About physiological need of haircut, Westender onboarding, THE Valley and The Pacific Ocean

Next thing I needed to get organized after finding a home and moving in was a hairdresser. I am not sure where this fits in terms of Maslow hierarchy of needs, but on my personal hierarchy levels having a well cut hair is pretty high up....no sorry, down as in a necessity in life. Women with short cut are rare sight in Australia and most of the ones I’ve seen are young Asian girls. Already within my time of homelessness I did a bit of scanning around to get an idea how this business works here and found out why women have long hair here, they cannot afford to go to hairdressers. Hear this out: half head foils and a cut for short hair go around 200-300 AUD. Wooohooo, better be good. Anyways, I have absolutely no options around this if I want to keep my style…and really, I don’t compromise with my hair. I want it to be well cut. So, last week I walked in to Guggenheim for Hair near Accenture office and booked a time. I had no special criteria but the place looked nice and the owner had a cool style.  Still, I felt like cheating. I have “another”.

I was more scared than excited when going there *Dear Guggenheim for Hair, please do not *uck up with this, pliis pliis pliis*. I got my third mug of “large long black to-go, no sugar” as here down under coffee overdose seems to be my way to deal with excitement and I believe that coffee and macaroon cookies can solve any problem in life. The waitress asked what’s up this afternoon and I told him I am on my way to a hairdresser and very scared. He used to be in the business earlier and gave me few recommendations in case “I see you tomorrow with pink hair, half shaved”. Haha, not funny…no…he was funny. At Guggenheim the lady with a cool style welcomed me warmly and got seated. I explained shortly how I been used to getting my hair done (million thanks to Salon Pacifique, Kaisa and Heidi. I miss you), what I wanted and she said “ok. got you” with confidence that put me at ease. I got my foils, I got more coffee (started feeling shaky already) and I got white wine which was a pleasant surprise. After 2.5 hours I was done and smiling. The world was off my shoulders and of course some hair above shoulders too and I felt I wanted to give the lady a hug (I didn’t). Just the way I wanted it and pretty much worth every cent, yay! Guggenheim got a new customer and I can move forward with other life necessities. Another potato. Check.

With updated hair it was good to start my very first Westender weekend. I had a good onboarding guide with me, dear Marijke who seems to like a lot of the same things as I do. So on Friday night we started from my place with sushi, sparkling, strawberries and talk about life and then headed to Boundary street which is THE street here and only 3 blocks away. Boundary is full of life and I love it. Life and Love both with capital L. Cool bars, restaurants, shops and variety of people…very West End as Marijke described. Our first stop was Sling Lounge. A rough around the edges drink bar with massive menu, I would say over 150 drinks. Being very thirsty we decided to skip the menu reading part and trusted the bartender to decide on our behalf and I asked for modern-martini-meets-mojito type of a drink. I got a drink called South Side, close to A21 Rhuba Martini, but to be honest even better (or maybe it was the West End adding on top of the drink for South side to win). I was all smile and Sling got a new customer. Continued to Lychee Lounge, another cool drink bar, for a glass of SB and then to Rumpus Room which kind of reminded me of Nolla in Helsinki. Rumpus is said to be the bar where all the foreigners go…but so far everyone I’ve met has been some sort of a foreigner so the description doesn’t really add any edge. About half of the people I have met have ended up in Australia because of love…majority of those people unfortunately breaking up later but deciding to stay as “life is so good here”. Another half are people like myself; men and women in their twenties and thirties in search of an adventure and/or needing a reboot but officially here with work. Everyone keeps always asking, “how long are you here for?” and every single time the question comes as a surprise and I mumble that I have absolutely no idea and get shocked by the fact that I actually said it out loud. Wake up woman, you have  no plan! Well, I do have a secret plan of returning to Finland in 2013 to make babies…but telling this kind of gives a weird impression as it leads to comment “oh, you’re in a relationship then” and I need to explain that the father position is still open but am very confident that by 2013 I have it solved too (Yes, two weeks ago in a bar I told this to a guy who was asking about my plans and got a reaction of “oooookay, lady you are out of your mind” and thought that I’d better keep this one to myself before I am labeled as the basket case from Finland).  But to the topic, on Friday night I went to sleep with a big smile on my face and was so happy to live in WE.

Saturday morning Marijke and I went to the famous West End market at Davies Park. Slightly hangoverish our first task was to get a proper breakfast and a big cup of coffee. The place was packed with people. Again, variety of people “so West End”. Our aim was to get coffee from Marijkes favorite organic coffee shop but it had about 30 m line and decided that 30 minutes is too long time to wait for your first cup in a hangover. So we got our non-organic coffees, a falafel pita for brekkie and went to sit under big Fig tree and listening to a very very alternative band play (they had something else than coffee in their mugs). Sun was shining, caffeine and falafels kicked in, I was with a lovely new friend and thinking “it’s mid winter here in Brisbane, this is pretty much the shittiest it can get. Not bad”. All smile again. After our breakfast we walked through the whole market place and numerous stalls selling nearly everything one can ask for: veggies, fruits, meat, fish, cheese, honey, nuts, coffee, tea, herbs, variety of ethnic food, handicraft artwork, clothes etc.  My favorite was a stand of veggies that where “grown to classical music “. You’re kidding me, is this a joke? It wasn’t. I got my fruits and veggies (veggies grown in silence) and macadamia nut muesli and headed back home. This will be my Saturday routine and Ansku B&B has a new dish of Greek yoghurt, passion fruit and macadamia muesli. Nam.

Saturday evening was booked for a bar tour around The Valley guided by Kalle. Well, we started from Powerhouse live music evening, got a bit of something to eat on the Riverside restaurant, drinks at Laneway and then headed to Valley which is THE party center of Brisbane, THE Valley that wakes up around midnight. Getting out of the cab I suppose my chin was closer to my feet than nose. Jeesuschristmotherofallagain, is this real? The streets were packed with people, very wasted people, heading from bar to bar and having a blast, like the graduation weekend in Finland. Girls were wearing extremely high heels and extremely short skirts. Seriously, short is re-defined here. To almost every third young lady I wanted to shout, ”Hey girl, you’re ass is showing btw!!” (I guess at this point my male friends who are still single/careless start searching for flights) I felt super old and super conservative. Welcome to Valley Ansku. Anyways the bars we went to were nice, saw luckily old & conservative soul mates and wanted to give them a hug too (I didn’t) and enjoyed the drinks. In most of the bars music was so loud it was impossible to have a conversation… but later on I realized maybe conversations are not the thing in Valley? With the skirts and shoes around the message was pretty clear and out there. Huh. But now I have seen it, and I think I need to digest this for a while. Prefer WE.

Sunday, again hangoverish, was kind of extempore trip to  Gold Coast. The first pit stop was @ Spit, surfer area about 2km away from Surfers Paradise. Seeing the ocean brought a big smile on my face, “finally, have missed you”. The smile happens every time and I cannot help it, sea is one of my life necessities and I can stare it for hours. I love the endlessness, sound and wind that makes you feel so very small, very free and very much alive. Be it in Kaivari or Gold Coast the feeling is the same; inhale, exhale, calm down and smile. I must admit that part of my smile went for the hot surfer boys (not imported!!) playing with waves and I could stare them for hours too…very talented J Anyways although Gold Coast is very touristy and not that pretty it is still somehow quite impressive for a Finn. And comparing the waves to those in Hietsu they were impressive too. The Pacific Ocean is impressive by default. We had lunch in a beach restaurant, went to try the water temperature bare foot and said see you soon. From Gold Coast headed to Kaija and Ross for a pizza night. Ross makes the best pizza ever and Kaija had made pulla. All smile again.

End of fun and games, coming home I started to read the sad news. I was shocked. Piece by piece the tragedy unveiled and the more I read the more sick I felt. A nightmare really, the world was on my shoulders again. From Sunday night until this moment I have been slightly out of place, missed a lot of sleep and feel heavy hearted. It’s somewhat difficult to deal with the tragedy without the normal safety net to process with…and I am the type of person who needs a lot of processing...these things shake my world. I have sent my condolence to friends in Norway, had my minute of silence yesterday 8pm and lit a candle. Hope a thought can bring strength to those needing it more than ever.

Love,

//Ansku

PS: After I get this post published I will eat Kaija’s korvapuusti to celebrate my dear cousin Mari turning 40 but looking no older than 30. She just sent me a msg that I am the only one from the “Varsinais-Suomen harrastelijateatteri” crew to miss the cake...darn…more for others and I will eat two pulla. Cheers and hugs and have an awesome Bday!

About bed warmers, coffee & culture and moving in

I survived my Saturday morning. Didn’t have that much of a hangover, woke up around 8am and managed to squeeze all my stuff to a suitcase which was a small miracle as I have done some shopping already. I had stayed 16 nights in a hotel and was very happy to move to Kaija’s for the last 3 nights. I paid for my stay, got a compliment of “looking so much younger than 31, how is that possible?” and replied that this is possible just because I come from a country where I am deep frozen and in darkness half of the year which prevents us Finns from aging. The receptionist said it was a funny joke and asked if it really is that cold in Finland. Well, it is not that cold but still my all time record of not wearing woolen socks in Finland is 21 days in  a row (record from last July-August period when it was extremely hot in Finland. Hot in so many ways) and that 21 days is a serious problem for a girl who hates coldness, so I ended up to this side of the world to warm up. She laughed and welcomed me to Australia to beat that record. Thanks, I hope I will.

With Brisbane winter I haven’t got pretty far with new record as nights are fairly cold here. Or not cold as in very low temperature but cold as the air is quite humid, inside too, which makes it more freezing. This is a déjà vu from San Francisco, by temperature you are supposed to feel warm but surprised by the lack of insulation. So I am still freezing during nights and wearing layers and woolen socks and it feels so very wrong after a massive life change and over 15000km distance to my loved ones. This night temperature is not part of the plan, can I make a reclamation for someone? Being very solutions oriented girl (from issues to outcomes) and knowing the importance of quick wins I came to a conclusion of needing a bed warmer. Yes, located in Brisbane West End/South Brisbane there is a position open for a hottie to do the job. Not asking much, one is enough if it works J Spread the word. Kaija took this seriously and on Saturday when I moved to their place she said that the first thing we need to do is to put up my bed. I kind of didn’t understand what’s there to do as I only need to put on the sheets. Anyways 5 minutes after I had dragged my suitcases to “my room” she comes carrying an extra mattress, very thin one. An electric mattress that  actually warms up. Winking her eye she said that as my Aussie Mom she needs to promote these “safe options” first before letting her precious adopted daughter fall for an living  one. We both were laughing out loud when putting the mattress on place, I so did not see this coming, I so didn’t mean this type of a hottie! Kaija says they are very popular here during winter time. Seriously, you put it on about 30 minutes before going to bed and it warms up the mattress and the blanket. After 4 nights experimental study I must say that it really works and it’s so much more convenient to go to bed without needing to dress up in layers and feeling very warm. Still, this wasn’t exactly what I was looking for and the position for the hottie is still open. Having both obviously leads to a situation called Win-Win. And to clarify, the heated mattress is counted as doping in beating the 21 days record, living male heaters are allowed. Rules are rules.

On Saturday I got a tempting offer to have the best coffee in the city and visited a place called Dandelion & Driftwood.  A very small coffee house, in the middle of nowhere in terms of a city girl,  a place that takes a lot of effort to stray by accident. I was told this place has been in the news lately for their excellent coffee selection and packed with people since.  For a reason. The menu was very impressive, it explained in detail all the different coffee making methods and for each method there were different coffee qualities as recommendation. When we got our coffees they came with a little name tag stating a lot of trivia about that particular quality, like farm, region, altitude, process and owner and top jury descriptions…very similar with presenting wines. My first cup was closest to filtered coffee and quality from Honduras Pino de Oro, Cup of Excellence Lot #3, 2010. It was supposed have strawberry bubblegumish kind of taste. I got no strawberry or bubblegum but was just fascinated about the passion the place and waitresses had towards coffee. My second try was closest to our “pannukahvi” (a Finn needs to taste filtered and non-filtered of course) of Ethiopian quality and it tasted very bitter. Like the Keilaniemi glass palace Juhlamokka that has been standing in the pan for way too long. Anyways the place was so cozy and genuine that I definitely want to go there again, a Saturday breakfast would be a perfect next occasion. After proper caffeine dose we headed to The Powerhouse. It’s located in New Farm near the river and the first impression was like Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki. This place has been a power station earlier (hence the name) and is now renovated to be a venue for different cultural events like live music, dance, theater, exhibitions etc. There was also a nice looking restaurant and a terrace with a great view. We were lucky as in 15 minutes after our arrival there was a live Jazz show starting so we decided to stay, took a glass of wine and sat down for the show. I was sooooo happy to have seen these places. This is the type of stuff I am looking for, Ansku likes.

Monday night was my Ikea night. Left early from work as Kaija had promised to take me there. After 45 minutes drive from Brisbane I saw a big blue box with yellow Ikea brand and started smiling. Kind of pathetic, huh? But seriously when a brand like Ikea makes you feel homey you know you are very far from home. Down under anyone from Northern Europe feels like a cousin. Anyways I needed to get a bed and a sofa and some sort of a table. A starter pack to move in with. Sofa was easy. I wanted a big, white sofa- chaise lounge combination…sofa that is the heart of the home and allows you to pass out in multiple positions. White isn’t the safest color with my track record of spilling wine, but hey, you gotta take risks in life. Check.  Bed was our next stop. All the queen size bases were sold out so I got only the mattress with very cranky customer service. I was in a very sensitive state of mind the bad service kind of got me. With my mom’s rule of 5 euro for every F-word I spent a lot more than the total in the receipt. Being totally pissed off  Kaija advised me to move in first and think about the rest only later. So done with all the big stuff we started collecting miscellaneous items from hangers to ironing boards to glasses to pans to sheets to bathroom carpets (I know, I am complaining about the darn fitted carpets and still buying some more, but a soft carpet to step on to after a shower is a must). For the final I got a vase as I thought it would be great to have fresh flowers on the first day in my new home. Only 5 minutes before closing we were ready. Sitting in the car, totally exhausted I opened the bag of Salt Sill candies I had just bought. Never ever in my life has a candy tasted so good. It wasn’t even real Salmiakki but I was in heaven. Little things can make your day here.

Yesterday, Tuesday July 19th was the big day. My homelessness ended officially. I took the day off from work as I am still missing the Accenture purpose of life and thought that it is a valid reason to be out of office. We packed Kaija’s car with all my stuff (which was actually quite a lot) and left towards bottle shop. Yes, first things first. I thought I shouldn’t step into my new apartment without a sufficient “base reserve” of good wines and got 5 bottles of red, white and sparkling. Picked up also some housekeeping equipment and after that I was all set and ready to move in. Got the keys, carried all my stuff up,  took few pics, filled in the dish washer to wash the tableware and took my little teddy bear and pic of little people and placed those on a shelf. Felt surreal. We went sitting on the balcony and I asked Kaija am I supposed to feel like I am at home now? She said “No, it comes with time. But now you’ve made the big move and you can start building your life here”. *Breathe*

Later in the afternoon I received the delivery from Ikea. My new Finnish (!!) friend Kalle had kindly promised to come and help with the assembly and Kaija&Ross brought few moving boxes I had sent over from Helsinki. It felt good to have people in. I think I would’ve been quite miserable  being here all alone the first evening. All in all I would’ve been a lot less lucky without these people. Now I had company, friends, helping hands, good wine and Scandinavian Music Group to lead the way. After we got the sofa in one piece we all sat down to eat Kaija’s  Janssonin Kiusaus (a.k.a Jason’s temptation ;) a very traditional Finnish dish) and pulla and toasted for my new home. Surreal again. But there it was, the base for my new life here in Brisbane.  I went to bed with mixed feelings. Happy to be in my own place that is supposed to feel like home someday. Lonely as it didn’t feel like home and I realized I’m so very alone. Content thanks to Kaija’s good food. Thankful for the good people around me helping me out. Alert for listening the home noise I am supposed to get used to. Warm because of the heated mattress. Tired for the emotionally exhausting days behind. Sad for not being able to share all this with my nearest and dearest. Proud for being a brave girl and doing all this by myself. I send few SMS back home, successfully fight against tears that were on the way and turned off the lights. It was my first night.

It’s quite interesting to see how this home thingy changed my mindset here. Living in a hotel keeps you in a holiday mode, now I have one corner stone set and need to start building my everyday life around it. Slowly it sinks in that this place will eventually be my Aussie safe haven and at some point I need to be fully present here. I am not fully present yet, I am here, my body is here, but my mind/soul is still on the way. Maybe somewhere near Singapore? This experience is somehow similar to my 30 hour transit period from Helsinki to Brisbane. All the effort, uncertainty, emotions, excitement and stress narrows down to the moment of “this is it” …moment that in reality feels more of a big void than something you’ve been waiting and wanting a lot. I guess too much has been happening in short time for my little brains…and am slightly slipping from the wisdom of one potato at a time. Anyways, today I met my boss, got very interesting task to do at work, got my fridge (no more warm white wine), saw a cockroach in my kitchen, witnessed cockroach getting killed in my kitchen (so thankful for not being alone at that moment) and had dinner @ nearby Indian restaurant. I think it would be good for my little brain not to think too much at times. Back to the basics: my stomach is full and the cockroach is dead.

Good night, sleep tight…

//Ansku

PS: This is the first post published from my “home”. I am sitting on my brand new white comfy sofa, feeling good after excellent dinner @ Punjabi Palace, wearing woolen socks and drinking mint tea from Ego mugs. Little things can make your day here.

About first days frustration, 4 digit permutations, Ansku likes and escalators

My first day at office was very very boring. I arrived to the office early, took accidently the wrong lift as they are divided between floors and ours is in 24^th (penthouse again) and with the first try I got only to 15^th, went to the reception, got an ID with key and sat down to open office to attend a virtual orientation. After that I got my laptop and all related accessories, updated my email signature, read few of the introduction decks I had received, took a cup of coffee, said “hi” to couple of busy looking colleagues feeling so much like the new girl in town, installed printers and finalized some bureaucracy around my transfer and then sat there for a while without knowing what to do next. I HAD NOTHING TO DO!!!!  *freaking out* YOU HAVE HIRED ME AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DO!!!!! Feeling extreme frustration I decided to leave around 3pm but realized I had managed to forget the pin code for the cable lock and was stuck. Shitshitfuckfuck, I am stuck. The IT guy said the pin codes are not stored anywhere so “you need to remember it by yourself, ok?” Ansku: “Sure, of course”. I remembered that it had 0, 1, 2 and 3 but forgot the order because he never showed the code, just said it quickly and I have a visual memory. So I spent the last hour of my first day listing permutations of four digits (I can promise you it wasn’t the most efficient or logical way I did it) and finally managed to crack the code. Pheeew.  A bit after 4pm I left the office disappointed for not having anything meaningful to do but relieved that I didn’t need to go back to the IT guy and admit that I had forgotten the pin and my laptop is stuck with the table. I tend to panic with the IT support people and communicating with them is overly uncomfy for me although most of the time they are really nice. I believe like dogs can smell the fear the IT support guys see immediately your IT handicap and realize that most of the time I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. And yes, I happen to work in a very IT driven company, haha!

My second day was almost equally boring. I updated my CV, the internal I mean, not like I would’ve been so disappointed that decided to leave ASAP ;) and did bit of pending e-learning. I also met the senior manager who interviewed me back in March. Felt so good to meet a person who knew I had just started and welcomed me warmly! Jei J He was super nice again and said projects in mining are not the most interesting professionally (I see a pattern here) and that I should try to get myself somewhere else but was afraid I didn’t have a say as the demand there is so huge. So I started to prepare for the option of being The Last Season Girl. So not my style, really. Third day more bombarding of new joiner bureaucracy which for my amazement seems very unorganized…anyways I have filled in tons of different forms, updated different systems, sent emails to my new enterprise contacts (so far I have been faster than their processes) but am still postponing the darn transfer allowance excel that seems complicated. Another fault of mine; Instructions Dyslexia. I have severe learning disability what comes to different technical instructions and I try to avoid reading instructions as much as possible. For example, in this excel there is instruction of “go to cell A15 and click Window, Split. Repeat cell A11 on Detail Sheet”. Wot? *closes excel without saving the changes* And this piece of valuable information was marked as “Helpful Hint”. Sure! Anyways the highlight of my third day was a long coffee break with a more senior colleague who had transferred from Johannesburg 3 months ago. We were sharing our new joiner experiences and had immediately a common ground…including the experience of frustration of the first day (she didn’t get the allowance and therefore no excel hell for her). It was a good coffee break with lots of laughter.

Today I was supposed to meet with my boss but she seems to be a very busy bee indeed. Instead I had a call with my scheduler and she reassured the message of Last Season being my future. Nothing is set in stone yet, but most likely my new project will start August 1^st. All in all my first week at work has been very useless and boring. I have no purpose of life here (the Accenture purpose of life I mean, The Ansku purpose of life is to live a happy, fun and loving life and make babies) and am missing my colleagues a lot. On the bright side this is the first time ever to be on the bench so I better enjoy while it lasts. Also it’s good to get some routines in place and now I’m finally forced to get my sleeping in order to have less painful mornings in the future. Babies do sleeping schools, are there any for adults?

And do not get me wrong, although the first days at work have been a bit dull I am extremely happy to be here. There are plenty of good things in Australia and Brisbane that bring happiness every day. Things that encouraged me to jump high. Most importantly the sun (sun does miracles for your soul), laidback atmosphere and friendly people. I like the vibe here. I cannot chew it in pieces or analyze yet, but I like the feel of Brisbane. It’s all so new to me and I love novelty. Then is the good thing of fresh, tasty, healthy and cheap food around. You can get an excellent sushi lunch with 6-8 dollars. I think I have eaten sushi almost every day during my 2 weeks stay and it seems impossible to get bored with the variety here. Another lunch favorite is SumoSalad (spotted this one already 2006). They have good selection of healthy salads and you can get extra portion of avocado with 1 dollar. So my diet is mainly build on sushi, salads, avocado, fruits and white wine. Healthy isn’t it? Then on the materialistic side are various organic cosmetics brands at Myers and David Jones, lots of very feminine fashion brands with nice flashy edge, not to mention excellent sneaker selection at Hype. Hype is a store for limited edition sneakers and a heaven for a girl who has an addiction for sneakers and high heels. Jumping to high heels; I won’t have difficulties with filling in my to-be shoe cupboard. All the shoe stores are stuffed with high heels of 10+ cm. Ansku the Human Tower™ look of 174 + 9 cm is nothing here. There’s a definition for *uck Me Boots and I can promise you some of the Aussie heels deserve the same label in the high heels category. To make it clear, I am not into heels with *uck Me statement (prefer the more chic ones) but coming from the promised land of practical clothing I am very happy to see that heels are the thing to wear. So, in no occasion from this day forward I will feel bad about being 174 cm tall and wearing high heels. And for all of those vertically challenged guys who have ever negatively judged my high heels addiction let me spell it out:  IT’S NOTHING and please don’t bother visiting Australia, ever. Period.

Still Australia is a bit difficult for a girl with very limited sense of direction. The left side traffic I mean. My brain does not bend with it. It applies here for escalators too. It seems I am always standing on the wrong side and people trying to pass are rolling their eyes and shaking their heads and I am apologizing for being a tourist with no sense of direction. I thought I would blend in easily to Australia because this is a melting pot for cultures and blue-eyed blond Scandinavians are not a rare sight here…but nope, I have it in my forehead that I am not local as I’m always standing on the wrong side of the escalators. I would make a terrible spy I think. I have couple of times really tried to go on the right side (which is left) and still got it wrong. I was all focused and going to the opposite-side-where-I-would-stand-in-Finland. Got the eye rolling and head shakes and excuse me again as I was apparently remembering the Finnish standing side incorrectly. Go girl and use the stairs! So I created a rule of thumb; I should stand on the side of my hand with no wrist support. A rule of thumb for the thumb that is ok. It means I have four weeks time to learn this by heart as in four weeks I’ll hopefully get rid of this thingy. No, in reality it shouldn’t be this hard. No, I certainly won’t even consider driving a car here. And yes, I am often wondering how on earth I have ever managed to get a job if simple things like this seem overly difficult for me.  

Anyways, I have a job, am officially part of the Brisbane office, I haven’t done anything useful yet but still think I deserve the Friday pub and few glasses of wine. Ansku The Human Tower™ goes weekend.

With capital L and X

//Ansku

PS: This is my last blog post of homelessness and can’t wait to move in to my apartment next Tuesday. In between I will go to Kaija's as they welcomed me to stay with them so that I don't need to book another hotel for the last 3 nights. I haven’t packed yet so I am expecting tomorrow morning to be quite painful with aftermath of Friday night and getting my life stuffed into a suitcase again. Ugh.

About good news, rugby and peeling potatoes

Bad news first. I didn’t get the timber floor. Good news; yesterday I got an SMS from Valerie that my application was approved J Originally I was supposed to move in on Saturday July 16^th but today got a call that the previous tenant is not able to move out until Monday July 18^th. So I get to move in next Tuesday then. I think the bad news is not that bad after all. I was pondering between the two options after filling in the applications and came to the conclusion that maybe the bigger apartment is better. I made a list of pros and cons of both and the one on Manning Street won because it is bigger, much cooler during extremely hot summers, more use for the balcony as it is facing to the inner court, has a pool and barbeque area, it’s on a better neighborhood and a lot safer. For sure the timber floor is a loss, but at the end of the day the points listed above are more important than pretty floor. So I got what I wanted and can’t wait to move in and start settling down. I will be a West End girl (sounds fancy for a Finn) with big balcony and a pool (also sounds fancy for a Finn). Ansku B&B will so rock the world. Start booking your flights ok!

My work week of home hunting was rewarded with the traditional Friday pub at Firefly. This time I was more on time and got to meet new colleagues and the corporate credit cards and their owners. I like the fact that people get together to celebrate the start of the weekend and that you are not expected to work after 6pm on Friday. I am all pro for traditions (and free alcohol) that boost up the community spirit and very happy to see it seems to be strong in our office. So far I haven’t met a single person being originally from Brisbane. Vast majority of the Brisbane office employees are transferred from all over the world which gives quite a unique flavor to all of this. I got back to my hotel at 11pm my head spinning with all the faces, names, Accenture acronyms and clients (expressed in acronyms) and bit of overdose on white wine.

Saturday was agreed to be my laundry day at Kaija’s and for the evening Hannah and Jamie invited me to watch rugby to Pig n Whistle on Eagle Street. Me and rugby? Talking about uncomfort zones. Both Hannah and Jamie are passionate fans and rugby is big here. And everything I know about the game is based on “Red Ross” episode on Friends where Ross goes to play rugby to impress his new girlfriend Emily. Better than nothing, eh? After getting lost for the first time here in Brisbane I finally found my way to Pig n Whistle, a big Irish bar packed with Aussies dressed up in red, drinking beer and shouting towards the big screen. Ooooookay I thought, this is a situation called “Damsel in a distress”.  Hannah and Jamie understood quite quickly that I have absolutely no idea what’s going on and gave me my second lesson about rugby (first being Friends). I think I missed more than half of the stuff just because when it comes to sports and rules my attention span is similar to an attention span of a drunken gerbil. It does not exist. I still have problems with ‘paitsio’, at least the football ‘paitsio’.  Getting the context in place, the game was the Reds against Crusaders (or the grey team as they had grey t-shirts). This was a season finale and I was supposed to cheer for the Reds as they are the team of Queensland.  I have no idea where the Crusaders come from, but I think I want to visit the place as the players where much better looking than the ones in Reds team.

Anyways, after seeing my very first rugby game I can tell you it’s all about men forming human piles. There are approximately 20 guys running after a ball and piling up over it, like when you shout “Kasa!” (guys used to do this a lot during student times). Then the ball somehow finds the way out of the stack, someone grabs it, starts running and all the other guys are attacking him like hell. And this goes on approximately 90% of the time. Grab the ball, run, attack, human pile, grab the ball, run, attack, human pile, etc.  It’s very primitive and violent game to me…and not very intelligent really. When the shouting got louder I understood there is a situation going on. At times one guy could run with the ball to the other end of the court and got points. And to celebrate the point the team is piling up again. In addition, after running to the other end of the court they get to kick the ball between two white poles and if it goes through they get more points and pile up again. In my opinion the best player for the Reds was number 10 “Stratco”. Later on I realized they are all named Stratco and that is a sponsor of the Reds. So I still don’t know the name of this guy. Good news is that the Reds won. I was secretly cheering for the grey team as they had more handsome players (you got to pick your side on some criteria and this was mine). But all in all, it was my very first rugby game ever and I am quite happy it was the end of the season and I can digest this for a while.

After the game we headed to a birthday party we got invited on Friday at the Firefly. Party was taking place in a penthouse on Mary Street; quite stunning view to be honest, I am all pro for penthouses too.  I had never seen so much booze (or tasted so strong margaritas, killers really) in a home party and after 10 minutes I was told that the “birthday boy” is one of the most senior SE’s at Brisbane office. “A happy and lively bachelor”, as he called himself (go on, be a Tiger). I also met the CEO of the biggest account in Brisbane and another SE who has transferred in almost a year ago. Ooooookay and nice to meet you, I am Ansku and starting in T&OP on Tuesday *smile, jeesuschristmotherofall how did I end up here, smile*. To be honest I think the whole setup was pretty amusing. But I had fun, it was good to meet new people, everyone was super nice again, drinks were good (didn’t drink the margaritas, I thought it’s not career wise to pass out because of tequila in this particular event) and had good conversations about the projects going on and got very excited to start in few days. I also learned that “Mining is so last season, you should come to our projects in Energy, that’s where the action and parties happen” (Piece of very valuable information you will not hear if only sitting at the office and not attending to these “extracurricular” activities…even before your commencement date, haha). According to the party I had just seen, I might well try to push myself to Energy to make sure the balance between work hard and party harder is in place. A joke.

While writing this I am kind of amazed and exhausted for the fact that I have been in Brisbane only 12 days and have sorted out loads of bureaucracy, know my way around the city pretty well, have met quite a lot of people, have had plenty of drinks too and have an apartment to move into in a week. I had basically nothing 12 days ago and now I am in good speed getting my life established here .This could be the most efficient and exciting summer holiday ever and I am still going strong J (big thanks to Kaija and Marijke for their help, advice and support). All this time Kaija has said “Dear Ansku, you can only peel one potato at a time. One by one you get organized and soon you realize your bucket of potatoes has a quarter done already”. She has said this at least 20 times and I have needed each of the 20 times because one of my many faults is to be The Immediately if not Sooner –girl. I suck at the Work In Progress mode, a lot.  And she is so right with her potatoes, it really does not help me one bit to freak out about the ones on the bottom of the bucket as I must peel the ones on the surface first. It’s very uncomfortable to be floating with life necessities like having a home, but at least I am working on it. I am doing stuff everyday that helps me get forward and I need the days and the time to get things sorted out. And today was the day I could actually tick the box next to “Find a home” item on my to-do list. I have found a place to stay for the next 12 months and that’s a huge achievement worth being proud of. So from now on whenever I feel I am losing it I think about the potatoes. Bucket of potatoes and me peeling them. Some are eating elephants, I go with potatoes. I have also decided that the moment when I get the first feeling of being established here in Australia I will invite Kaija and her husband for a dinner to my pretty apartment @ West End and build the menu around mashed potatoes J (this would’ve been difficult with 'eating an elephant') Traditional mashed potatoes with lots of butter, cream and carbs for the sake of being finished with the peeling. Nope, there won’t be a situation in life when you feel all ready and done, but I think it’s important to celebrate different life milestones and one milestone here could be realizing that I am happy and established. That’s my goal after all. Tomorrow I have a new potato, my very first day at the Accenture Brisbane office.  I have picked and ironed my first day clothes too; favorite (and lucky) violet Tara Jarmon skirt, Ted Baker blouse, blazer and high heels. So all set for more faces, more acronyms and hopefully an idea about the project I will be staffed into.

Night all,

//Ansku

PS: I was hoping this would be my last post published from a hotel but I am afraid it's not. And I know I am slipping from the original target of weekly posts but there is so much happening at the moment and I feel I need to get it captured fresh. Promise to get on track soon J

About home hunting and Ansku’s Exclusion Method™

Enough of fun and games, from Monday onwards I had a mission of finding myself a home. So overnight I was dropped down from enjoying the night life in Brisbane to the lowest stair of Maslow Hierarchy, the physiological need of breathing (check), food (check), sleep (almost there), sex (on hold), clothing (check) and  shelter (ALERT!!!). During weekend I had spotted potential apartments from realestate.com.au and started calling for the agents to book inspections. I am looking for a unit or one bedroom apartment around CBD, Spring Hill, South Brisbane or West End. There are plenty of options around, but the good ones go quickly of course.

On Tuesday I had my very first inspection to a building called M on Mary Street. Building owned by Korean investors, the traffic in and out was mostly Asian students. The agent was 30 minutes late and after 30 minutes of waiting I got to see 3 quite terrible student flats. The first one had empty whiskey bottles all over the place, used condoms in the bedroom floor (cause and effect I believe) and all broken terrace glass. The second was clean and ok but with no balcony or air con (you need ac here). The third one was big and with balcony but rented with the most awful furniture ever. The location is very central, but does not make up the mess. OkThanksByeBye!!.

On Wednesday the same target: Went first to Boundary Street 82 in Spring Hill. Awesome view from the balcony but the apartment itself was quite poorly kept and the bathroom was super messy. Yuck yuck yuckuti yuck. Continued to Gregory terrace; a definite no-go. I am not 50 and in need of tacky two floor apartment with bright blue fitted carpet and pink cupboards. By the way, WTF is going on with the fitted carpets? Who is the freaking (British) no-brainer who thinks carpet is handy in almost tropical climate?  For sure it makes the flat smell like mould and is very handy memory list of all the stuff the previous tenants have poured on the floor, but where’s the beef? (and not meaning the beef on the carpet near kitchen). To quote a certain cleansing lady @ a hostel in Vienna back in 2004 after somewhat liquid party of ours; WHAT IS THIS???? Late afternoon I had one more inspection on Edmondstone Street, a 2 bedroom apartment @ West End. The other people were commenting the place to be “so nice and novel, lovely really”…and all I could think was that if nothing else shows up, I could maybe stay here for couple of months but will most likely cry myself to sleep every night. Two thumbs up for the sake of cheerful spirit! I counted to ten, got some sushi for dinner and said out loud that this can only get better, so hold on girl.

On Wednesday night of insomnia I came to the conclusion that maybe my home hunting is following the same logic as my search for the guy who’s The One (seriously I think there’s more than one The Ones for everyone. It’s more of a question of right timing, chemistry and compatibility on topics around core values). It’s called the Ansku’s Exclusion Method™; from a large sample population I am one by one excluding candidates that are not suitable for the job. It’s very time consuming and slightly depressing I can tell, haha. But I am confident to know when the right is there, it feels right and pieces in the puzzle find their place. It must be same with home hunting? You cannot force it, but you need to be out there to check the market. If the candidate is unclean, badly structured and smells like mould, no matter how much you decorate and polish it won’t feel good (goes with men too). Timing is everything and the good ones go before you even notice (been there done that). Also, this is not one of those situations where “you get used to it” or “lower the bar” applies. Well, could be that in 3 weeks time the fitted carpet with the weird smell is perfectly fine and in 4 years any guy wanting to be the father for my babies goes too :/ For the both topics I sincerely hope that I find the right or the right finds me before things get dirty. And I just actually compared the process of home hunting with finding the love of my life. Gee!

Thursday was a new day, full of hope and I had four inspections in my calendar. Kaija promised to join me and be my cheerful home hunting companion and second opinion. We started from Tank Street in CBD, only 2 blocks away from Accenture office. Location got ten points before even getting to see the place. Or as Kaija said: “You have the police station, Brisbane Magistrates court and Accenture office as your neighbors, a perfect holy trinity isn’t it?” This flat was a furnished one, a tiny tiny tiny studio with a view (no balcony) to South Bank. For my happy surprise it was very clean, quite nicely furnished and the very first flat I actually could apply. There is also a bigger (1 bedroom) flat free in the same building and agreed inspection for that for Monday. The bigger one would be in 34^th floor with balcony facing to the inner city, definitely worth checking out. I left the place with a big smile on my face and thanked Kaija for being my lucky charm.

Next stop was a 2 bedroom flat in West End (the other side of the river) @ Manning Street. The apartment was within in my price range so I thought 2 bedroom flats are also worth checking, also leaving more opportunity for the B&B business I am soon starting here ;) Anyways, for starters the landlord Valerie (a lovely lady in her 50s) warned me that the place looks super busy with all the moving boxes from the tenants that are now moving out and I promised not to freak out. The place was really really nice and big. It had an open kitchen, lounge, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a nice big balcony facing to the inner court with pool and barbeque area. According to local standard this place had the fitted carpet too, but it had so many other good things I didn’t care and it didn’t smell bad. Talking with Valerie I found out that her daughter has worked for Accenture several years (and worked very hard, long days and all nights according to her) and her current son in law is a manager @ Brisbane office. What a coincidence. She asked if I already know the manager I am working for and promised to keep fingers crossed that I get to work for Steve as he’s super nice. Before leaving the flat Valerie showed the big cupboard in the hall and said it’s perfect for hosting massive number of shoes and winked. That being said I decided to apply for the apartment and Valerie was very happy to hear it.

Our last stop was the one I was most looking forward to. A reasonably priced studio in Spring Hill with timber floor! Exclamation mark for the timber floor. Yay! Spring Hill is the San Francisco of Brisbane, a very hilly part of the city with a lot of soul. The flat was @ St Pauls Terrace, only 5-10 minute walk to city center. When I saw the place I knew this is it!! It has my name on it, it was screaming “Ansku take me”.  Light poured in from the full wall windows, it had open kitchen with nice white new cupboards, big bedroom and renewed small bathroom. Balcony was facing towards the street so a minor point deduction for the noise, but the timber floor has it. I said I DO! I filled in the application form straight away. The property manager promised to call within 48 hours but most likely I will hear from her already tomorrow. I feel like waiting for a call after job interview. Pliiz let me get the place!

So my home hunting has been like Spring Hill, filled with ups and downs J The past four days have also been an excellent way to familiarize myself with the city and getting a good daily exercise by walking nearly 10 km a day and interval exercise on those days I have had inspections on the hilly streets of Spring Hill. Another positive note; to my huge surprise I have always managed to find all the places I’ve needed to…and meaning managed to find a place without a six block journey from A to B taking 90 minutes as has happened in my city of love, Barcelona. I think I can say it is official now, I have learned to read the map. My dearest living map and sense of direction Frederik hear me out, I CAN READ THE MAP!!

So tonight for the sake of applying for two nice apartments and learning to read the map I decided to celebrate a little and walked in to Nine West and bought awesome pair of purple suede high heels.  So in case I get a no-go tomorrow, at least I am wearing gorgeous pair of shoes which make the news feel less bad. And if the apartment is meant for me, then the shoes is just the icing on the cake as I am all dressed up and off to celebrate to Firefly with my to-be colleagues and raise a toast for not being homeless anymore.

Thumbs up and fingers X:ed my friends!

//Ansku

PS: After I get this post published I'll grab the Ikea catalogue and start mind-furnishing my to-be home...be it the one in Spring Hill or West End or somewhere else. I will find The One :)

About first days, 4am day spa sessions and routines

Now I have been in Brisbane for almost four full days. Friday July 1st was still my official starting day. First day of the month, start of Aussie fiscal year and Friday which is generally the best day of the week. I woke up at 3am feeling all upbeat and perky after sleeping only 5 hours. Had no idea where I was. Took a look at the suitcase on the floor and thought this is definitely not my dear Etu-Töölö koti, peeked out of the curtains and realized this is Brisbane baby. The breakfast started only @ 6.30 so I had loads of time to kill. First I wrote few SMS. Then checked my FB.  Then decided to file my toe and finger nails and polished them with O.P.I Cajun Shrimp colour. Had still a lot of time and continued reading my Lonely Planet. Finally the clock hit 6 am and I was allowed to go to shower and really really really start my very first day @ Bris! The sun was shining too, as it seems to shine every morning.

I had a long and very unsexy todo-list for my first day. Boring practicalities and running in different offices. I wanted to get away with all the bureaucracy to have it done as soon as possible and have enough time for apartment hunting. I am slightly stressed about finding a nice home for myself. Everyone says ”no worries, things will sort out” (as one needs to say inside borders of .au) but seriously, being homeless is really not my cup of tea. I want to settle down. I want to start establishing my life here. As I am homeless but not broke, I decided to start with opening a bank account.  Did a bit of scanning on the offerings of different branches first and then decided to go for Westpac for the sake of better interest rate, lower costs on possible transactions to Finland and nice sales woman who wasn’t annoyably friendly. For my surprise getting a transaction and savings account was super easy. Needed only my passport and everything was done in 10 minutes. I also learned that here in Australia the interest rates for savings accounts are substantially higher than in Finland; I get 5.75% for my savings without any minimum investment. Start saving girl! The lady also complimented my nails and the ”striking colour” and I shared the brand and colour code for her. Compliments totally worth my 4am day spa session. Next was Medicare, the local Kela. I had prepared mentally that this will be a mess and I will need to wait my Medicare card for more than six months. How wrong I was, filled in one paper and was told that the card is sent to me in one week ( I am using Kaija’s address everywhere at this point). Sweet. Good luck continued with getting a local phone number (Telstra pre-paid) and applying for tax file number…smooth, fast, easy with good service. Might be that my luck will turn and eventually the shit hits the fan. No shit, no hit, yet. Keeping fingers crossed.

I have also got started with Brisbane night life. On Fridays Accenture office has a traditional Friday pub @ Firefly, a bar on Ann Street very close to a building where the brand new ACN office is. I got the information from Marijke, a Dutch girl who started @ Bris in February. She has been of great help in sharing tips&tricks how to get things sorted out and introducing me to people she knows and making my life a lot easier. We arrived to Firefly a bit late and didn’t get to see any colleagues. Guessed that all the senior managers / executives and most importantly their corporate credit cards had left early which explains the loss of Accenture representatives there. Luckily Marijke and I share a thirst for drinks even paid by ourselves, so as soon as we got there I had a glass of cold, blackcurrantish (is that a word? most likely not) and fresh Sauvignon Blanc in my hand. After two (or three) glasses of wine I had totally forgotten my jetlag and continued to a terrace bar (can’t really remember the name). It was like the roof top terrace of Teatteri, but a lot less of a meatpacking&selling district. In a good way. For the benefit of the Aussie one.

Thanks to my Brisbane guide I have also met quite a few new colleagues during the weekend. On Saturday I attended a Teneriffe Festival and met Jamie and Hannah, a very fun couple from UK. Teneriffe is cozy part of the city approx 15 minutes bus ride from CBD. There are a lot of old factory buildings renovated to apartments. I didn’t get to see any, but suppose there are pretty cool loft apartments there. The festival was all about music, good food (I had dumplings), drinks and handicraft art work. The happening was taking place on the roads (closed just for this event) and people wandering around, chit chatting and enjoying the vibe. A real small village get together, like in the Smurfs. Jamie told that before we arrived there was something going on with sheep also, like an exhibition or something. I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. For my huge disappointment the only thing we saw was a white little poodle, a wanna-be-sheep I though. I enjoyed the night a lot and was happy to have had the opportunity to meet new people and see new part of Brisbane. On Sunday I was invited for a super international barbeque event. We were 7 from 6 different countries; Finland, Netherlands, Argentina (x2), Hungary, Ireland and South Africa. It is quite fascinating to meet these people and hear all the stories how they have ended up in Australia; everyone has been looking for an adventure but the drivers are quite different. Anyways, my weekend once again proved right that Accenture has a lot of good and fun people, and it’s global.

My life here is pretty random. I have no plans or purpose of life besides apartment hunting and am going here and there following Marijke or just my nose. I am on holiday, so this is definitely a normal holiday mode, but I miss a bit of routines of life. I am openly out of the closet: I love routines as they bring safety. My body needs them too, it starts acting strangely in case of random rock-scissors-paper lifestyle, like now. I feel dizzy and floating, I’m living in a bubble (different bubble than the one where I broke my thumb though) and not really being able to experience all this. Like being doped. The only routines I have is the one of waking up around 4am and doing manicures and pedicures until the breakfast opens. The 4am day spa. I look dead tired and pale, have a lot of gap on the sleep but my nails look awesome. I also have routine of coming back to my room after breakfast feeling all tired and having a bit of a rest. Each time the rest has ended in waking up around noon either for the room service wanting to clean up my room or someone calling. I’ve been caught up 4 times and still I cheat myself with the idea of ”just a 15 minute rest”. I think I need the sleep badly, I haven’t felt this tired since last autumn. I also have a routine of getting my daily fresh fruit juice from the juice bar in Queen street, my current favourite is Ibiza Islander with pineapple, orange, apple and passion fruit. That makes total 3 routines after all; 4am day spa, cheat sleeping and juice bar snack…better than nothing.

Then is of course skyping (find me J ) It’s happening more on a random basis, but still happening. On Saturday evening I skyped with dad and few friends and on Sunday with my brother and little people. It felt so good to see the faces of everyone. I think my heart was beating 150 bpm, out of pure excitement. And I think I can never forget the moment of little people walking in to the room and starting to smile as soon as they saw my face on the screen. Priceless. Surprise surprise I started to cry (I think the day I have lived a week without tears should be some kind of personal celebration day. I will write a "special edition" blog post about those days). My rush of emotions was a mix of happiness of seeing their pretty faces and sadness out of not being able to give them a big hug and kiss. Both of them were a bit confused about the idea of seeing my face on the screen, but it didn’t matter. We had officially kicked-off the Kummatäti Skype-sessions. Ha, there it is! My very first real and lasting Aussie week routine; Sunday evening Skype-session! ! ! (I seriously hope my nightly manicures and 3 hour naps after breakfast are not lasting as I won't be working with Accenture for long if those continue).

All in all I am enjoying Brisbane as a city. The first impression is very lively, friendly (even bureaucracy), sunny and warm. It is mid winter and day time temperature is around 20-22°C and night time around 10°C. Like an average summer in Helsinki. On weekdays the CBD is busy with a men & women in suits. Good looking men *like like like*. On weekends it turns into more laidback and easygoing. In my doped bubble I haven’t seen or experienced a lot yet, but my first date with Brisbane is totally worth saying yes for a second date, even more serious one. Keep your fingers crossed with the apartment hunting that’s starting tomorrow...I want to start sending the Ansku B&B advertisement out soon J

 Yours,

//Ansku

PS: This is published from my hotel room (again). I’m using Röyksopp Junior to fight the slight homesickness that hit after the Skype-session and practicing my inner lamplighter.”Lights on woman, you’ve been away for less than a week”. Good night from Brisbane *lights off*