Australia Abroad

XMAS, Appartment etc..

2006-12-15T16:30:00.000+11:00

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 :)

2006-10-30T16:44:00.000+11:00

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!!

2006-10-10T20:56:00.000+10:00

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!!!

2006-06-30T00:26:00.000+10:00

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..

2006-06-19T19:12:00.000+10:00

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!

2006-06-18T21:42:00.000+10:00

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..:)

2006-06-13T19:18:00.000+10:00

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

GO AUSTRALIA!!!!

2006-06-13T19:00:00.000+10:00

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.

Working again, finally...

2006-06-09T15:26:00.000+10:00

Blogger been down for a while now for some reason,
at least, everytime I've tried to write stuff
it's been giving me this internal error message..:|

..not that much has been happening with the exams
less than a week away! :D Basically what I've done
this week was study, sleep, go see couple of movies
(omen and poseidon), study and sleep again.
And stay up until 5am talking with Elisa or playing
GTA:San Andreas (wonderful how you can always come
up with the most random stuff to do when you are
supposed to study, isn't it? I even cleaned
my room :D)

Saturday we did go out with Chris for a while, unfortunately
the Pancakes was packed with a 30 meter queue so we walked
for a while and ended up somewhere around Bayswater to
a pizzeria near the Hard Rock Café and then to the Cross
for a Guiness at O'Malleys Pub..Sunday was the food
and wine thing at Manly in a great weather after
couple of days of raining, sun came out every now and then,
good jazzy/funky/soul music, good food and wine. Most of
our group bailed out on us so I chilled there from
twelve and Chris joined me after three. In the evening
we actually watched "Tuntematon Sotilas", The Unknown Soldier
in flat 3, a finnish war movie from 1955 :D Some finnish
culture to the far side of the world you could say :) And
of course then went to see the Socceroos play against Holland
at Scruffy Murphys :) Monday-Wednesday, studying at Café
Broadway and Well Connected in Glebe, Marketing, Internet
Commerce and International Business..I payed the trip
to the east coast on tuesday so now everything is booked and
ready for when Elisa gets here (in 23 days!)..

..on a more sad note, I managed to lose my passport
somewhere (I know, *gasp, oh dear*) but good thing
I have my driver's license, international student ID,
Australian student ID, copies of my passport and
an insurance, so I can choose to get either
a one-year-passport in a week or the full 10-year-one
in 5 weeks, I just submitted the application to the
embassy today, they'll send it forward next tuesday
and I'm supposed to call them if the old passport hasn't
been found by then and tell them which one I'm going to take..
it costs the same amount for both kinds, and my insurance
is going to cover it so might as well take the one for 10 years,
but have to find out about that biometric passport thingy first..
I'd need to get that anyway in 4 years so might not be a bad
idea to get the one year passport for now and then get the
biometric one..

Right now I'm just recovering, I donated blood again
at TAFE, my hemoglobin was a measly 138, not too good
for some reason as it usually is in high 160s at least!
..So now I need to take it easy as it must be REALLY low
at the moment..and eat lots of meat..wonder if
meatlover's pizza from pizza hut with 4 different meats,
bbq-sauce and lots of cheese qualifies..;)

Too tired to sit now and add pictures, will
do that later..need to take a nap now.

I think I've recovered enough now..:)

2006-06-03T17:09:00.000+10:00

Umm..yeah..WOW :D

Some party we had!! As we suspected after the sangria
was finished and ready to enjoy, we managed to have
a real party for once in Geegal! :)
We started a bit later than planned, at around 7-8pm,
mainly because Carlos was away and he had the sangria
and stereos in his room :) I made a quick playlist
to introduce the party people to some finnish music,
mainly Lordi and "Hard Rock Hallelujah", Pate Mustajärvi
and "Ukkometso" (traditional drinking song :), and things
of that nature..quite fun to see people's reactions to
that kind of music :)

Of course things started to REALLY look up when we
carried the Sangria (yeah, suddenly I wasn't the center
of attention anymore :D) to the courtyard and opened
the tap..we added some vodka and wine to give it some
twist and in the end had 25 liters of the stuff!
All in all the evening was a success, everybody had fun,
everybody got drunk and happy, we never made it to the
King's Cross as suspected, the fire brigade came around
4.30 am to put out our sausages (Oh man, Chris went
to the door with a yellow apron, offering the firemen
some charred sausages with chili sauce :DD, the only
comment we got from the fire chief was something along
the lines "you boys are having some expensive sausages there,
400 dollars"..good thing housing pays for it :)) :D
At 6 in the morning we were still sitting outside with
Carlos and wondering what happened to our sangria that
had only the oranges and limes in the bottom..so I think
it's safe to say my birthday was a success in all aspects :D

The following days of course went by recovering and counting
our losses (there weren't that many actually), and just getting
ready for the last squeeze of the semester, final lectures and
exams..Tuesday-Thursday I attended the final lectures and got
all the pointers from the lecturers concerning the exams,
slept long and started to gather data for the exams..The only
exam I'm actually worried about is the International Business
one, as I have no idea what it might be about. I have the
questions already for the Marketing one and just can't be
too worried about the Internet Commerce as it is a multiple
choice exam and I already got 18/20 on the midsemester one..
On tuesday it was the official birthday which I spent just
taking it easy, in the evening I went to Glebe to Well Connected,
this nice café, read my book and enjoyed a massive double chocolate
milkshake :) On wednesday I started on my revisions for the exams,
went for a long walk and ended up in the Chinese Garden where I spent
a couple of hours just getting my thoughts around the marketing
questions..think I might go there again as it was a REALLY peaceful place
to study and spend some time..in the evening
we stopped by at the Loft with Carlos for a few
well-earned beers, and on thursday went to see this
Battle-Of-The-Bands event at UTS, stopped by at
Nude Bar (this hostel bar near Broadway, NOT a tittybar :)
and watched a movie in flat 3.. yesterday I studied ALL day
until evening and then had a long talk with Elisa, so basically
I've had a good week with lots of things to do and plenty of
time to just chill :)

Tonight we're probably gonna go to the Rocks with Chris and
grab some Pancakes from Pancakes on the Rocks, maybe find ourselves
some live music and just take it easy..this morning I went
to Broadway Café just nearby to do some studying for the
marketing exam and actually made some progress with the prereleased
exam questions..the café is actually really nice
and it's just nearby, they have a wireless hotspot there which
is actually pretty fast, I was able to show my parents
live feed from the Broadway with virtually no delay :)
tomorrow it's an early morning and off to
Manly to the Food and Wine Festival: A Taste of Manly event
With Chris again and friends..hopefully the weather stays good,
it's been forecasting lot of rain but today was good..

BIRTHDAYPARTY PREPARATIONS :)

2006-05-26T20:49:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow is the D-DAY!

..or actually, the B-DAY as it is my 24th on
May 30th! So today basically all I got up to
was to make "some" sangria with Carlos and Simon,
the sangriameisters :) 12l of wine, 4l of juice,
raspberry softdrink and some ginger ale, oranges,
lime..it turned out to be a nice full 20l of
Sangria! Of course, as we had to test it
for flavour and effect and now we have 17,
but still enough for a few drinks :)
Probably going to go do some shopping tomorrow
for some apples and bacardi for a finishing touch..
have to put a kitty up for couple of dollars
each to break even, but still 40 bucks for
20 liters isn't too bad..We'll probably start
around 6pm, then off to the King's Cross or
Paul's birthday on Crown Street further down the road..

But after tomorrow, I should have all of 2000 pictures
from this trip! :D Really looking forward to it,
tomorrow I mean, everybody's coming and we seem to
have all the makings of a really nice evening..

I'll let you know how it went later,
for now happy almost birthday me! :D

Something I wanted to share with the world.. (If the world follows my blog, that is..)

2006-05-25T00:43:00.000+10:00

Have I recently mentioned how much I love her?

Elisa I mean.

I don't think I have. But I do. Love her a lot. :)

We're talking on Skype right now, and she was
feeling really tired after a long day at the
hospital, just lying on her bed (yes, I do
wish I was there as well :), I was talking with
her about just random things, searching for
something on the internet and humming under my
breath "A kiss to build a dream on" by
Louis Armstrong..

..And she fell asleep..

So now I'm just sitting here, listening to her
breathe, sleeping 15000km away thinking what
I wouldn't give if I could be there right
now to watch her sleep :) I can here the
traffic somewhere far away, her moving a bit
in her sleep..I could just sit here,
mesmerized by this girl having a nice
afternoon nap on the other side of the world..

..1 month, 9 days, 4 hours, 28 minutes, 30 seconds..

Heater-acquisitions, intended good night's sleep and culture..

2006-05-24T17:53:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd write a couple of lines now
that the thought crossed my mind, instead of
in two weeks' time when I have forgotten half
of what I've done lately :)

I just came back from the CBD, went there for a
long walk as it was such a nice day outside..
Yesterday I somehow managed to wake up in
the morning and go for the International Business
lecture and tutorial at Haymarket, in Chinatown.
Wasn't easy but now I have returned the required
amount of weekly home preps to pass the course,
and also got a pass on my major assignment!
(a near pass, but still a pass :)
From uni I stopped by at Broadway shopping centre
to buy myself a heater finally! The nights are
getting so cold that just need one to not
freeze in the morning..We also got the ticket's
for Da Vinci Code, and after dinner went to
see it at Hoyts Broadway..dunno, I kinda felt
it lacked something, somehow it was too
erratic or something..don't know would I have
liked it better if I hadn't read the book first,
but now it was only OK in my opinion..still a
must-see movie of course, but what can you do? :)

After the movie I planned to go to bed early
and have a good night sleep, but it didn't exactly
go as planned, ended up talking 4,5 hours with Elisa
on Skype, went to bed at 5am :D I did wake up at 8.30
and considered shortly waking up to go to my
Internet Commerce lec/tut but in the end just notched
up the heater and went back to sleep :) I woke up
at 1pm..These past two days we've been talking with
Elisa (well, we do talk basically every day :) it's been
somehow different than for a while, we've had some
REALLY good talks about lots of things, I'm really happy
we can talk, chill, argue, whatever and about whatever
even though we're so far apart..and just to think
that it's only 1 month and 9 days till she gets here!!
So anyway, this morning I still felt so good about our
talk last night that I took off from Geegal and after
grabbing a pizzaslice for breaky walked all the way to
Macquarie Place and Obelisk-Café, where I sat for a couple
of hours, enjoying a REALLY creamy hot cholocate and a
pineapple juice while writing a letter to Elisa..:) I
sat there until the sun was already setting, and from
there walked along Circular Quay to the
Customs House and City Library, bought a CD from
an aboriginal musician playing the didg by
the wharf, visited the Government House
and from behind the Mint headed back to Pitt Street, and
after stopping at a Post office to mail Elisa's letter
back here..must've walked at least 8km today
but it's all for the better as I've been a bit lazy
these past couple of weeks :)

At 8pm I need to decide whether I want to go back to Glebe
to check out the Stand-Up again, or then to flat 10 to
see the State of Origin match, a rugby league match
between NSW and Queensland..probably flat 10, they're having
beer and pizza :D But that it for now, but check out
these nice pics I took while walking!!

Down with the flu.. =(

2006-05-22T21:48:00.000+10:00

Finally got to me..:) There's been a lot
of sore throats and runny noses around
past few weeks as the weather is getting
colder (and these rooms aren't the best
place to sleep in regards to insulation
on the balcony door or windows..)
And couple of days ago I started to feel
the same symptoms..yesterday and today
I've been in bed basically, watching movies,
drinking lots of fluids and sneezing.

I'm trying to remember what all I did last
week, after the Kuring-Gai evening
but my head is just spinning and so clotted
that can't really think at the moment :D

On sunday we had a wine and cheese night
here at Geegal, after which we stopped by
at Paddy Maguires as Mills and Vern
(two guys who used to live here) were going
away for good, flying from the
country on monday..just stopped by as
I had a full monday working with finalizing
the marketing assignment that has been
in the making since forever :D Basically
we spent monday and wednesday here at my
place and at the library writing and
formatting the text. On wednesday we
kinda had an unplanned BIG NIGHT, AGAIN :D
It was the Norwegian independence day and
Carlos called me around 4pm to get myself
a shirt and a jacket to get into this
fancy night club at Circular Quay with
some norwegian people and friends..as the
assignment was finished and all that was left
was returning it next day before 5pm,
I called Michael and borrowed his suit
and went to Circular Quay! :D

Was actually really nice, the evening was really
warm and people were partying, either because
of the independence day or the Barcelona-Arsenal
match that was kicking off at 4.30am :)
We went to Pancakes on the Rocks, a nice
24-hour restaurant with awesome pancakes,
to Lowenbrau Keller, this German beercellar
in the Rocks as well while waiting for the
Norwegian Party to begin..at 9 we headed for
the Cruise Bar, a high-class nightclub
facing the Opera House over the bay..
lots and lots of scandinavian people,
norwegian music and people celebrating and
waving their flags :) Nice to see that though
I have totally failed to meet ANY finnish students
during my stay here, there still are people from
Norway and Sweden at least to keep the scandinavian
spirits high. Well anyway, with 9 dollar beers we
didn't stay that long but went to the after party
at Scary Canary, had a few beers and ended up
in Cheers, this sports bar on George Street
where we played pool for a couple of hours
while waiting for the football match to begin..
In the end I walked home at 6.30 in the morning,
first time while I've been here I walked home
during daylight :) Just have to say, you should have
been there to see the football fans go at it
as the game started..there must've been about
a thousand people in Cheers that night!

Thursday and Friday I didn't get up to much,
on Friday we planned to go and see
the Da Vinci Code but it was sold out,
all four screenings at Broadway Hoyts Cinema!
So we just bought lots of chips and ice cream
and chocolate and got a movie from Blockbusters..:)
Saturday it was Blue Mountains again! We went
there with Chris, Arnold and Asif, did the whole
Katoomba tour with the skyway, scenic railway
and the old mines, three sisters and Katoomba
Falls..lucky for us the weather was warm and
sunny up there as it rained here all day..
on our way back I started to feel a bit cloggy
but didn't think much of it, and continued
from Geegal straight to Coogee where this guy
Monkey (yes, he does look a bit like one :)
was throwing a house party with punch and
bbq..It was fun for a while but then I started
to feel so tired and cold that I came back home
early..and so on Sunday morning didn't manage
to get out from bed anymore :|

And here we are, today I've just watched a couple
of movies, wrote an essay for tomorrow's
International Business lecture, sent out
birthdayparty invitations and posted up
a notice on the front door to let
people know a party is coming this saturday..:)
Yesterday basically the same, just trying
to get back in shape and healthy for saturday..
tomorrow if I'm feeling better I'll probably go
and see the Da Vinci Code with the flatties
but will have to see if I'm up for it..

But now I think I'll have a quick shower
and head under the blanket, put
on Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers and
wait for sleep..Cristy gave me some
Vick's Vaporub and Kleenex so I'm all
set for tonight :)

Hello from Kuring-Gai!

2006-05-12T18:10:00.000+10:00

..We came to the Kuring-Gai campus of UTS up
in North Sydney with Chris, there is a charity
event organized by some Event Management students
tonight, a Casino-night :) But the free shuttle bus
that brought us here was an hour early so now
we need to just chill here until people start
showing up..there is also a free bus back
later in the evening, the tickets are 20 dollars
but you get "play-money" to gamble at a blackjack
table, the roulette or whatever..so just thought
I'd mention that as I was just sitting here,
sipping my coke and eating my twix-bar with
nothing else to do :)

Yesterday we popped out to LaCita, a spanish
club in Darling Harbour with people from Geegal
from along the years, there were probably
three or four generations of old Geegalpeople,
was fun to talk about how things have changed
in few years! And of course, the bar being
in Darling Harbour was quite good with live
band playing the salsa, beautiful views
of the harbour and everything..we got a bottle
of wine between four people and enjoyed that with
the view..Went pretty late, after talking with
Elisa for a moment I went to bed around 6am
and woke up at noon to write our group assignment,
as the group more or less came knocking on my door :D

But yeah, some people should arrive soon so
I'll talk to you again later! (With pictures,
promise!!)

Stand-up @ Glebe

2006-05-10T23:23:00.000+10:00

Hello again!

Just came back from Glebe! Oh what a fun
night..:) Not much has been going on here
lately, as the weather is getting now
colder as we are moving towards winter
and many people here have assignments due
(as we might recall, ahem, I already
returned all my assignments for this year :))
But tonight saved the week!

Well actually the whole day has been really
good, in the morning I went to uni, had
a lecture on Internet Commerce and from there
I went to the Cairns Travel Agency to book
our trip with Elisa!!!! So now we are definetly
having a great plan for the month that she'll be
here..Brisbane, Hervey Bay and the Fraser Island
Safari, sailing at the Whitsundays, Magnetic
Island romantic retreat for couple days, Cairns
with snorkeling and just enjoying the warmth..
can not wait!!! :) It's going to be quite
expensive but experiences like that you just
can't measure in money. Anyway, now all the
hostels and activities have been booked
and front payment OK, now just have
to arrange some funds to pay for the
whole thing :)

In the afternoon we went shopping with Cristy
the flatmate for some pizza ingredients and
she and Bethany had made some mint-chocolate
slices earlier, and we had a yummy pizza-night
with chicken, bbq-sauce, mushrooms, bacon..
and of course some mintchocolatethingies :)
I didn't have any plans for the evening
so I just sat here on my computer wondering
what to do and leafing through
a website about stuff going on in Sydney..
and I noticed that in Glebe they were opening
a new stand-up night at Hotel Roxbury,
which is just 20 minutes walk from here!
As it was 20 to 8pm, I had to rush a bit
but just made it in time there to see the
show start! 6 beginning stand-up talents
were competing, some celebrity stand-up
comedienne MC and the main act by another
one..didn't know them beforehand but have
to admit they were good, got all the laughs
I went there to get I can tell you :D
So funny..

But alas, as all nice things come to an
end so did the evening end as well and I
had a nice long walk around Glebe back
here and now am ready to go have a shower
and go to bed early..tomorrow we're probably
having some sort of welcome-back party to
a guy that came back to Geegal from overseas,
so should be fun as well..for the weekend not
much planned yet, I'm attending a charity
casino-night arranged by a course for
event management from Kuring-Gai, a UTS
campus up North Sydney, if the weather seems
OK and I can talk Chris in to going with me
might go and check the Blue Mountains
on Saturday or Sunday, if first snow is on
the ground yet :)

What else..hmm, end of last week was lot of
out-going happening, but beyond that not much..
on Thursday it was Ibrahim's birthday that
we celebrated having cake , after which
we went to see Mission Impossible III
with people from Geegal and chilled at the
courtyard playing Tom Cruise and stuff,
on Friday it was Claire's Birthday which was
pretty cool :) We went to Burdekin Club
on Oxford Street, and from there to King's Cross
and the Empire..didn't stay too long but
grabbed a pizza slice from a grill and walked
home :) But it was fun to see again all the people
I met when I first came here, hadn't seen them
for AGES! Saturday..hmm..we definetly did
something on Saturday..OH YEAH! Alana had tickets
to Home nightclub, there was some weird artsy bands
playing so we went there with her and Sarah,
Michael and Ibrahim were supposed to join us but
didn't show up in the end..the bands were REALLY
weird so we just went down to HomeBar, which is a little
terrace on the side of Home itself..and from there back
home around midnight or so..Homebar is in Darling
Harbour, was really nice to be there as well again
during nighttime, it's just so beautiful there with
the bay and skyscrapers and the bridge..
Sunday I didn't get up to much, had a long walk in
the harbour area and CBD and read my new Terry Pratchett
book I borrowed from Cristy's friend Lei.
Monday we stopped at Scubar just to have few beers
but in the end spent there most of the night..:D

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing, felt it was
time to chill a little and not be out and about
all the time, just went to the International Business
lecture and tutorial, chilled here playing the
guitar..one of the best feelings after a long
weekend of late nights and even later mornings..:)

It's kinda weird how at the moment I don't actually
feel the need to be around travelling and doing stuff
all the time, but just really really waiting for
Elisa to get here so we can do the trip of a lifetime
with her here..but Sydney itself is tightening it's grip
harder than ever..I just so enjoy being here, around
during the day just watching people and walking the streets,
or at night checking out nice restaurants, clubs or bars,
or just here at Geegal hanging out with friends..starting
to understand that soon it will be over, and I'm wondering
will it be in the end as hard leaving here as it was leaving
Finland..(well, in some aspects not at all as hard as I have
Elisa here leaving with me, but I know I am going to miss so
many people so much..)

That it at the moment, now off to shower and
bed, read a book for a while and then sleep!

Cairns-day and some assignments..

2006-05-03T15:58:00.000+10:00

Hello hello!

So finally, the midsemester exam on marketing
is behind me, as well as a GREAT Nickelback
concert, the King's Cross food and wine festival
and a night out with friends returning from
Easter Break! Only one group assignment left
due the 18th, a marketing analysis on a restaurant
in Newtown and then it's sweet freedom until the
final exams! I mean, why worry about them before
the last week :)

So what's been happening since friday..Saturday
I slept in (surprise surprise :) and just did
a quick revision on the marketing chapters
for the exam and went and did the exam and I
actually think I did pretty good! After the
exam time was running a bit short so we had a
quick dinner for two with Chris at KFC, dropped
some stuff at Geegal and headed down to Redfern
station from which we took a train to the Olympic
Park..they had a big AFL match (Swans vs. Geelong,
a rematch of the century or something) at the
Telstra Superdome so there was about a 100 000 people
on the move with us :) We got our tickets, queued
for about an hour before being admitted to the arena floor..
And I must point out that the concert just utterly and
totally ROCKED! :) Nickelback played about two hours,
mostly material from "Silver side up" and the newest
album, "All the right reasons"..pyrotechics,
fireworks, a "beer o'clock song" during which
they threw mugs of beer into the audience
("If you don't think you can catch it, don't put
your hand up!!" :D), all the good songs,
a stand just a meter from the edge of the stage..
great way to chill after the exam and try to get
some feeling of May Day here far away from home,
from the gig we went to Oxford Street to the
Brighton Hotel for a couple
of exam-beers and met up with some
flight attendant friends of Chris's..AND I met
this pilot whose name was Mikko, and had a finnish
mother so he even spoke a few words of finnish.. :)

On sunday morning we went to the King's Cross
Food and Wine festival with Alana, and Chris and
some of our other austrian and german friends
joined us shortly..cool sunny afternoon tasting
wines and eating, watching the shows, listening
to jazz and swing bands play out on the lawn..
good times. And of course, as we were in King's Cross,
the host(esse) had to be a transvestite standup
comedian (or as it were, comedienne) with two
strippers for good measure :) Nothing quite like
the good people of the Cross! :D
After the festival ended we walked back to Geegal
with Chris and tried to get people to go on
a pub crawl with us, but in the end we just
had a little jam session with the guitars, had
some wine and just chilled..probably the worst
case of homesickness so far, thinking about
all my friends back home celebrating Mayday but
hey, you can't win 'em all eh :) Well all for the
best, on Monday we made up for it because
so many people got back from their Easter breaks,
we had a fun night at Paddy Maguires, listened
to Craig's band (think I mentioned about him and his
band earlier..) after a long break, and from there
we went to Scubar to check out the latest batch of
backpackers in Sydney :)

Yesterday I mostly just tried to recover from
the weekend and detox, had dinner in Newtown
with my assignment group in the restaurant
we are doing the analysis on..early night
but couldn't sleep, the pizzas we had were
just MASSIVE..probably because they knew beforehand
that we are the ones doing the assignment :)

Today we started to work on the project itself,
writing down ideas and sketching a preliminary
format for the report..the afternoon I did some
enquiries about prices for a three-week east coast
-experience for me and Elisa..:) Now if ever
I am waiting for her to arrive!! We are
going to have so much fun, a safari at Fraser Island,
snorkling and sailing in the Whitsundays, Cairns,
Brisbane..our days are going to be just packed but
don't matter, it will be awesome I just know it :)
Now I'm trying to decide whether to go to bed
(it's half past four in the afternoon :D) or try
to stay awake until evening, maybe go meet up
with Carlos at the Loft, talk about the trip
with Elisa when she gets home..Going to be
a struggle as I didn't sleep more than an hour
or so last night but maybe better if I try
and make it till evening and then have a normal
01-11 sleep :)

Oh, bugger..

2006-04-28T15:35:00.000+10:00

Tried to add pictures from Culburre,
but couldn't because my camera
battery just died! :D I just put them
on the charger so maybe later,
if I remember..:)

TOMORROW NICKELBACK! \o/

TOMORROW IT IS DONE!

2006-04-28T15:10:00.000+10:00

I am getting totally and utterly BORED
sitting indoors and studying here!

Really, I haven't done much anything
since the last post..That what was,
last tuesday..wednesday, thursday,
writing the assignments. I hit some
mighty obstacles on my way to exporting
irrigation equipment to Egypt and the
Internet Commerce essay wasn't really
advancing any better..Friday I had a
well earned day off, we went to Star Bar
and Cheers with Carlos, Sarah and Sarah's
friends Andrew and Amanda from her class.
Saturday and Sunday, surprise surprise,
studying and writing, also began reading
marketing for the midsemester exam.
Monday I basically finished the essays
and went and had dinner and drinks with
couple of Irish guys from Geegal,
Luke and his brother Mitch. Tuesday was
Anzac Day here which is a memorial day
for the Australian/New Zealand Army Corps..
there were some parades and services in
the city and from what I heard afterwards
everybody just went to King's Cross
and got ridiculously drunk :D I spent
the day in the library, reviewing my
references and bibliography and finalizing
the essays, the evening I just watched a couple
of movies and read marketing (aaargh!) :D
I did go jogging at sunset which kinda gave
me more energy to study, so not a total waste
that day in the end :)

Wednesday it was back to uni and the deadlines
for both the essays..actually I was quite glad
to do something else for a change than waking up
and opening the computer and books and studying,
sitting at the Internet Commerce lecture was
a welcome change :) Anyway, I returned the
International Business essay to the lecturer
and the Internet Commerce one by email, and
received my marks for the midsemester exam,
which were 18/20, 2nd highest of the class!
In the evening I went for a run again,
ran all around Sydney Uni campus and actually found
some nice suburbs south of here where I hadn't
been yet..Just goes to show how much this
city has to offer, again :)

Yesterday it was marketing and marketing
and some more marketing :D Lecture in the
morning, then quick lunch and home
to read and write some notes..the lecturer
actually GAVE us the answers and said
that now you know what I am going to ask,
so you also know that I will be demanding
something more than what you read in the book..
So with my marketing book and the biggest loser
finale (this TV show that's been on since
I got here about fat australian people trying
to lose weight :), I had a fairly boring
evening..AGAIN :D

One good thing about this past week, week
and a half though has been that I have
been just sitting home by my laptop,
all evening and long into the night,
so I have had plenty of time to talk
with Elisa..:) She just started her
internships at Helsinki, so she's home
usually around 3-4pm, gives us plenty
of time to chat in the evenings..:)
It's May Day just around the corner
in Finland, I'm kinda sad that I'm not
there to spend it with friends and Elisa,
but I think I'll manage to think of something here
as well :)

..Like going to the Nickelback concert tomorrow! :D
I just got tickets yesterday, my friend Chris
from Austria asked if I had bought ticketts but
I had forgotten all about it, we talked about
it maybe a month ago..I went to the website
just for fun to see if there was anything left
(I was sure there wasn't) and could you believe
it, they had JUST released extra tickets to the
arena floor! It actually came down to a matter
of minutes before they were gone and I got
myself one ticket! So tomorrow after the
exam it's off to Sydney Superdome and
some excellent ROCK! :) Sunday it will
be a massive party in Finland which
I'll be totally missing, so we talked
with Mark that we need to do something instead
as it is also the Queen's Birthday in Holland..
The Dutchies are going to have a picnic
probaly, and there are the Wine and Food
festivals in King's Cross (most of the
dutch people live quite nearby, in
Darlinghurst)..probably gonna have a
fun day with some wine and food and picnic,
and go to a bar or a night club in the
evening..note to self, have to go and
ask Mark what's the plan as soon as I
fininsh writing this..:)

Phew..there..sorry there's not much
to tell at the moment, I've been
a really boring exchange student
these past 10 days :) But I promise
it will get better! In couple of weeks
I will know my exam timetable and
I can start planning whether I want to
do some traveling before Elisa
gets here..I have some choices
like Fiji, Tasmania, New Zealand
or Alice Springs still under
consideration but before I
know the timetables I'm not going
to book anything..the worst tourist season
is passing already so there will be
room to go on different trips..but the
only thing to really worry about is
money :) If I want to spend an excellent
month with Elisa here (which I definetly
absolutely unquestionably do), I
have to count pennies or then take a
short loan..I'll see how it turns
out and make some decisions
in a week or two..Fiji just sounds
so very very nice, they're running
a campaign for 6 nights all included
tour for 1200 dollars..I want to! :D

But now back to business, I mean
marketing..Talk to you soon again!

Happy Easter!

2006-04-18T16:03:00.000+10:00

Well..maybe once a week is enough eh? :D

Much has been happening once again lately,
so I have a lot of catching up to do here!

So what did I get up to last week..
well, most of the uni was on faculty week
before easter, which means that not much
people were around, many went travelling or
home to see their parents or whatnot, but
alas, I had uni on tuesday and thursday..
Basically I didn't get out much during the
week, I started on my projects with
International Business and Internet
Commerce and started writing on monday and
tuesday, I have deadlines on the 26th
and 5000 words to write about security
in internet commerce and exporting
agricultural irrigation equipment to Egypt :D

Tuesday evening we went to see Ice Age 2 which
was a nice break from the writing and reading,
and wednesday night we went to the Loft for
a few beers, basically that was my week!
(for once a quiet, peacful few days just to
hang out, do some uni work, make some good
food, go out for a jog..nothing special which
actually was quite a welcome change to
the otherwise so busy life)

I don't remember if I've mentioned, but I promised
to go down south to Claire and Cathy's beachhouse
in Culburra some time ago, and indeed thursday morning
I headed up to North Sydney to be picked up by
Claire and to get driving. We went there
with Claire, Ivan, Cathy, Mrs.Morgans, Quentin
and the dogs Stella and Reuben :)
I kinda lost my key on wednesday, probably dropped
it somewhere so I had to go and get a new one from
housing first thing in the morning, then pack and
make my way to Redfern station from where I took the
first North Shore Line train to North Sydney..
There I had to wait for almost an hour,
as Claire's phone was acting up and she didn't get
my message I sent her when I arrived to the station..
But in the end she arrived and picked me up,
we stopped at Cremorne for a few moments,
packed the car and got on our way. The start and ending of
holidays in a city of 4 million people is something
you have to see for yourself, as the traffic is
quite bad at times..we only got going around 3pm
so the traffic was just starting to reach it's peak
when we got out of Sydney which was pretty lucky,
but still we had to stand still for some time
every now and then..Around 7.30pm we arrived to
Culburra, a little township of it's own
near Shoalhaven. A very quaint peaceful little
town of just a few thousand people with beautiful
beaches and just one convinience store, so it was
another welcome break of just chilling, going
to the beach, seeing the sights and just relaxing
over the weekend :)

We did various eastery things during the weekend,
hunted for easter eggs, had lamb on sunday,
went to the church (it was an anglican church,
which actually was quite different and less
formal than what I'm used to in Finland, but
very nice, the communion and order of procession
through the worship was different but otherwise
very christian :) The priest was a really odd
man though, he'd done three churches before us
and arrived almost 10 minutes late, just barged
in to the church and called out from the door,
"Jesus has risen!" to which everybody went
"Hallelujah!" :D) On friday night I watched
the Passion Of The Christ on TV, and have
to admit it was quite touching, considering
the context..so in many aspects, it was
a good weekend.

Oh yeah, and I tried surfing as well! :D
I tried it on sunday for a few hours..good
swell, a bit choppy but not too bad for
me to get the hang of it..not that I could stand
up yet, but I found my balance and could at
least sit on the board and get on my knee..
didn't quite figure out yet how to paddle
in to the wave and then get up, but
definetly want to try it again! :)

So anyway, yesterday we headed back to Sydney
and I just dropped my bags and headed straight
for Coles to get something to eat as my
cupboards and shelf in the frigde were
totally empty..around 8pm we had a big
Wok-dinner in flat 8 after which we went
to Paddy Maguires, and from there to have breakfast
at the Star City Casino! What a weird, ex tempore
night :) But we had lots of fun. Mark's boyfried
arrived to Australia on friday so we showed
him our usual spots and did some touring around
Darling Harbour on our way to Star City..the
harbour was just unbelievably beautiful in
the night, the water was calm and nobody around..
Around 5.30am we took a cab from the casino
back to Geegal, I had a quick nap (you really
can't call it a good sleep if you go to bed
at 6.30 in the morning :) and woke up
around 11 and started to write on my
assignments again..I'm basically halfway
through with the first one now, have to
start looking in to the other one,
the Internet Commerce one that is..today
is tuesday so we might go catch a cheap movie
at broadway, but until then I'll probably
just write and work on my assignments..

Sorry sorry sorry..=D

2006-04-10T12:10:00.000+10:00

Ach, I am so bad at this sometimes :)
Promised even myself I'd write about the
Melbourne trip on wednesday, but here we
are, monday already and nothing!!!

But I did have my midsemester examination
on wednesday on Internet Commerce, thursday
was a busy day with Marketing and the analysis
we have to make for that course and then it's just
been early easter partying here at Geegal
(many people have this week off as well,
a faculty holidayweek or something, I don't
so I have to work with these projects and everything)..
On thursday we went to Bondi Beach for some karaoke,
had a big night out and I didn't even get to sing!
It was in Bondi Hotel, quite a popular place and
some very talented singers! That was so much fun,
we had a big bunch of people and just had a great night.
On friday I mostly just recovered from thursday and
watched movies, saturday I did the Glebe markets
that are actually just a few blocks away! They
were quite like the ones I went to in Paddington,
quite hippyish stuff, a live jazz group playing
on the lawn, people just hanging around in the sun,
going through the stalls..nice morning and
afternoon..in the evening I had Claires sister's,
Cathy's farewell party to visit in the city,
we went to the Attic Bar which is this posh
little bar on top of the Arthouse Hotel on
Pitt Street.. and after that we had a bbq here at
Geegal and yesterday it was Arnold's (from
neigbour flat) 24th birthday! So it's been a
busy busy week :)

But what I promised to write to you about..
the Melbourne trip..:) Oh it was just so much
fun! Where do I start..well, I packed my things
during thursday and in the evening I got a ride
from Bethany to Circular Quay..I managed to walk for
about 10 meters when I saw the first finnish flag!
I met Janne, a canadian guy with finnish parents,
he spoke pretty good finnish, sometimes a bit
finglish, but still we understood each other
perfectly! There were in the end 36 of us on
a small bus, with Chaz the leader and Damian
the busdriver. At 8.15pm we took off from Sydney
and started our 12-hour bustrip to Melbourne.
I guess I am just lucky because I just so enjoy
those long bus rides in the middle of nowhere,
I spent the night dozing, listening to music,
watching the stars (You could actually see the
milky way when outside Sydney!)..there
was a movie on that I followed for a while,
but mostly I just tried to get some sleep
and in the end did manage to sleep for almost 5 hours
before Melbourne.

We arrived to Melbourne around 8.30am and headed
straight for our hostel. For the weekend we were staying
at Nomads, a new hostel just on the northern end
of the CBD quadrangle. We shared the room with 5
other people from the bus, the rooms were quite spacy
with lots of storage room for our stuff, there
were 5 showers and 5 toilets on the floor we were in
that were cleaned a couple of times a day so all in all it
was a nice place to stay, and I think the prices
start from as low as 19 dollars a night!
Anyway, as soon as we had settled in and checked the
place out, meaning checking out the bar :) we left
the hostel and went to Queen Victoria's Markets,
that were this HUGE market place just down the street
from our hostel. There we toured around for a couple of
hours, had some brekkie and then grouped up again
and went for a tramride around the city. We basically
did a tour of the CBD which is in a shape of a quadrangle
with very straightforward streets and blocks and all the
big stores and malls and restaurants and pubs are
withing that area in the Melbourne central..we used the tram
and walked and bussed around for the early morning and
got ourselves some maps pointing out some places of interest
in Melbourne..Before noon we headed back for the hostel
from where the people that
went to see the penguin island left for the bus.
I decided I want to spend that day in Melbourne
just getting to know the place and maybe do some
shopping, so I went with Mark and Kira and did
an all-afternoon shopping spree around the city :)
They are right when they say that Melbourne is the
place to shop, as the CBD is just packed with big
malls and galleries, as well as little shops and
restaurants and everything..the city was still in
a real state after the Commonwealth Games that
just ended on the previous week, and already
at full speed with the Formula 1, but all for the
better as we got to experience the city at its
very peak :) I didn't actually do any shopping as such
all day, just walked and took pictures and me and Mark
waited for Kira as she was stopping at every possible
shop that had pretty clothes in it :D

In the evening the rest of us (that is, people that
still were feeling up to it and weren't at the penguin
tour) went to the Telstra Superdome to see the Western
Bulldogs play Richmond Tigers in an AFL (Australian
Rules Football League) match, with 47000 people
in the crowd! Aussies sure love their footy, that's all
I can say..the Bulldogs one by 110 points or something
(a one-for-the-books difference in points as I understood)
so people just went crazy :) But the feeling was excellent
and even though you didn't have any contact to either
of the teams the enthusiasm of the crowd somehow
got to you eventually :) After the match some of the
guys headed off to see a few bars but I felt it was getting
late after a LONG day so I just headed back to the
hostel..of course, being friday evening the party
was at full tempo in Nomads, with cheap drinks and
eats..I had a beer downstairs and luckily the bar closed
at 2 am, so I pretty much fell asleep before my head
hit the pillow when I got back up to my room :)

It was an early morning on saturday as we had breakfast at 7:00am
and at 7:30 the bus started from in front of Nomads
for the Great Ocean Road trip! During the day we tripped
all the way through the coast to Port Campbell where the Great
Ocean Road ended, on the way stopping to see some Koalas
and of course the twelve apostles, at an old mining colony
park with BIG old trees and waterfalls, having lunch in a park
along the way and dinner shortly before arriving to
Melbourne..the weather was mostly good, just a few short
showers of rain but sunny still most of the time. A great day
and another thing I can tick over from my to-do list :)
We arrived back to the accommodation around 9 pm, after which
we all headed to the city to see some nightclubs..most of the
people that weren't that keen on the F1 partied till early morning,
but I wanted to catch the action so I turned in around 2am.
After a short sleep I woke up around 6.15 (we turned the clocks
back that night so at least I got one hour's extra sleep :)
and after shower and breakfast took off from Nomads and headed
for the F1-trams that were free for all ticketholders.
Janne had told me that he had found a great spot at Turn 5 of the
track (he had a four day ticket to the races) and that's were I found
him, with his finnish flag and everything :) The official race
program started at 9 so I had time to walk almost all around the
track, to see the carshows and aerobatics and fighter jet
shows, old car races and merchandise shops before the
official stuff started with drive-by's by the
F1-drivers and V8 races and such..the funniest thing was
to watch the "Ultimate Speed Test" -race, where they first
gave a BMW racing car a minute headstart, then a V8 Holden
30 seconds and finally unleashed a Renault F1 on the track..
with a minute and thirty second leads, the F1 still beat
both of the cars to the finishing line :D Around noon people
started to gather to the stands and viewing mounds and before
1:30 the place was just packed! Over 150 000 people were
following the actual race, with over 300 000 visitors
alltogether during the weekend so the atmosphere was at it's
peak. I don't even have to tell you about the race, I mean,
it was probably the best race one could hope to be the first
one to see live with lots of action, tight corners,
some crashes, excellent competition between individual
drivers...just an adrenaline-packed 2 hours of sheer love
for the sport! :) I even went and bought my self a finnish
flag I was waving around most of the time :D

After the race we of course walked to the track and all the
way to the starting grids..on the way I actually found a
piece of machinery from Christian Klien's car, and some
pink pebbles from the side of the track :D At the starting grid
we climbed the pitstop wall and took pictures from the pits
as the teams were gathering their equipment and packing the
cars in to trucks, met up with some finnish people that
weren't actually that hard to notice, with the white-blue
face paint and huge flags and such :) In time we finally
found our way out of the track and to the trams and before
nightfall we were back at the hostel for a farewell-BBQ
(always with the BBQ..:D) before getting on the
bus and starting our long drive back to Sydney..
I guess I had some unpaid debts regarding sleeping,
as I fell asleep about 2 hours after leaving melbourne,
sleeping almost 10 hours, waking up only once to
stretch my legs and when arriving to Sydney, early
monday morning :)

THERE! My fingers are cramping from writing the essay I
finished this morning and now this..:D I'd like to sit
here and add the pictures as well but you have to wait
for them for a little while as I just can't be bothered
to sit indoors any longer :D But I just have to say
it one more time, that trip was definetly so far one
of the best experiences here in Australia, it just
had everything, shopping, sightseeing, sports, nice place
to stay, good food, nice people, great city..I recommend
warmly :)

Tomorrow Melbourne!

2006-03-29T10:30:00.000+11:00

Hello again!

What a weekend, let me tell you! :)
Should have known, but the Blue Mountains
trip got cancelled AGAIN for whatever reasons.
But this time I didn't let that stop me, but
woke up on saturday morning early and headed
off to the railway station. The trip had
been postponed so many times and I've wanted
to go to the Blue Mountains ever since I came
to Australia that I just decided I'm going
to go in any case..and I made the right decision :)

I got a ticket from the station to Katoomba
which is a little town on the edge of the Blue
Mountains National Park. The weather was supposed
to be bad during saturday but the sun was
shining and it rained only once during the 120km
trainride, for a few minutes.
In Katoomba I just left the railway station
and started to walk southwards as I knew there
I would find the park sooner or later. The train
was quite full of backpackers and people getting
off at Katoomba, but most of them stayed at
the station to figure out where to buy bus tickets,
tours etc..It took me about an hour to walk
to the park, and there I just chose one trail that
took me down to the valley. I did a smart move as
the tourist groups arrived maybe an hour after
me so all day I was moving a bit ahead of
them, never having to wait around to see
anything or feel that the peaceful surroundings
were spoiled somehow by too much people walking
about, taking pictures, littering..just me myself and I :)

During the day I went down to the Katoomba Waterfalls,
Witche's Leap and almost all the way to the Scenic
Railway situated at the bottom
of the valley, then climbed back up. The weather was
just perfect as it was sunny and humid as I was
down in the valley, and clouded up just a bit as
I started my way back up, clearing up again
as I started to walk towards the Three Sisters.
The edge of the park is basically a cliff that
drops down into the valley, so from the Witche's
Leap all the way to the Three Sisters the trail
was very scenic with lots of lookout points
where you could stop and take pictures and just
admire the view. At the Three Sisters I stopped
for a while to walk around to the base of the rocks,
which was quite a climb up and down, took some nice
pictures and just enjoyed the afternoon.
From there I took a trolley bus back to Katoomba
that drove around the park area, giving basically
a guided tour for the price of a bus ticket.

After a quick dinner at Katoomba I walked to the
railway station and took the next train east. But
did I go back home yet? Oh no, I got off at Wentworth
Falls to go and see the waterfalls there at sunset!
It took me again a good hour to walk all the way to
the top of the falls from the town, but it was well
worth it. Sitting at the top of the falls, watching
the sun set behind the cliffs, seeing the valley
turn all blue and hazy in the evening mist..calling
Elisa as she was just waking up back home, sharing
that moment..It was by far one of the best moments,
and best days I have had so far.

As I started back from the falls I met this young couple,
they were just headed back for their car parked nearby
and I hitched a ride back to Wentworth Falls and the
railway station. I hopped on the next train and was
back in Sydney around 10.30pm, tired but very happy :)

Sunday I woke up at 6.00am, had a big breakfast and
with my bag and shoes and swimmers and lunch walked
in the chilly morning to Sydney Central YHA, from where
I was picked up by a Colourful Trips minibus at 7.30, and
off to do some canoeing in the royal national park! :D
And again, how glad am I that I went and rescheduled that
trip when the first one I was supposed to go on got
cancelled.. There were only 6 of us, me, Simon the
busdriver and 4 girls from Macquarie University, but
even though small in numbers we had a great great day,
canoeing, bushwalking, BBQing, tanning,
swimming and playing frisbee at the beach..so active
and relaxing at the same time! The canoeing trip
took us a few hours, going around this small river just
at the edge of the park, the surface was calm, like a mirror,
turtles, exotic birds, goanna-lizards, beautiful sights..

As we arrived back to the starting point of our canoeing
trip we had a nice OZ-BBQ with kangaroo, sausages, onions..
just chilling in the sun and enjoying the day, taking
pictures of this giant goanna just enjoying the
sun around a tree trunk. After eating
we took the bus and drove to the coastal part of the park
where we walked a small bushwalk to a "secret waterfall"
and around to the beach where we spent the late afternoon
before heading back to Sydney..It was really good that
the size of the group wasn't any bigger, really got to
know the people, we had lots of time to do everything,
if there had been 30 of us things would have been a lot
more hectic but this was just more like hanging out with
friends for a day at the park :)

Monday and Tuesday I had to catch up on university work
I had left undone over weekend, but I managed to write my
essays and return them in time. On monday evening we had
a dinner at Thai Tha Hai, a thai restaurant near here
with the austrian people as it was Kirsten's 22nd
birthday, had some cake here at Geegal and stopped by
at Paddy Maguires for drinks.
Yesterday we had a flat 8 (my flat) activity day,
and we went to see the "Amazing Human Body" exhibition
in the olympic park :) It was really cool actually,
the method of preservation on the bodies enabled
them to be displayed without any glass
glass casings or such, plastinated and set in different
positions to display different anatomical details.
The exhibition consisted of some 15 full body
specimens and hundreds of smaller ones,
including blood vessel casts, sliced bodies,
all organs displayed in detail. The full body specimens
were put in different positions such as playing tennis,
on a bike, walking, running etc..just to show how we
actually work and it was, although a bit gruesome
of course, very educational and interesting.
But still what I was personally most impressed by
was the preservation technique..apparently the bodies
are fixed in formalin, disected, dried, injected full
of ethanol and asetone, bathed in the same substances
and in vacuum the chemicals are transformed in to a kind
of plastic that preserves
the tissues perfectly. Even the eyes were real.
In the evening we walked to Glebe and had a nice dinner
in a very quaint italian restaurant, "Osteria dei Poeti"
And no, we did not lose our appetite in the expo :)

What else what else..tomorrow it is off to Melbourne
then! Can't believe it..I need to pack today
as I have uni tomorrow until 4pm and the bus
leaves from Circular Quay at 8pm..don't know
if I have time to catch up with Claire to get
the finnish flag, might be I have to
buy one from the race track :D But I am looking
forward to this trip a lot! Again, I'll post pictures
later, it is REALLY difficult at the moment, the best
time is around 2 am or something, otherwise the
site is just too clogged..but I'll be putting up
pictures of the mountains and the canoeing soon!
(no, I won't post pictures of the expo,
they're grose) :)

100 DAYS !

2006-03-24T13:56:00.000+11:00

Only 100 days until Elisa comes to Australia!
..little things, I know, but when it says 99
days it's going to make all the difference,
you can see the time just fly away :)
(Guess it is the same thing as why cars
are priced say 23 999 dollars or whatever,
psychological-like :)

I still can't add pictures, it just keeps
giving me a server error message
so you'll just have to wait, hopefully
it will start working again at some point..

Today we were suppose to go to the
Blue Mountains and surprise surprise,
it's really cloudy and dark and
about to rain any minute..:( So we decided
to play it safe and go tomorrow for a long
day, we will be able to do all the
nice sights and places on a long bushwalk
during the day so it's ok, because the camping
thing would just have been extra..still
have to admit that if you have to choose between
sleeping in the rain in an army tent which
is unreliable at best, or in your own
warm bed indoors and just go for a day
(it's only 90 minute drive from here)..
I rather choose the warm bed - daytrip
option :) For sunday (and my canoeing trip)
it has forecasted a nice weather so that
should be ok..

So what else have I been up to lately..
uni uni and uni actually, writing assignments
and reading for the midsemester exams
(it's weird that if you fail you fail here,
there are no second chances, except of course
if you pay for the course again and do it
all over and try that way..just have to
really put some effort into studying.)
Yesterday it was Lars's fairwell party at
the Rose, lots of people showed up. Lars
is flying back to Switzerland this sunday,
he's been here since July..he used to live
in my flat here in Geegal before actually so
that way I got to know him..

Now I'm trying to motivate myself to write
some of the next essay due tuesday but
really can't be bothered for some reason :)
Think I'm gonna wait and see how the weather turns
out, if it doesn't rain too hard I might
take a bus to Circular Quay and just go
for a walk in the Rocks, maybe take a course
book with me and find some nice café and study..
probably not though, those clouds are REALLY
getting dark..:)

University = Work

2006-03-22T11:53:00.000+11:00

Never thought I'd see the day, I really have to
work to get something done in uni :)

Last week was quite full of work and no play
with projects and assignments so there wasn't
that much to write about..when was the last time
I posted? Sunday? Think so, yeah, Taronga Zoo
and the Koalas and Kangaroos :) From monday til
wednesday I was packed with assignments
due that week, on wednesday we went out for
some beers at the university bar and had some
bbq here at Geegal, Friday it was St.Patrick's Day!
Because of that and Sarah and Viren's birthdays on
saturday we had to reschedule the Blue Mountains
trip for this coming weekend but it was well worth
it, we had a really nice night on saturday!
We had some chalk with which we wrote all kinds of
interesting facts of life around the courtyard,
had way too much to drink (well some did, at least
I had a good night and a happy morning..for others
aging seemed to be too hard to handle..;)

Sunday morning I spent (again) with my assignments
and for the afternoon I went for a long walk around
the city..from Surry Hills all the way to The Strand
and Myer and Westfield shopping centers (which were
really cool actually) and down to Darling Harbour,
Star City theaters, Fish Market, King Street Wharf
with some nice restaurants and bars, a capoeira
festival and various irish-minded people still partying
away St Pat's, took some nice pictures in the sunset
and walked back to Geegal for a BBQ organized by
the Resident Network..It was nice to just walk around
and do touristy things for a change, better not
to get stuck here in Geegal :) Although it was not
without drama, my afternoon walk, as I nearly got mugged!
These two representatives of the indigenous population
of Australia jumped me in a park near Central Station
(where else?) and clearly tried to get me to stop and
they were trying to drive me in a corner..luckily I
was aware of what was going down so I could do some
evasive manouvering :) Anyway, I managed to evade them
and run a few steps away, after some ten paces I looked behind
me and they were gone. Probably the most feeble attempt in the
history of petty muggery, clearly they didn't know what
they were doing but points for trying all the same :)

Tuesday it was back to uni and International Business, but
my hard work paid off for the first time as I received
90% from my essay that I'd been working the beginning of
last week! "Identify two ways in which globalisation has
affected Australia over the last ten years. Assess the strenght
of protectionism in Australian domestic politics. Should
business be concerned with the political impact of
globalisation?" ..fairly easy, for an exchange student
that has little or no idea of Australian domestic politics,
development of trade and investment relationships etc..:)
But with hard research and some deep contemplation
I obviously did OK :) In the evening we went for a movie
at QVB, or the Greater Union movie theatre, went to see "The Hostel"
which was, lacking a better word, sh*t :D They just don't make
horror movies like they used to..

So what next..friday to the Blue Mountains (FINALLY!),
back on saturday and sunday morning 7.30 off to
a colourful trips adventure trip,
Canoeing in the Royal National Park and then a long
four day wait for the Melbourne trip to see the Formula 1!
I am really really excited about that, keep checking
twice a day I still have my ticket and thinking about
everything I need to take with me..(money, toothbrush, ticket
and a Finnish Flag!) I just bet I'm going to write about
those trips for ages :)

Unfortunately I've been a bit lazy with my camera, first
I forgot it on St.Pats and then I noticed my batteries were
dead on saturday..so I have to ask for pictures from people
who had their cameras with them, before I can post any pictures
but I did get some nice shots during my afternoon walk so
here goes something :) I'll be back again, maybe in a month or so! :D

PS. Couldn't add pictures again, something wrong
with the server so I'll try again later..

And the award for being lazy writing the blog goes to..

2006-03-11T18:48:00.000+11:00

..ME! Yes I know..sorry :) It's just that,
it's been REALLY busy this last week, since
I took off to that harbour cruise I was talking
about..AND I forgot to take my camera with me
so I have to add a picture of that later when
I get some pictures from Flattie-Mark..But
anyway, here comes a quick day-by-day
summary..As you can also see, I added some
additional pics to last few posts, those I
HAVE been trying to add every now and then,
but this site has been unbelievably
clogged, one night I tried over an hour to add
just one pic, and it would try to upload it
for a while before telling me that the server
is busy or network unreachable
or just give me the old 404 error..but
today I finally managed to get through
(probably because it's morning in Europe..)
But, here goes!

On friday evening we indeed went for the
cruise, which sailed from Cambell's Cove in
the Rocks. There were probably around
150 of us, and it was nice to notice how much
people I already know, some by name and many
many more from "somewhere", so
that I can just go and chat to people and
vice versa. We sailed first one wharf away
from the Rocks and there was a Pizza Hut
car waiting for us! :D They delivered about
70-80 pizzas with lots of different fillings,
and at the wharf before
boarding the ship we were given two drink
vouchers for beers..
the cruise itself lasted about 5 hours, taking
us all around the Sydney Cove area, way deep
down to the west and back again
and almost to Manly, around to Darling Harbour
and back to the Rocks..we had a dj, open bar,
competitions but mostly we just sat
on the deck, enjoying our beers and the scenery..
after the cruise we stopped for a night cap at
the Sydney Opera House Bar, and were merrily surprised
as there was a live jazz band playing! Starry sky,
warm evening, nice lighting, chilled white wine and
jazz..really nice.

Saturday we had to get moving early as it was
the day of the MARDI GRAS!!! Oh boy, did we have
a blast! I went there with Mark and his Dutch
friends I know as well, and they had decided to
dress up for the occasion..so we had a cowboy,
angels, cow-girls, me as a soldier..nice flashy
group of noisy happy people celebrating the
occasion :) First we stopped by at Darlinghurst
to get ready and around 5pm we went to
Taylor Square on Oxford Street to wait for the
parade..I must say, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras parade has earned it's name
through and through :D The people, the
general attitude, the whole environment
and mood was just so..open :) It was fun to see
people show up in such a large numbers to celebrate
equality and love, and especially the parading
troops were doing that to the letter :)
After the parade we stayed for a while,
got some crates to sit on in the middle of
Oxford Street, drinking wine and
singing, talking about all the important things
you can think of at 2 am after a couple of bottles
of wine..:) I headed home earlier than the rest
and went to bed already at 3.30..just to be
woken up by noisy and jolly Sarah and Mark who
had been trying to call me (my phone was on
silent alarm), and were absolutely certain something
horrible had happened to me at 7 am..and when they
got me up and awake, everyone else went to bed :D
Without further hassle, I went to sleep as well
and slept well into the afternoon on sunday :)

Sunday was mostly for schoolwork, writing a couple
of reports for tuesday and wednesday, and
talking with Elisa..Basically my following week up until
thursday was luckily quite uneventful, studying, doing
lectures and tutorials, writing and reading..monday
was Oscars-night here so we just watched that
on TV, and decided to go see one of the movies
on tuesday..so the next day, as tuesday is half-price
movies in Australia, we went to see Syriana..quite
good, but a bit too heavy for the current state of
mind..Wednesday was the International Women's Day, and
as I had lectures only from 12-16 on thursday we
sat out in the courtyard with most of Geegal,
just chilling and talking late..We stopped by
at the Loft which is our Uni's Student Union
Bar, but it was quite quiet so we just hung out
here where it's safe and close to home, got some
kebabs from the 5-star Kebab place near Scubar,
the YHA backpacker bar on George :)

Thursday we finally got started with one of the biggest
projects this semester, the Marketing course
analysis we are supposed to do in a small group from
my tutorialgroup..we decided to analyse the marketing
of a small restaurant in Newtown, where one from my
group is working in as a waitress, and did some
preliminary work on how to proceed with the project.
That took us most of the afternoon after classes,
and after I stopped by at our gym to pay for the sunday
canoeing trip and a quick lunch and shower I went to Darlinghurst/
King's Cross with the dutch people again..they wanted
to see some of the clubs at the Cross that have been
praised by the locals, and I hadn't been there
before either so I joined them for the evening..
we went to this funny Milk Bar place which was actually
quite classy, and from there to a hotel lobby bar called
"The World Bar" and finally to "Empire", a big big
night club in the heart of the Cross..good, eventful
but still quite peaceful evening, we headed home around
3am, sharing a cab to Chippendale..after I got home and
took a shower, I called Elisa and talked with her again
to 6 am :D..I don't know what it is, but just knowing
that I can talk to her and actually hearing her voice,
seeing her on the webcam makes the fact that I only
get about 5-6 hours of sleep quite unimportant :)

On friday morning I got a phone call from Jane, the
organizer of most of the UTS trips and adventures,
and she told me that Colourful Trips had had to
cancel the Canoeing trip (leaving it a bit close,
as I was supposed to go on sunday!)..well,
I told them that I'll wait for the next trip that
is on 26th of March and now I am going then,
provided they come up with enough people to go..:)
After that I tried to plan something for this
weekend and decided I'd go to Taronga Zoo
on saturday and maybe to the Aquarium on Sunday.
In the afternoon I headed for Bondi beach and
met with some Austrian and French exchange students
I met during Orientation Weeks at UTS..we played
some soccer and tried to fight the huge waves for
a while, which proved out to be quite futile..:D
I was originally supposed to try some surfing with
Arnold, who has taken the course and promised
to give me a quick idea of the theory, and then
try to stay on the board for even those few crucial
meters after which you could with good conscience
say that you have surfed in Australia :D But alas,
Arnold didn't quite make it as he had a bit
bigger night out at the Cross than I did :)
In the evening I met with Allison and Kate from
Geegal, and we hiked from Bondi all the way down
to Coogee along the Bondi-Coogee Beach Walk,
which was actually really nice and beautiful..
busride from Coogee to Newtown and back home
and to bed (of course, after chatting half
the night away with Elisa..;))..I guess we
just want to keep in touch as much as possible now
that it is free over the internet, when she starts
her training period in hospitals along the spring
months we won't have as much possibilities to talk
as we do now..so better to make the best of it!
(Yeah I know, we will still be talking probably
just as much then as we are now, but being in love and far far
away from the one you love..what is enough? :D)
No but seriously, having been able to stay so much
in contact has, for us, made it just so much
easier to bear the separation, and I know
it will stay the same even when she is working
as there will always be opportunities to
call, over the internet or with calling cards and
whatnot..and I am so much thankful for this wonderful
thing called technology for enabling us to hear
from each other so often, without having to
worry about costs..

Hmm..where was I..? :D Oh yes indeed, today..
We went to TARONGA ZOO with Mark for the day!
I'll post some pictures here as soon as I transfer
them from my camera again, now I've been sitting
here for so long that I think I'll do that
at some later time..but I saw a Koala and a
Kangaroo and a Lion and a Snow Leopard and a
Crocodile and a Rhino, a Giraffe, and and and..
I mean, the Zoo was really, really BIG! They had
just about everything (except an elephant, because
they were waiting for a new couple that was in quarantine
at the moment..), by far I have to say, one of the
best experiences all semester so far!! I liked, really much..
we set off to Circular Quay in the morning and took a ferryride
to the Zoo, then on a skyrail to the top of the hill on which
the zoo is situated and worked our way around the whole zoo
during the day until closing time at 5pm, checking out
a seal show and a free flight bird show where the birds
REALLY CLOSE to over our heads and did tricks and everything..
so cool :) I got some really good pictures of the animals
and from the Koalas especially, as there was a possibility
to go inside the cage with a keeper for a short photo
shoot session :) I'll post the pictures real soon so that
you can see what I'm talking about, promise!!!

I started to work on this blog as soon as I got home
because I started to think on the way home
how lazy I have been writing this, and I've been
at it for almost two hours now :D ..so I think
I'll take a short break now, and continue maybe
tomorrow with the pictures!!!!

3m30d13h54min..

2006-03-03T15:20:00.000+11:00

..Before me darling comes to Sydney! :) Just
changed to under 4 months yesterday, how does
the time fly by! :)
Indeed, I promised to write about the faculty welcomes,
the abseiling trip, the Tropfest short movie festival..
and of course start of courses, lectures, tutorials
and everything at the university! I just got back
home, I did a long jog around
Ultimo and the edge of Newtown and had a quick
cool shower, now sitting here writing to you before
my next activities :)

My faculties, that is IT and business had their
welcome parties on thursday and friday. At the IT
welcome there were only about 60-70 people, so we
were taken well care of during the speeches and
introductions, as there was wine,
beer, soft drinks, pastries, variety of different
kinds of cheeseand crackers..quite nice, I met
lots of nice people from the IT faculty, new and
old students, professors..after that we went to
Lansdowne Hotel with RN (resident network) and some
Geegalians and Gumal people (another student residence
near uni) for some cheap eats. Lansdowne is a
hotel with a restaurant nearby where you can eat
5$ steaks provided you buy a drink with it, lemonade,
beer, wine..we filled over 3/4 of the restaurant, and
most of the people I already knew or at least got to
know during the evening :) After that we stopped
by at Gumal rooftop for a small party they had put
together there before heading back to Geegal..somehow
it was again almost six before I got to bed, and slept
long into the afternoon the next day. On friday the
business welcome was pretty good as well, the australian
mentality shows in the attitudes and relaxed atmosphere
amongst the faculty, as even though there were
approximately 200-300 people the occasion
was really unformal and laid-back from the beginning.
Friday evening I spent trying to get hold
of the person arranging the abseiling trip I was
supposed to go come saturday morning, and finally found
out her phone number and was able
to get some details..(she had emailed me everything
I needed to know, but had mispelled my address).

For some unexplainable reason I managed to set my
alarm clock into finnish time and was fast asleep
saturday morning when I was supposed to head
of to Wahroongah Cliffs for the abseiling :D I
woke up at nine and two minutes after that I was
running for the Redfern Train Station :) Of course
there was some major problems with the North Shore Line
and we had to change to a bus at Wynyard Station in the
Central Business District..two hours later I finally
arrived to Wahroongah, just missing all the theory and
safety issues :D Luckily I've done abseiling in the
army so I had no problems getting the equipment ready
by myself, and I was actually the first one to go over the
cliff! I have to admit, though I knew exactly what to
do, it's been what, 5 years since I've tried it last
time and I was TERRIFIED the first moments,
when you can't see what's below you, where to
put your feet next, before you lower yourself enough
to see what to do next.

During the day I did 6 or 7 abseils from 4 different
marks, last one being a free drop from an overhang,
some 25-30 meters down..excellent weather,
nice people, adventurous spirit..we had such a
good time! I was actually supposed to go on sunday
as well but for some reason that trip got cancelled,
so I stayed up late on saturday as we had a back-to-
school party at Geegal..though that got cancelled
around 7.30pm by the police! :D The party was moved to
Gumal rooftop but didn't really get going again..so
I just headed home pretty early. Sunday was the Sony
TropFest day, Australia's biggest short movie
festival! over 700 movies were submitted of which
16 were chosen to be judged by a jury consisting
of the actors Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, Simon
Baker, Rose Byrne and directors Philip Noyce and
Greg McLean!

The TropFest took place in the Domain, near the
Botanical Gardens, and I must say people weren't
kidding when they said that you need to be there
early to get a decent place to sit and watch the
movies! When we got there around 3pm (that's 5
hours before one movie was shown!) there were
about 30000 people.. at 8pm the amount
had climbed to a record 90 000!!! The festival
was aired to giant screens in Hobart, Melbourne,
Brisbane and Canberra, setting the
total viewer body to 124 000! Unfortunately
I had to leave after the first 8 movies as the
Olympic Hockey Gold Medal game between Finland
and Sweden was
just about to begin..and luckily I did, as just
after I got on the bus it started to rain like no
tomorrow! The torrential rain as the newspapers
called it, beat the ground around The Domain into
this Woodstocky mudpit :D
I have to say, I have seen rain that intense
probably under 5 times in my life, sewers flowed
over, on the streets there was water half way up
your knees..
unreal. And on top of it all, when I got
home I found out that channel 7 wasn't going
to air the hockey game live, but instead show
a rerun on tuesday!!! ARGH!

I had to make some quick decisions
and after calling a few pubs, asking if
they got eurosport and one after the other
telling me that they were watching ManU
play Liverpool I decided to go for a radio
webcast from Finland..which worked fabulously
in the end!! One of the best feelings I have
to admit,hearing finnish language from the
computer, from one of the most historical
hockey games ever!

..too bad we lost! :D

Anyway, after that bitter defeat I had a quiet
monday, getting ready for my international
business lectures on tuesday morning and soon
enough, tuesday morning there I was sitting in a
class at Markets Campus of UTS! Tuesday Int.Business
9-13, Wednesday Internet Commerce 9-12 and Thursday
Marketing Foundations 12-16, that's my timetable
at the moment..what I have to say about academic
unilife in Australia so far..? Well..the lectures are
a lot more interactive than what we have in Finland.
Discussions, opinions, debates..not quite what you
get used to in Finland, sitting there nodding,
usually more from boredom than from being of the
same mind of things..the tutorials
are like being back to high school..you get assignments
to do for the next´tutorial, prepare some discussion
topics, answer given questions about certain sujects
and so on. There are assignments you need to return
weekly to receive 30% of your final grade and one
major project due before
the end of lectures. All in all it would appear
to be quite effective, having only three courses
don't seem that bad anymore as I have my hands full
as it is :) So with uni, jogging, touristing,
adventure tripping, trying to remember to eat and sleep
every now and then, having a social life as well..I
think I got my days packed until late june :D

Huh..:) Long story..that's what you get for not
writing regularly, have to catch up with everything
that has been going on. I'll be heading for a
Harbour Cruise in 30 minutes so I have to start
getting ready soon, it's arranged by our uni so
should be fun..I'll add some abseiling pics soon,
just need to transfer the pictures from my camera
to the computer
first..

Uni Tomorrow

2006-02-27T19:03:00.000+11:00

Hello again!

Just a quick post, I've been adding pictures all day
(the connection is getting really slow to this site,
I just wonder how many people are blogging with
Blogger these days..) so I thought I'd mention
it just in case..so now there are some pictures
added to almost every post I've made since I got
here!

Later on this week I'll write something about
the faculty welcomes we had on thursday and
friday, and about last weekend and my abseiling/rappelling trip
to Wahroongah, and the Sony Tropfest
short movie festival in the Domain on sunday
that went compeletely Woodstock with rain and
thunder halfway through, with 90 000 people
watching the movies and getting soaked in
the horrible weather!
And also how uni's going, as tomorrow I'll
be starting my lectures..I still got 10 days
to decide if I want to add an elective subject
to my timetable but so far I haven't found anything
really really interesting, except for some
language studies but I'll keep leafing through
the course handbook. At the moment I have
three subjects on tuesday, wednesday and thursday,
International Business, Marketing Foundations and
Internet Commerce, and judging from the course
outlines they should keep me pretty occupied
as here they are really keen on essays and
homework instead of learning at lectures..

But now I got to run, as I am going to.
Run that is, it's been raining most of
the day today also, but now it would
seem to clear a bit so I thought
I'd go for a little jog around the
Victoria Park and Sydney University
campus area!!

Orientation Weeks Full Ahead!!

2006-02-20T14:31:00.000+11:00

Oh boy oh boy!!!

At the moment I am just too excited :)
Just this morning I confirmed my reservation
for two trips during march-april, told Claire
I would be joining her and her crew at
the south coast for easter and received confirmation
that I indeed have been approved for the
subject activities I applied for, meaning that
I'll have school only tuesday to thursday!!
Means long weekends, places to go, things to do!

The trips I mentioned, a daytrip to the
Royal National Park up north, canoeing
all day around the park which sounds really
nice, and best of all, a long weekend in
Melbourne, with the Great Ocean Road, some rugby
and THE FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX!!! It's only
330 for the trips and accomodation and 70 dollars
for the grand prix general area admission,
so cool I can hardly wait. I already asked Claire
if I could have her HUGE finnish flag with me
and she said it's ok! :D Really really waiting
forward to it..Other than that, the Blue Mountains
Saturday I might have mentioned earlier is still
on so we'll be going there first saturday of march
with Cristy my flatmate and other ppl who feel like
going :) If I could only find someone to go up
to the Hunter Valley with me I'd be more than happy
with what I achieved during these few months :)

At first (or say, after the first two, three weeks)
I felt I should be doing something about the trips
and going right now and doing everything, but
now it feels I got a bit too much on my plate :)
I guess it's just that when you are abroad for
such a long but still such a short time,
not really a long stay but a bit longer than
your average vacation you kinda feel you should
at the same time learn to just enjoy the place and
get to know your "hometown", but also have some
plans to go out and see what the surroundings have
to offer..anyway, now I'm quite satisfied with my
preliminary program until July.

And yes, the orientation week is still going on
strong, the Cocktailparty and the PubCrawl..well..
yeah :D I guess if you have to spend one day hung over
the day after that was as good as any. But on the
bright side, I got to know loads and loads of new
people, saw the Rocks area by night, and even saw
the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship parked in front
of the opera house! I only managed to find two
"oldest pub in Sydney" -pubs, then went to the
Harbour View Hotel that had a really nice view
of the Rocks and the harbour area in general
and finally to Jackson's on George, this huge
bar/pub/disco thing with cocktails two for the
price of one..first and last mistake of the evening :)
On thursday I had a well earned day off, got some
takeaway, bought the Apollo 13 Collector's DVD I've
been wanting to buy ever since I saw it at blockbusters
and just took it easy all day. Friday was packed with
all the mandatory orientation classes we had, I was
smart and fitted them all on the same date..Now I
know how to write and speak academic english and how to get to
and find my way around the library..the essentials
in other words :) Friday evening was a sports night
as I went to the North Sydney Oval with Claire and her
friends to watch a friendly preseason AFL-match
Sydney Swans vs. Essendon Bombers..tight game and we
lost only 73-99! :)

Saturday was really great in every way. The weather was
absolutely beautiful, we went to the Rocks with Mark
and his friend whose name escapes me at the moment..we
did the Opera House and from there walked to the Botanical
Gardens just to walk on the grass, hug the trees and smell
the roses as it says on the sign when entering the gardens..
in the evening we had a few drinks in the courtyard and
went to see a live gig at Paddy Maguires, an Irish Pub
on George..I have to see I have rarely seen a cover band
get that much motion from it's crowd..at the beginning
of the set people just sat around, watched ManU play
against Liverpool, drank their beers and whatnot..at
the end of the second set the place was going absolutely
bonkers! :D I mean, they were GOOD. I was there with
my Austrian friends Chris, Katia and Kirsten
(I think I should at some point just list the people
I've met, that would be the longest post yet :D),
Chris has the same passion for music as I do so
we both were really happy we decided to go after
the gig, actually the band is playing there
today as well, and we're really considering to
stop by just for the music :D

Anyway, yesterday we went to Manly Beach for the
whole day, got home at around 7pm, and now it
really shows that I've been in the sun :)
I didn't get burned but really, really tanned..
funny thing is, though I've been at the beach
quite a few times already, I haven't been
burned once, or my skin hasn't peeled at all..
guess I'm naturally adapted to the australian beaches
and the sun here :)

Today is the second milestone of the orientation week
as local first year students arrived and started their
orientation activities..there's nothing really interesting
for the international students except a few lectures tomorrow
and the day after, but free BBQ still got some support
from the international body as well! Now I'm heading
off to the Broadway Shopping Center to get a haircut
and some general groceries, but I'll be posting again
soon!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2006-02-14T21:47:00.000+11:00

..If only my Valentine was here with me..but
no worries, only 4 months and 16 days to go
and then we'll have a one-month-long valentine's day
together :) I'm spending my valentine's day doing
nothing special, just want to conserve my energy
for tomorrow, we're having some orientation lectures,
I have to pick up a new keycard to Geegal, my Medibank
insurance card..and in the evening there will be a
cocktailparty and a small Bar Crawl in the rocks..I'm
waiting forward to that since I haven't been to the
rocks in the evening yet, only during the day.

I've been quite busy this last week or so! Uni started
on monday finally, orientation weeks are at full speed
at the moment. So yesterday there we were, hundreds and
hundreds of students from over 80 countries, all ready to
start the academic year here at UTS. In the morning
we were greeted by the faculty, international office
and housing, there was a traditional welcoming seremony from
an aboriginal singing group with dancing and singing and
of course the didgeridoo (I really need to go to one of
them shops and learn to play one some day!), we met with
the peer network people, students who are working these first
two weeks to help us with what ever we might need help with,
had a great lunch with them in Chinatown at a very nice
restaurant, had a bbq at UTS great hall and an acoustic gig
at "The Loft", which is our own bar at the uni. In the evening
we came to Geegal as it started raining so we just decided
to have a big night in :)

I probably met about 50 new people yesterday, some from Geegal,
some from the other housing units, some just at the orientation.
Social behaviour is very different when you're talking about
exchange students, so much easier to just go and talk to someone
since you always have something to talk about, being from different
countries, studying different subjects, living at different places.
But all in all it would seem that studying at UTS is going to be
a good experience, academically as well as socially.

Other than that, the end of last week was pretty hectic
as new people showed up here everyday, had to show them places
and guide them to uni and everything, get to know all the new flatmates..
luckily I have a good flat here, Sarah, Cristy, Mark, Bethany and Jeffrey
are all quite tidy so flat 8 is one of the cleanest ones in Geegal :)
We didn't go karting in the end, but to Luna Park instead!
that was heaps of fun with all the different machines and games and
stuff, we were there around 7pm so it was nice and cool, without too
much people so we didn't have to queue to get to the rides. Saturday
was a beach day, just chilling at Bronte all day, working on the tan.
On Thursday and Saturday I went jogging so all in all I've also
managed to take care of myself instead of just going to bars and
sleeping and eating :) I didn't do the Tower thing just yet
either, many people that arrived here were also interested so
we talked about doing it together as a group some day..

Now I'm just waiting for Elisa to come home from school so I can call
her before going to bed, she should be home in two hours.
I just hope my Valentine's Day card arrived today, I mailed it
over 10 days ago!

Carpet Shampoo Day

2006-02-08T11:50:00.000+11:00

Long time no see :) I usually come to uni to
write this blog as it saves my traffic quota
on the Unwired plan and this site has become
pretty popular lately (blogger.com in general,
not my blog), and I haven't been here that
long these past few days that I would have
had time to write.

Last week..I actually didn't accomplish that
much all week :D Most of the time we've been
just welcoming new students, getting them
settled in, seeing the sights..getting
accustomed to Geegal Standard Time
(sleep at five, up at three)..well no,
I still manage to go bed early and wake
up in the morning, just so nice to
talk to Elisa the first thing every day,
as it is for her to talk to me last before
going to bed :) Also Uni starts next monday
so getting ready for that has also been
on the agenda, I've been checking out
the campus and course materials from the web etc.

There's also been lots of cleaning to do
at Geegal, start of the year -type of
activities. All week these carpet cleaners
have been going through the appartments and
today they came to our flat so there's
some serious shampooing going on there at
the moment.

But really, what have I been up to..Well,
I've continued to collect some prices
for the trips I've been planning, and
all in all it would seem wisest to go
to the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley
within about a month or two from now,
and then if I really can afford and want to go
to Uluru for example, it would be in May/June.
There are still loads of stuff I want to do
in Sydney as well too! I got this brochure
for the AMP tower skywalk and I'll probably
go there next sunday or saturday, it should
be more diverse experience than the bridge
climb..(cathy did it once and she said
that it was kinda boring in the end..)
then there's a chinese lantern festival at Darling Harbour
next week and some good movies on at
the moonlight Cinema in Centennial Park, so
if I have time from Orientation I could ask
around if people would like to go see something,
have a picnic etc. Friday I'll be going for Go Go Karting
with Claire and the boys, haven't seen them
all week!

Other than that, I've really gotten interested in snorkelling
(snorkling? snorkeling?). On wednesday I did this
long walk around Sydney (Again), and checked some
local sports utility shops. I walked all the way to the
Domain and Lady Macquaries point overlooking the
Sydney Opera House and stopped for a pie at
Harry's Cafe de Wheels at Finger Wharf (where
by the way Russel Crowe has his penthouse that
he uses when his band is playing in Sydney),
I also walked around Hyde Park and stopped to
watch these old geezers play chess on this big
board painted on the ground and pieces as big
as a small kid, so I did quite a tour that day.
Anyway I found then a nice set of snorkel,
glasses and fins for 70 dollars from Rebel Sports
at World Plaza and bought them. It got
pretty cold, cloudy and windy towards the
weekend so just last monday I finally got around
to trying them in action. Worked fabulously!
I went to Clovelly Beach which is said to be
quite ideal for snorkelling and it was indeed,
with a nice small cove with practically no
waves and lots of coral and fish. I forgot myself
there for nearly two hours, just floating around,
diving and exploring. I was planning to go
today as well, but might be I don't have time,
I'm leaving for some coffee in Glebe in a minute
and then we'll probably think of something..
but if tomorrow's a sunny day I am definetly going
back there!

Sunday was the long waited Chinese New Year's Parade,
which we went to see and celebrate with Carlos
and Solene. Not quite as flashy and exciting as
I excpected, probably because it was so early
in the day..but still lots of fun, big fireworks
and dancers and music all over Chinatown..

Monday we went to Scubar with most of the Geegalians,
it is this bar on Broadway, really popular amongst
backpackers and students (jug of beer 6$ all night,
competitions with free surfing trips etc.)
Oh yeah, and we had a small bbq kinda thing before
without the actual bbq (since nobody remembered to clean
it after last summer :D), but we did have some great salad
and kangaroo! Tasted actually quite nice. :)

Oh darn I have to run now, otherwise I'm not gonna find
the place we're going :)

More to follow shortly!

Beachdays

2006-02-02T17:45:00.000+11:00

Hello again friends and relatives!

Just stopping by at the uni, so I thought I'd post
the latest news from down under! Been quite peaceful
these last two days, I've mostly been just getting to
know the surrounding areas around Geegal and UTS,
doing some shopping to get all the essential stuff I need
(towels, cups, coffee..) and spending time with my
fellow Geegalians.

On tuesday I did a long walk to University of Sydney and
the campus grounds, they have a pool just nearby so
could be I might go there for a swim some morning.
I got home and took a nice two-hour nap, guess I was
still feeling knackered from the moving and everything
the day before. In the evening I started walking, and
ended up all the way to Pott's Point and King's Cross!
Took me about 2 hours to get there and altogether I must've
walked around 12km, but it was well worth it! I had done
a drive-by tour of King's Cross earlier and during the
day, but now had the chance to see the area by night
and on foot.

The King's Cross area is known to be the cocktail of the
high and the low of Sydney (where for example say, Redfern is only the low,
or CBD the high..), and now I understand why. Side by side
in King's Cross you have posh upper-class housing,
villas with beautiful scenery down to the seafront and
fetish shops, striptease joints and brothels to satisfy
even the most demanding customer, the people crisscrossing
the streets during evening and nighttime are eccentric just to
be politically correct, and the gay/lesbian/bisexual/otherwise undecisive
scene is very alive and kicking, especially as the
G/L Mardi Gras is growing near again. All in all the areas
around Oxford St., Darlinghurst and King's Cross were
a delightful surprise, as despite the dodgy setting the
atmosphere was quite, well..in lacking of a better word, gay :D
still somehow these two opposites of society manage to
get along side by side, during the day you don't have a clue
of the going-ons by night :)

As I retreated to the common garden of Geegal we got to talking
with Carlos and Andy, and sat there almost to sunrise. No problem
though as after the two long walks I wasn't planning to do
anything too demanding the next day :) I slept well in to the
afternoon and headed for Manly on wednesday, with the intention of
getting myself a snorkel on the way..unfortunately the shop I went to
had sold out all snorkels except the most expensive ones, so I
have to do some more shopping on that front. There are some
excellent snorkling areas near the beaches, if you have
some adventurous spirit to hike a bit. Of course one must
always be careful not to get sucked under or away when swimming
in non-guarded waters, the rip torrents here are quite strong and
every year swimmers meet their watery fates when swimming where
they shouldn't, or even sometimes when in safe areas.
Actually on some TV-channels there are ads that advice
how to act when caught in a rip, which might come in handy
if the worst should come to happen. What else..well, some
noodles for dinner and a movie before going to bed, nice
quiet peaceful day.

Today was too hot to doo much anything, probably one of
the hottest days so far. I went to Bronte Beach for a swim
and visited the YHA to get a membership. YHA is the Youth Hostel
Accommodation, an international association to help backpackers
around the world to find cheap deals on travelling and accommodation.
I've been planning to do one or two trips while here, one to the
Blue Mountains and Hunter valley as I mentioned earlier, and one
to either the South Coast, Melbourne or maybe even all the way
to Adelaide (the drive between Melbourne and Adelaide is set
to be quite beautiful), or possibly to Alice Springs and Uluru
(Ayer's Rock). The Blue Mountains / Hunter Valley is easy to
do and go with friends or just by myself, the distances aren't big
and there are many cheap accommodation and travel options available.
The Great Ocean Road and Ayer's Rock expeditions on the other hand
are quite pricy as they take up to 10 days..One very tempting offer
I came across with was these two combined to a ten day trip
to Adelaide, Broken Hill, Flinders Ranges and Ayer's Rock for 1100
dollars, and I'd have to figure a way to get to Adelaide first..
I know it would be a financial suicide but then again..damn :D
Another one was basically the same but straight from Sydney
to Broken Hill for 1245 dollars..Uluru and the Outback, Great Ocean Road,
Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley..need to do some wise choices here.

I also asked a few people at the YHA about the best time to
go on one of these trips and they all agreed that now is not the
best time as it is simply boiling in the outback. Unless I can squeeze
a short vacation in march or april, might be I'll be doing the
Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley during weekends, and if I can
afford it, head out to the Outback in June before Elisa gets here
and after lectures end at the uni.

Before that I'm just waiting for the chinese new year's parade
that turned out to be scheduled for this sunday, and the food
market on saturday and lantern festival on tuesday or wednesday.
One evening I'm going to go to the Centennial Park to the
outdoor cinema, before autumn I also have to do the Bridge Climb
they have here, consisting of climbing on top of the Harbour
Bridge for some breathtaking scenery as they say..oh yes
and the AMP tower revolving restaurant, we were planning
to have a dinner with Claire, Cathy and their Mom one day there,
should be good views from up there..

Phew, fingers hurt from all this writing :)
But it's nice to do some planning on these
trips, feels like time isn't going to waste
here just doing nothing..these past two days
have been a bit quieter, and already I'm thinking
that I need to do something, not realizing I do
have 5 months to do everything I can possibly imagine!
(I know, have to be careful not to notice after 4 months
that I still haven't done anything :D)

Now I'm going to get some ice cream and head home,
either I'll head down to the opera house bar tonight
to listen to some jazz or then do absolutely nothing,
which doesn't actually sound all that bad, considering
every penny saved is a penny closer to the Uluru :)

True Geegalian

2006-01-31T09:41:00.000+11:00

So now I am officially a true Geegalian!
Took me all day yesterday to move in, but
now I'm here. I woke up in the morning around
8 am to finish packing, and around 10 I took
off from Cremorne..After a tormenting hour of
dragging my belongings in the intense heat,
travelling to Central by bus and making my way to
UTS, I fought with the Housing Services for
two hours because they couldn't get my VISA
to process, as I was trying to pay the rent..quite
frustrating, I called three numbers
(Finnish VISA, Australian VISA, Commonwealth Bank)
and they all said that the transaction needs to
be verified by phone but oh no, we don't do that
here because it always has worked so that you just
swipe that card here see and it works..

Finally I had to get their bank details (which aren't even
exclusive to the Housing Services, but a general
UTS account), and yesterday dad went to the bank
to transfer the rent from there..Anyway, once that
sorted out I took off and came here, to Boundary ST..
This really is a nice place after all, big big common areas
and good sized rooms with comfy beds..So no complaints
from me. I cleaned up the room and
some of the common area, unpacked and did few tours to
the Broadway Shopping Centre, bought cutlery, plates,
sheets, food, cleaning stuff..the essentials, and I was all
set and ready to rock around 8pm :) After that we got
some long-neck Tooheys from the Rose which is a small
pub down the road and just sat and watched the rain,
talked about life at Geegal (which by the sound of it is quite
unpredictable and fun :) The people I've met so far (Carlos, Andy, Alana,
Lars..) all seem very nice, the spirit withing Geegalians
is good so I think I'm gonna be just fine here..
We were planning to have small welcoming party to all new
residents this friday, but I do have also this birthdaything
up north with Claire I was invited to so I have to see how
things work out..

But here's my home now, I'll post some pictures once I get
around to it, probably when I take the laptop to uni
sincce their Wireless is lightyears faster than this one!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-29T15:09:00.000+11:00

As UTS is in the Ultimo district, neighbours with Chinatown,
there are clearly some festive signs in the air as today
is the chinese new year unless I am gravely mistaken..
I am at the uni writing this, and walked all the way from
Circular Quay first to Darling Harbour and from
there to UTS today, and on my way met
some dragons and lots and lots of festive chinese people :)

Luckily the weather picked up on thursday and it's been
absolutely beautiful since! Wednesday evening I went
to the Entertainment Quarter (formerly known as
Fox Studios), toured the area and went to see
Underworld-2-vampire-action-movie, with the biggest
coke and popcorn I've ever seen :D Guys at Cremorne
were working late so I was on my own for the night,
and from the EQ went off to listen some Jazz at
the Opera House Bar..This city keeps surprising
every day and night in new ways. There is always something
happening everywhere, and where ever you go there are people
relaxing, doing sports, music, eating, picnicking..
Must say this is the liveliest city I've ever been
in. You just can't get bored! (unless it rains, everything
here is centered around the concept of going outside and
doing fun stuff together :)

Thursday was Australia Day, which we spent at the Olympic
Site at the Big Day Out event. 9am-12pm, bands, music, shows,
50000+ people.. White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand were
without question the best shows of the day but quite good performances
stayed in mind from the local bands as well.
Me and Claire and the affectionately named "Kiwi-boys",
Q and Ivan got a surprise visitor from New Zealand
thursday morning, as Dave joined us for a long weekend.
Great people the New Zealanders, great sense of humour! :D
So with this group we headed for the Olympic Parklands
thursday morning. Ears ringing, tired from the excessive
heat and sun and jumping up and down all day, we
made it safely back home before midnight.

Friday morning dawned on a clear blue sky, with +35 degrees
forecasted for the afternoon..So what did we boys naturally
do? Headed for Bondi of course! So now that is over and done with,
because just as you don't drink foster's if you are a self-respecting
aussie, you don't go to Bondi Beach which is strictly for tourists! :D
But I must admit, I was duly impressed by the Bondi Burger with
it's super secret chilli recipe, just for that I am willing to
go there again. Maybe even twice :) After few hours of sunbathing
and swimming we headed back to Cremorne where we spent the evening
with white wine and tennis..which reminds me, I need to get
back home before the Australian Open Final today, Federer/Baghdatis..
think it was 7.30.

Saturday I snorkled for the first time! Was really fun, we headed
up to Manly Beach and walked a bit to a quieter place at the
waterfront. I think I floated around for an hour and a half just
bedazzled by the life underwater! I caught some glimpses
of bluebottle jellyfishes (i think that's what they're called),
and a group of divers sitting at the bottom of the sea training
hand signals :D I need to get myself some gear and go back soon,
or maybe trip up to Byron Bay soon..In the evening we had
some genuine aussie-bbq at Ivan and Q's friend's place
(she had her birthday celebrated traditionally with a bbq),
quite tasty I have to admit. Most of the evening I spent
explaining stuff about Finland. I've noticed
the thing that get's the most attention is the Lapland and
it's nightless nights during the summer and dayless days during
the winter..Understandably that must be quite exotic in comparison :)

So all in all this week's been full of activities, and I still
haven't moved more than 50k's from the city center :D
I have been doing some preliminary plans now for some tours
I might go on later on this spring, and there are a few I'm really
interested in. There was this offer for a Harley-Davidson ride
for a weekend around the Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley areas,
were you can ride a HD-trike (bike with two rear wheels) with
a small group, accommodation, eating and a night out at a Hunter Valley
Vineyard was 950AUD..OK so I don't exactly NEED to pay a grand for
a Harley ride, but the offer did give me the idea to tour them both
with friends at some point. I talked with this guy Mike about possibly
going to the Blue Mountains on a hike with some people in march(Mike is Cathy's friend who does these hiking tours every now and then)
[Cathy is Claire's sister :D], so either with them or then with some people
from the Uni we could do a long weekend tour with hiking and some
wine tasting!! Other one was a tour to the outback and Uluru
(Ayer's Rock), but I'm still comparing prices for a long weekend.

Today I got up around 9 and did some laundry, then headed for town..
after a quick breakfast at the Rocks (great breakfast, juice,
sandwich and blues band playing :D) I walked to the Darling Harbour
and from there all the way to UTS, and now I need to find a way to get
easily from here to the QVB (queen victoria building) shopping center,
since there's a Woolworth's nearby there from where I can go buy
some linen to the new appartment..though I can do that tomorrow too,
since I probably move in on tuesday (because it's bingo night
at crow's nest :)..

But I'll let you know how the moving went once I get settled in
to Geegal!

WHAT'S WITH THE RAIN??

2006-01-25T16:11:00.000+11:00

Oh man..again raining, second day in a row, again!
I had planned to head off to Central again today,
maybe do some sighseeing around my school, but
it's rainy, windy and bleak..:(
Yesterday was the same, only picked up my bank card
from ANZ, finally arrived..but mostly it's been
just hanging out inside :)

Although I did help Fiona move her stuff to Crow's Nest
this morning, they're moving in together with Benson.
Then I thought I'd go see a movie at Hoyts
on George St. (BIG cinema), but nothing interesting was
on before 6.30 so I have to think about it again
in an hour or so..Yeah so anyway the morning went by packing
stuff and taking it to the car and unpacking at CN..

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing, just watched TV, a movie
in the evening and some pizza :) But the weather IS quite
sad..On monday I was at the beach finally! Manly beach and must
say even I stayed only for two hours I already got some
serious suntan going on..from Manly to Circular Quay via the
ferry, and around Rocks to Darling Harbour. From there after
some sighseeing I headed to UTS Housing office. There I met
Carlos who lives in Geegal so he took me there and showed
me around..quite an..interesting place I must say :D
But I guess I'll be OK there once I settle in, don't think
it's as bad as everyone here has said it would be..Redfern
I mean, the suburb. So good day's excercise, walking through
the town, met some people and saw my home to be.
In the evening we played some Bingo again at The Lounge
and what do you know, I won again! A fake moustache, champagne,
a cricket cap and a 25$ gift card to the bar :D
I opened my computer when we got home and Mikko from
Lappeenranta was online, so we chatted and had some beer
and before I knew it, it was 5 am again :D
Need to keep closer eye to the sleep cycle since it's so
well tuned to 11pm-07am at the moment..but it was fun though,
talking to lappeen ranta, hearing how things are there..

Feels like time is going faster now than last week since I'm
already quite settled in, and even I don't have that much
to do right now because of the rain, but I'm glad anyway..

Weekly Review :)

2006-01-22T22:08:00.000+11:00

Sunday evening! Been a eventful weekend in many ways..
Mostly I've been occupying myself with fixing myself
up with an internet plan from Unwired, a wireless network
service provider. 512/128 gives just enough bandwidth to
use a webcam and skype to Finland..

Wow, unbelievable feeling to see Elisa in Finland, and
my parents..on the more quieter times of the day the
delay is almost nonexistant. Big feelings in the air,
talking and seeing her, almost near enough to touch
but still million miles away..
But, one week down and some more to go before
I can go to the airport and pick her up :)

Anyway..after the Teppanyaki evening which was
on thursday, I had a full day fixing up the internet
on friday. The first plan I subscribed to was too slow,
but I did indeed see Elisa on the other end. That was
enough of a reason to party, of course, so we had a nice
evening with The Flatties here, that is to say Quentin, Ivan,
Claire, Cathy, Fi and Benson, playing finnish drinking
games (bussikuski and snap :), and then headed for the local
nightclub..poor Ivan really thought that he could drink
a finn under the table..needless to say that did not end
up so well :) But a good time we had, all around.
A quick burger at McDo and off to bed at 5 am.

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we headed up to Bronte
beach to do some serious sunbathing and played some
games. After that we had planned to do the town and
see this gig in Surry Hills with Claire's friends but
came home early as we both were pretty beat after
virtually no sleep..:) Before the beach I got
a new plan from Unwired and upgraded the speed of
the modem, so I am feeling pretty happy at the moment
as this is quite fast enough.

Today was supposed to be an honest day of rest,
but somehow I still ended up touring the Central,
CQ, Rocks markets, Central/Wynyard, Botanical Gardens
(there were huge bats!!), opera house, bus to Neutral Bay
and back home..now I feel doing some serious walking in my
feet, fresh out from the shower and relaxing..I also visited
Claire's moms house at Beecroft and bought some boarder
shorts and Hawaianas from Maqcuarie Shopping Mall.
Starting to even look like your authentic aussie! :)

Good Times

2006-01-20T18:09:00.000+11:00

And Hello again.

Updates..well, went to UTS yesterday, ferried to CQ and
walked along Pitt and then George st. to Broadway and UTS
(great shopping there, the Queen Victoria Building was AWESOME!)
I had time before my meeting with Kirk so I fixed up the
Wireless Internet the Uni is offering..woke up everybody in Finland
at 4.30 am to chat with me :D ..goes to show just how much I miss them.
Oh yeah, promised dad I'd call them so gotta do that next..
UTS was great, big campus with services and stuff, bet I'll fit
in just nicely..the surroundings were a bit dodgier than
I anticipated, the Chinatown is very next door and it shows..
Again got lost on the way back, had no idea how to get to
Neutral Bay but somehow got here in the end..took some advice from
hot chick on the bus, ended up worse off, my mistake :D
But good day all in all, evening with some Shiraz and the
Victoria's Secret Show.

Today..got up bit late (uu, 7.30am :D), did the dishes and cleaned up
a bit, then headed to NB to check on my bank card, hadn't arrived..
Then a take-away coffee and bus to Wynyard, felt like a true aussie
for a moment before got lost on my way from Wynyard to Macquarie Pl. :D
Then did some birthdayshopping and assisted a street performer to
juggle on a tightrope (I DID!), then met up with Cathy. Picked up Marty
and then headed to Double Bay to do some serious civic duty, I voted
at the finnish consulate! Quite cool...After that some serious chocolate
eating at some weird chocobar, have to check the name with Cathy..
found out that U can dip practically anything in chocolate..:)
Then a beer at The Pub, couple more at Belgian Beer Café and back
home.

The best part of the day however was the Teppinyaki at Coles shoppingmall.
Probably the best dinner I've ever had, this professional chinese chef
making food on by the table, throwing stuff around, making us catch things and
by every standard being an excellent chef..we had a blast! Loved it.
Now under blanket ready for bed and feeling quite stuffed..good day
and I have a feeling they'll just keep getting better and better :)

Getting The Feeling Of The Place..

2006-01-20T18:08:00.000+11:00

Man it's BARMY outside!! (new word of the day,
yesterday's was "pantry" :)..hot
and humid. Just got back from South Sydney, did the
Opera House - Circular Quay - Rocks - George St. -
Observatorium - Rocks - Circular Quay..only got lost
when trying to find my way back here from the ferry,
but only like 2 kilometers or something :D
Just gotta love this town..I can see me staying occupied
for quite a while finding out everything there is to know about this
town..

I indeed fixed myself up with a bank account and a
prepaid phone card so I'm pretty well set at the moment.
ANZ is looking after my finances and Optus keeps me in
touch with people. The evening was quite interesting
as we were in Crow's Nest, playing bingo hosted
by a drag queen stand-up comedienne :D Actually managed
to win a 25$ drink card :) Met a lot of new people again,
there were Claire, Me, Cathy, Luke, Martin, Benson, Fi,
Quentin, Ivan, Mark, Mike, Jackie, and about a dozen
other friends and friends of friends..:) We had a blast :)
Probably gonna meet up again on weekend, planned to have
a bbq at the beach if weather allows.

Now just laying down, looking
at tennis..feet are killing me! No big plans for
the evening, so probably just going to chill..
tomorrow I'll meet up with Kirk at UTS, check out the
places and get a short intro to the place probably..
Gonna be fun and nice to finally meet up with Kirk,
because we've been writing emails since april!

The Best City In The World?

2006-01-20T18:07:00.000+11:00

SYDNEY!

So here I am! Unreal..It's monday the 16th, got here yesterday..
Yesterday..:D Unreal, I was so jetlagged I didn't know which
way's which. The flights went fine, just that my entertainment
centers were bust on both flight to singapore and sydney, and were
a bit delayed both times.. So tried
to sleep with not much success, read books, missed Elisa..
did some deep contemplation of the upcoming weeks :D

Claire was there to meet me at the airport, was SO GREAT to see her
at last after all this time! Hit it off straigt away as usual :)
So drove here, I had a shower and a two-hour wannabe shuteye,
then off to town. Both had had litte or no sleep previous night
so you figure how wasted we were :) Quick breakfast at Maysies
and then off to do a tour around Sydney, drove around for two hours
and saw more or less what there is to see..I figured I could spend
a week for every hundred meters we got forward..:) Then down to
The Oaks to meet up with Claire's sister Cathy, her boyfriend Luke and boyfriend's
brother Martin. Few beers and started to feel that it's time to head
home before the total breakdown hits (the jetlag was at it's very worst at the time)
Here we just watched TV, put a Tarantino movie on and around 8pm I hit the sack.

..Until ten when rest of the flat appeared and tried to get me to
drink with them :D Well, quick night cap and back to sleep,
until two when woke up to rain (was pissing BONKERS)
..unreal but somehow I was able to remember their names this morning.
NOw feeling like a new man, plan is to head to the bank and
ask around about opening an account, see about some prepaid
phonedeals and just do some general touristy stuff..sun is shining
at the moment, aerosmith playing "living on the edge" in the stereo,
and I am feeling absolutely fabulously beautifully great :)

But hey about these ppl I am staying with. We got Claire of course,
my friend from way back (met her while studying at Lahti, she was
in Finland as an exchange student), and her flatties Fiona, Ivan
and Quentin. Fiona came to OZ aout a year ago and fell in love with
the place on the spot, decided that she never wants to leave
(who could blame her??), Ivan and Quentin..personalities of their
own I can say that :D But good guys, loads of laughs :)

Tripping The WORLD!

2006-01-20T18:05:00.000+11:00

Greetings from Paris!

So this is the proverbial _it_..I am officially on my way.
Last few days were great, so even more I felt torn two ways
this morning..Yesterday we just chilled with Elisa, pizza, wine,
good movie..just the way we wanted our last hours to go.
Much feelings at the airport ofcourse, but getting better already,
the travelbug is certainly doing what it is supposed to :)

So here I am, sitting at Bill Bentley Pub at Terminal 2D,
biding my time. My connecting flight leaves at 23.15 so I still
have few hours to kill. Quick SMS to Elisa and folks that I'm OK
(I know, I just left 3 hours ago..but that's just them..folks I mean,
I'd want to spend the whole 3 hours on the phone with E if I could
have it my way.), a well-earned Heineken and You my reader :)
Oh and now that I remember, a wholehearted thank you to the nice lady at the
registration desk who boarded me for Singapore-Sydney when I got here,
no need to search for a transfer desk now..They couldn't board me at
Helsinki-Vantaa Airport so I was supposed to find some desk or other here..:)

I just checked the flight status, still 3 hours before check-in..and then
a lovely 13-hour-flight to Singapore! Thank goodness my connecting leaves from the
same terminal I arrive to in Singapore, there's only an hour between so
it could have been tight otherwise, heard it's one mother of an airport,
sizeways :)

Note to self, wonder if shoes too small or something, pinkytoes
killing me!

Tomorrow.

2006-01-12T19:15:00.000+11:00

HNNNGG..*YAWN*

Good morning, sun shining, stretching out on the bed
and planning ahead for tomorrow and the following days
making my way to Sydney! Called Air France this morning
to make certain the flights were OK (They were indeed :D)
and called my parents to bring with my hiking boots, as
they're coming to send me off tomorrow to the airport..
I was reading about the blue mountains and decided I'll
probably be needing the boots at some point :)
Then not much, looking at a webcam from Sydney Harbour &
The Rocks district, need to get up and make some
breakfast but it's just too warm and fuzzy under the blanket
right now!

Not much planned for today, just spending time with Elisa
before having to part..:( In that respect I am not
liking this whole going away thing one bit, and really
hurts knowing she's hurting too, and really missing
her already..but no point spending
the remaining hours feeling bad, because I KNOW the 5,5
months will go past flying, and in July she'll be with
me in Sydney and I just bet it won't get any better
than that :) Just hope that the internet connection there
is enough for skype and a webcam over msn so that
we can keep in touch..Guess I'll let you know how it turns
out when I know myself :)

But now for breakfast, catch you on the flipside!!

Shopping..

2006-01-11T02:10:00.000+11:00

OK..last minute shopping done so now I should
be all set, except I need those special kinds of
socks you put on the morning you jump on a plane,
so that's a note to self..

But honestly, under 13 kilos on the backpack and
little over 8 on the carry-on..then again,
what else do I need but just the
essentials, the rest is for presents and the
random koala bear I can't stop from hiding itself
in my stuff :) I got 2 pairs of jeans, some
shirts, 6 t-shirts, 4 long-sleeved ones, a warmer
jacket for cool nights, sandals, sneakers,
bathroom apps, underwear, something to read on
the airplane..what else do you need??
Oh yeah, laptop.

Oh and I found the shoes I was looking for,
and even on sale!! Good day all around, late lunch at
Papa Giovanni's and home to relax and chill..
some garlic bread for dinner probably, fruit salad
and ice cream to top it. :)

Gonna miss this all a lot, but the travelbug's biting
harder by the minute too..mixed feelings
but guess that just how it is.

Poking around with the settings

2006-01-10T19:58:00.000+11:00

I'm beginning to wonder if this blog
idea was such a good one..took me
twenty minutes to get the formatting
just right :D

Or maybe it's just me ?

But alas, I very much fear I won't be having
the luxury of time to do this without the ease
of having someone else do the HTML for me..
But hey, we'll see how this turns out.

On my way..

2006-01-10T19:14:00.000+11:00

Hello Reader!

As the subject suggests, this blog is about a trip to
Australia and sunny Sydney a finnish exchange student
set upon January 2006. But before we get started let
me tell You something about myself.

Telling about oneself often tends to follow the same
well-used formula over and again, like describing
yourself on your first job application ever..but hey,
who am I to break the spell? So here goes :) My name is
Antti Reponen, I'm 23 years of age and currently residing
in Finland, northern Europe. I am studying Information
Technology at Lappeenranta University of Technology
on my fifth year, Information Processing as my major. I
occupy myself with various projects, I am the excursion
master at our guild (Cluster ry), vice president at the Student
Musicians' Guild (Teekkarimuusikot) and Toastmaster at
our Student Union (LTKY)..this and that and then some more.
I even maintain the deep-seated and deceiving illusion of
studying every know and then :)

I am ever so involved with this wonderful beautiful
lovable endearing girl, who currently studies medicine in
Helsinki.. our 250 km long-distance relationship is about to
get a couple of extra zeros to it, but with faith, hope and
love the distance will grow shorter by the day..At least it
will in July as she is coming after me to Sydney for a
month of backpacking through the East Coast :D

The idea to head off down under was born sometime a
year and a half ago as driving through southern Finland
to spend midsummer's at a friend's cabin. From there on
the process has been a long and tedious one, even so much
that I will spare you from the details at this point..:)
But with a clear image of the goal ahed (the hot beaches, the
wonderful people, the amazing country) things have worked
for the best and here I am, at the first pit stop on my way to
Sydney! Before Christmas I moved out of my old appartment
in Lappeenranta and stored my belongings to my parents' house
in Lahti. Yesterday I finally jumped on a train and officially
began my journey, as I'll be here with Elisa (previously known
as "girl" ;) for the remaining few days before friday..

Anyway, here I am now, writing to You and hardly able to stay
still for two consecutive seconds :D A brand new Lonely Planet -
Australia guide is waiting on the table to be read, memorized
and put to use in the most imaginative ways during the next six
months. I'm just about to head to town to do some last minute
shopping (shoes, shirts, something to read on my 32 hour flight
through Paris and Singapore before reaching Sydney) with Elisa
but I'll catch YOU later as my journey begins to unravel itself further!