About everyday (boring) life, Aussie style breakfast and city girl in subtropical jungle

My last week was all about everyday life here. All of my friends where out on a holiday and I needed to manage by myself for total 6 days, for the first time during my almost 2 months stay. How lucky have I been so far if this is the only time I need to be fully “on my own”. I took the week as a challenge to live the easy going normal life, the no drama life. My weekdays have their routines already. I get up a bit after 7am, take a shower and dress up, drink my lemon water (kept that one Eepi) and take the bus to city around 8am, get my morning coffee from Linea Bar on Creek Street and hit the office latest 8.40. The Linea Coffee bar has excellent coffee and service. I went there for the first time couple of weeks ago. With the second visit got a welcome of “Hi Anna, good to see you, how are you? Here’s your long black to go”. I was stunned for them remembering my name or what I ordered as the place is super busy all the time and getting my coffee on the fly. So from that day on I’ve grabbed my morning coffee from Linea. I also hold a prepaid loyalty card that gives me 60 cents off from every cup. Handy.

What has been happening between 8.40am-6.00pm last week (and this week also) is a can of worms that needs to be kept close at this point. But to give you a hint; I am paying quite a high price for the fact that I missed the defensive driving course (am booked to a new one only next Monday) and therefore cannot do what I was supposed to do (i.e. the training around the sites) for these couple of weeks of the interim period before entering my “real role” within the program. Shitshitfuckfuck. Shitshitfuckfuck explains it all. Anyways, I leave from the office around 6pm, do the necessary shopping (if any) in the city and take a bus from Adelaide Street back home. At home I am usually so pissed off of the day at the office that I change to running gear and go running. I thought that the trips to outback Australia and lack of life there would be my key reason to do a lot of sports…but no, you can also be so furious for doing a job of a headless chicken that rage run is the only way to cope with it. Buu.  So running has become my number one ventilation channel. It helps every time. I have some difficulties with the routing as most part of the riverside has no lights and feels a bit unsafe as it gets dark here already at 6pm. So you need to either run by the road (which is not pleasant) or go back and forth the South Bank riverside, which is similar to running back and forth of Espa in Helsinki (= EPIC FAIL). At the moment my routes are those of a headless chicken too… but it doesn’t matter as the main thing is to get the frustration channeled to something else than people around me and the much needed endorphins that bring back the smile on my face. I need to get to my real role soon as this state of mind is similar to a combination of simultaneous coffee and sugar withdrawal syndrome on top of heavy PMS and someone eating my ice cream again. No good. As described I find my patience very short with the project situation right now. I can deal *hit load of *hit in the process of settling down but have zero tolerance with any roadblocks with work. And I know I should be patient but it’s just very difficult as work is the only comfort zone here. I was hired because of my skills and Accenture being the only thing that stayed ‘as-is’ when leaving everything else behind and ending up doing something totally brainless even for a short interim period feels  unbearable. I am counting days, 15 work days to go.

In addition to somewhat blue week at work the weather has been rainy in Brisbane lately, the first time during my 2 months stay. A funny note is that the grayness immediately turned my body into autumn mood and got a huge urge to buy pullovers and scarves. I think that is because my Finnish inner clock is waiting for the weather to get cooler and preparing for the upcoming dark and cold season ahead, a.k.a kaamos, a.k.a the suicide period. I guess my biological year calendar will be slightly confused as it starts to realize that summer continues until further notice. Jetlag is peanuts compared to this. And for those interested, I did buy a cardigan and a scarf as they still are useful during mornings and evenings here. So on Friday night after a bit of shopping I decided to call it a week and went home to watch a movie (the Knocked up, very funny and educating) on my cozy sofa with sushi, big mug of mint tea and woolen socks. To the point and what I needed: to be at home (that I call home), at ease and all by myself. I was fine being all by myself. Even with emotionally tough week behind.

On Saturday morning I woke up early and went for a run, just to celebrate the fact I had had a good night sleep and felt rested. After some 25 minutes it started to rain super heavily but for my surprise I didn’t care but instead turned up volume with Röyksopp, shifted gears and smiled all the way home. I think that moment was once again a glimpse of realizing that I have managed to build a good life here. I am running at 7.30am on a Saturday morning in the rain and was happy about it. Small things can make up your day here. All smile rest of the morning was spent in Martha Steward mode doing laundry and ironing before going to Guggenheim for Hair for an update again. The girl with a cool style welcomed me warmly, asked how did I like West End and if I had the internet connection already in place (amazing how these people remember things, I bet they have a little black book were they write notes about customers) and immediately knew what to do with my hair again. I enjoyed the good coffee and fashion magazines and left 3 hours later, 300AUD poorer but with a good color and cut again. Rest of the day continued in the Martha Steward mode (because it was raining) and later in the evening went to see Friends With Benefits to South Bank Cinema. Exceptionally ordinary day here, the very first ordinary day, a sign of settling in. Ansku likes.

Sunny Sunday started with good breakfast out, another good routine that was lost for the first 7 weeks here.  Back in Helsinki I loved having breakfast out with friends at Fazer, Ekberg, Tin Tin Tango, Engel and many more...and did lots of it during the last few weeks. It’s also aligned with my number two rule of life of  breakfast being the most important meal of the day and so far I have been neglecting that heavily and going with coffee only. FYI the first rule is: never combine parties and the third: never put a plastic bag into your head (this is from my mom when I moved from home 1999 at the age of 19). Anyways, the hunger for proper brekkie is a good sign of being myself again…a bit of help from the fact that I don’t have a) dining table b) chairs c) coffee machine d) Helsingin Sanomat e) much anything else than white wine in my fridge. Luckily there are a lot of nice breakfast and brunch places around (especially on Boundary Street) and I have a long list of places to visit. So far my experience is that Aussies like to eat very heavily: eggs on all different forms, beans, bacon, tomatoes, halloum, hash cake and white bread on one single plate. What is really dominating is the lack of anything fresh. On the “Something light” side of the menu you might find dishes like “Bircher muesli and berries” = a least 300 grams of toasted muesli, in cream with 5 berries on top to make it feel light. “Pancakes” = huge pile of pancakes with syrup, ricotta cheese and whipped cream or “Avo on Toast” = Simple toast with avocado and bit of olive oil on top. For a girl who used to love the Engel Energia-aamiainen (mixed plate of bread, yoghurt with muesli, cheese, fruits and fresh veggies and juice) the offering seems a bit of a nightmare. I want a bit of everything you know. Anyways, as one of my key reasons for moving to Australia was the not-imported Avocados you might guess that my current favorite is the “Avo on Toast” and so far the first price goes to Tempo on Boundary, tested on Sunday morning.

After the so far best Avo on toast decided to head for Mt Glorious, one hour drive from Brisbane and spotted earlier on our way to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. I grabbed a detox beetroot juice from Boundary (what a self-deception to have huge mug of coffee and big avocado toast and then detox juice for healthy life) and off we went. The road up was super bendy, narrow and steep uphill. I felt pity for the cyclist going uphill and cheering for those coming downhill. The main “bush walks” were about 680 meters above sea level and the “bush” was a subtropical jungle. So there I was, a city girl in her pretty ballerinas in sub-tropical jungle. Hear hear, nature calling. I decided to give  the bush walk a go after a quick conclusion that the paths were in good shape (even though my gear wasn’t really proper and the detox juice really kicked in and I needed to pee)  “I think I can manage, it’s only 3km after all”. So what happened; the first part of the route I was one happy camper enjoying the view and cool fig trees around. The second part towards the second lookout turned more wet and muddy resulting in my shoes getting all damp and dirty and me getting quiet and angry. Also throughout the path you could hear the water running in the nearby creek, which wasn’t the best cure for the nature calling. I felt like a kid in a car whose parents have asked twice if one needs to go to toilet before getting on the road and 10 minutes after departure crying at the backseat and asking where’s the nearest loo. The way back I didn’t speak nor smile and walked as fast as I could “Forget the exotic subtropical jungle, I’ll take a closer look the next time”. Never ever has 1.5 km felt so long but I made it. Pheew. Getting out of the jungle we went to this nice restaurant with beautiful view all the way down to Moreton Island to relax and have cup of coffee. When I realized they served butter scones with jam I was all smile again. I didn’t pee in my pants and got butter scones with jam. All good. Ansku vs Nature 1-0.

After good pizza with dear colleagues I was once again very thankful for the weekends being so fun here. No matter how utterly boring my workdays might be at the moment it is good to know that from Friday to Sunday the tide turns. I also have my bed base in place which means I am not sleeping that much on the floor anymore, oh the joy. So far this week has been equally painfull at work, have done my rage runs, freaked out after a suspicious bug bite looking thingy in my leg and got a letter from KELA confirming that I have been officially excluded from the health care system. Exciting. Anyways only two nights till Friday again and then I get to catch-up with my dear Marijke J Yay! Sorry for the somewhat boring post, but at times life can be a bit boring.

Love,

//Ansku

PS: I am all smile after a 90 minute Skype with dear friend...lots of deep talk about the real stuff and felt like being super close. Priceless.