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!