday
and we went to DH with Cristy and
her friend Fiona to listen to some
of the bands. The original plan
was to study in the evening but
somehow we ended up in Homebush,
watching a rugby league match
with South Sydney Rabbitohs and
Brisbane Broncos, got free tickets
from Cristy's friend and even saw
Russel Crowe there! (I think he
owns a part of the Rabbitohs..)
So that was a welcome change, all in all.
Sunday evening we went to see the
James Morrison gig at Darling Harbour and
the fireworks..I just have to say,
you should have been there! Lots and lots
of people just sitting around the harbourside,
listening to feel-good flowing jazz,
the stage was floating in the harbour,
shaped like a shell, the sun set around 5.30
when the gig started, the fireworks
at 7.30 with the band playing their best..:)
Awesome, relaxing experience.