About Q1 milestone, Coffee cupping and live Rugby

Last week at site was shorter than expected and I got to go home already on Thursday afternoon. I also managed to make my first mistake in traffic at Moranbah town that day. I was fueling in before heading to airport, left the gas station turning right to reach the main road and quite quickly realized I must got it wrong as in no time there was a car coming against, the driver showing the international sign of dislike and blowing the horn. Ooooops. Shit. This is a one way road and I am going it the wrong way. I kindly waved and smiled to the driver (who still had his middle finger up and was shouting something I luckily didn’t hear but could read some common insulting words from his lips), quickly reversed back to the gas station, gave another confused smile and a wave and took a bit of a time out. Focus girl, focus. I knew some mistake would eventually come to my way and luckily it was at a small town like Moranbah with very little speed. Also, it was a rent car so the guy can’t track down who was the “dum *itch” blocking his way. No harm done. I am a tourist. No one knows me here, I hope.

Same evening I met few Finns from Nokia and went to see the Brisbane City festival light show to South Bank. I had heard a lot of good about the light show but for me it was a bit of a disappointment as we had a poor location and it didn’t look that good from a side angle. After the show we headed to Powerhouse for drinks AND I saw an opossum on the way. Yay! My first living wildlife spotted in the city! I did run after it to get a pic, absolutely no idea why – it is a big rat after all. At Powerhouse I also found out that the night was my 3 months anniversary at Australia. The Finns asked how long I have been here and I said 2 months without even thinking. “Yes, I have been here two months, eight week that is, feels so much longer though”. It was Kalle who corrected that I have been more than that as I came already in June. *Counting July, August, September. Ahaaaa!* Really, is it three months then? How come such a big milestone can come from the back left corner without me noticing? One quarter of life down under, time flies! I was super happy to have reached a proper milestone and not just some baby stuff like eight weeks. Also, I felt very lucky to be here with an open ticket. If I had only one year time I would be panicking already to have only ¾ left, now I have 3y and 9m until my visa expires and that’s a lot better. So we raised a glass of wine for Ansku Q1 Down under, I felt very proud of myself. As next morning I had a meeting at 8am I decided to leave the celebration to Friday night. I did raise more than 3 glasses then, few for the upcoming exciting months too. Also an overly drunken Aussie guy made me feel like million dollars by grabbing my ass and saying “hey blond, fancy a *uck” while I was ordering my white wine at the bar. A very feminine open hand slap would’ve suited the situation well. I think I should learn to slap too. I do prefer the “Thanks mate” over this.

On Saturday I had been invited to a Coffee tasting at Campos, a very nice coffee house next to James street market. I have never been in a non-alcoholic tasting before and was very much looking forward to it. Also last time I visited the place I met the owner and he was super passionate about the quality of coffee so I knew this better be good. We got our aprons which made me a bit suspicious of what’s about to come and went to this mysterious quite dark and small room with a long table in the middle filled with little cups, six cups for each of us. We were about to start “Cupping” = standardized tasting technique to evaluate the flavor and aroma of coffee = kupitus = kupittaminen? In each of our cups we had about 2 table spoons of freshly roasted and grounded coffee, 5 of single origin quality and one of commodity coffee supposedly to highlight the bad comparison. Our first task was to smell the grounds and compare the observations, the fragrance of the coffee. My favorite at this point was an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Haille Selassie 607 (wasn’t Haille Selassie an Ethiopian long distance runner?), it smelled a lot like fruits and bubble gum (maybe this was the coffee I got with my first D&D visit, but did not get the bubble gum then though)…and as my minor hangover made me super hungry for sweets I chose this one to be the best. After the grind smelling they poured boiling filtered water to each cup and let it brew for some five minutes. We were to smell the coffee again and stir it 2 times with heated spoons (important!) to help the grinds sink to the bottom of the cup. In each of the phase the aroma of the coffee was very different, the one that was sweet at the beginning turned out to be quite dry and burnt after 5 minutes brewing. I believe the same applies for other areas of life also. Then they scooped out the floating grinds and the coffee was finally ready for us to taste. About time! The coffee was supposed to be slurped loudly from the spoon to cover whole tongue and get more air at the same time. I was very bad at the slurping. You learn it before you’re six that slurping is bad no matter how hot your soup or drink might be. Thanks Mum. Anyways I still liked the first fruity Ethiopian long distance runner the best. The third one was so bad I almost spit it out. Number 4 and 5 got evenly ranked for second and third. All in all it was very interesting to compare so many different qualities and really focus on analyzing the different aroma and taste. So often with coffee I just need it for the daily caffeine kick and don’t really pay attention to it, it’s either good or bad. As this was the first cupping a lot of my energy went for the excitement, new people, surroundings and info overload so I believe with a new try I would get more out of the tasting itself.

I also learned a lot of coffee trivia. We got a presentation of each of the quality: the location, how they are processed and who are the farmers and saw lots of pictures too. I didn’t know that as coffee is harvested it’s really a fruit, coffee cherry, not a bean. He also told about the Cup of Excellence concept “a lottery win for the producer and Eurovision song contest for the roasters” and how the top coffees ends up to quality places like Campos. First there is the national “competition” where top cuppers (=kupittajat?) score there different qualities and only the best ones are allowed to move forward in the competition. For the judges, the cuppers, it is strictly forbidden to show any expression about the quality (how good or bad it is) as it might influence the other cuppers and just need to silently give a score for it. He also told about cupping Jesus Jorge Escobar who is the best in the world and has a lot of power in the business and if he thinks coffee is good the price of that quality starts sky rocketing immediately. And if he gives a grin the competition, rest of the cuppers think that particular quality sucks too and the farmer is doomed. I couldn’t help at wonder what Jorge Escobar would say about the shiiiiat that is called office coffee in Finland. Long live Juhlamokka and the poor colleague who gets the last cup from the pot. Anyways, after the 30 best qualities of coffees for the year are announced, registered roasters can order samples for these 30 qualities and after 5 weeks starts and online auction where roasters can bid for the quality they would like to buy. Our coffee guru told us Campos orders usually a sample from all of the 30 qualities, organizes their own cupping event where each cupper must give 3 coffee beans for the best, 2 for the second best and 1 for the third best quality. Those qualities that get most scores they try to bid at the auction. Very exciting! Anyways, as 1 pound of commodity coffee might cost 1-2dollars, the best Cup of Excellence coffees might cost even 80 dollars per pound. Whoooh, it better be good then. And you see why it is a lottery win for the farmers. More so than for the winners of Eurovision Song contest I believe…and hope. Hard Rock Halleluja and so forth.

I am not sure but I got the picture that Campos is the only place organizing cupping at Brisbane and according to our guide the word is out there and they get a lot of bookings. It was also incredibly cheap, only 11AUD for the cupping (took 1h) and 20AUD if you wanted to have your favorite coffee with you. I definitely recommend cupping for those who like good coffee and are interested to learn more about it. I at least found all the stories and trivia very interesting, I think it was the best part of it. Rest of the day was very lazy. Had lunch nearby Campos (as they didn’t serve food at that time), went home to do a bit of laundry and headed out again for some drinks at South Bank. There was a Cuban band playing at Wunderbar (a bar opened just for the Brisbane city festival) so decided to stay there…good decision as it was super cool. I think in my previous life I was from Latin America (explained by my big bum, temper and passion for Latin dancing) and made a promise to self  to find a salsa class as soon as I am done with the site visits (Missing our Monday dance dates Inna!!). I was all smile after the show and I didn’t even get to dance…think about what happens when I get my booty on the floor. Whoop Whoop.

Main program for Sunday was a live rugby game at Suncorp Stadium. I was about to lose my Rugby virginity, how about that. The game was a final for the best team in Queensland, i.e. piirinmestaruuskilpailu. The game was Wynnum Manly Seagulls against Tweed Heads Seagulls (the nice place in the border of QLD and NSW). What’s with the seagulls, it’s not a cool bird. We arrived to the stadium 15 minutes before the “kick” and in 10 seconds I got the beef of the event, it’s all about beer with rugby. I so did not blend in with my summer dress, but who cares, I am a tourist watching a live rugby game for the first time in my life. My first shock was about the buuuuuing, everyone was buuuuing for the Tweed Heads team. How unfair is that? These people don’t know the concept of Fair Play? And it must be sad to enter the field with people buuuuuing for you? I felt bad for the team and decided to support them, they also had better outfit (black and white, I am very black and white) and I liked Tweed Heads as a place few weeks ago. As the game started so started the shouting. Next to us was this a bit older Aussie guy, obviously a Wynnum supporter who was shouting ALL THE TIME. Show’em Wynnum! Go get them Wynnum! Smash them Wynnum! They are nothing but flower sticks Wymmun! Rip his head of Wynnum! F*** You Mother F***er (as the judge gave a free ball for Tweed Heads) and it went on. There were small kids around, I think I wouldn’t bring my kids here. The best thing about this guy was that he didn’t even place his cheering to fit the game…he just had the record on, shouting as loud as he could because he obviously thought it was a cool thing to do. Not cool. You and the seagulls (bird) are not cool. So the first part of the game I just wanted him to shut up, lose his voice or someone stuff the stupid cap into his mouth. Pliiiis. I felt sorry for Juha sitting next to him, I think he’s suffering from left ear tinnitus nowadays. The first half ended with Tweed Heads leading 10-0 and I was happy that we were half way with the game already. As said before, this is not very intelligent game. It’s very violent one.

The second half started well as the loud guy was gone. So in theory the situation was optimal to focus on the game without annoying supporters making your blood pressure raise but in reality all I could think was ice cream. Yes, for 40 minutes I was thinking of ice cream and where to get one. In the meanwhile Wynnum got a new gear to their game and won 16-10 or something and everyone at the crowd was very happy. They had a small medal ceremony at the field with speeches and everything and sang some kind of an anthem. And that was pretty much it for my first live rugby game. I wasn’t badly traumatized, I am willing to go and see a game again, but prefer it to be a big game and none of these local ones. I did get my ice cream also, Mövenpick Swiss chocolate and mint…two scoops, one for each of 40 minutes of rugby. In the evening Marijke, Kalle and I headed to Ferny Grove for Ross’s famous pizza. He was a happy cook for his new Dutch customer who obviously was a fan of his pizza before it got out of the oven. Good times and excellent dinner.

Now I am again here at Dysart doing trainings at Peak Downs, the last week of my intermediate role and then I finally get into the real stuff. I almost managed to get through this trip without any travel booking hiccups until I arrived to the motel I was supposed to stay in and found out there is no reservation for me. It kind of freaked me out because I knew all of these small mine towns are always sold out in terms of motel accommodation and I had no plan b. The only room they had available was the suite and I HAD TO settle for that one. I was glad to. So now I am in this huge suite with big living room, huge balcony and a jacuzzi. And the best part of it: no wildlife in, lights in the bathroom and a hair dryer. WIN! Few hours ago I also did my first 10km run! See, I did it before end of September as promised *proud*. For my surprise it was very smooth and the last 3km where the easiest ones. So Dysart is from now on a special place in terms of running milestones and the time here in the middle of nowhere has really paid off sports wise. 

This is my last site visit for a while and from next week onwards I’ll be mainly at Bris. It’s good to have a bit of normal life and sleep in my own bed, dress up and get something else than cup noodles for lunch. Still I think it has been quite of an adventure and I wouldn’t change a day. Looking back I have learned so much - about mining, miners, and the culture and mindset here.  It’s the unknown and uncomfort zone where you learn the most, about yourself too.

I better do some stretching before calling it a night. Like you wanted to know but anyways…pusmoi!

//Ansku

PS: The reward for my 10km was a Fazer Tyrkisk Peber filled liquorice I got from my friends back home. It tasted very sweet. Salty and sweet. Just like my run :) I also got bunch of women's magazines that I am reading very carefully, extremely focused and in peace and quiet (you find a lot of peace and quiet here at Dysart, the only disruption is the Motel gecko)…no words to thank you enough for the great surprise, love it! 

About name identity crisis, double-mate-and-punch and the normal stuff

Training was quite fun last week. At Norwich Park I had once again room full of rough miners with good sense of humor and the site coffee was the best so far (not instant). I got an invitation for another field tour the next time I am visiting the site from a supervisor and an open invitation to a BBQ party at Gold Coast, in a penthouse, from a very cheesy and a bit older Brazilian guy. Thank you, but no thank you (to the BBQ party I mean). He also commented my name Anna-Maria to be the “most beautiful name in the world” *with cheesy Latin American accent* and that I would love Brazil for sure, especially his home city. Great, and let's move on with the topic of the day.The rest of the group was laughing for his effort, everyone seemed to know where he came from. Oh the Brazilians. I also met a girl who's going to Europe for a holiday and planning to visit Helsinki for half a week and gave her lots of tips&tricks for her stay. And the best part of it; between Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo, Helsinki was the winner for the northern Europe city to visit. Also, at Norwich Park I needed to choose a marble from the bag again and still haven't experienced the random drug/alcohol test. Green marble it was. Maybe I should try my luck with lottery too?

Talking about names, here at Australia I am struggling if I should introduce myself as Anna or Anna-Maria. Anna is of course very short, concise and easy to remember but somehow doesn't feel like me. Anna-Maria is also very international, although here it is most of the times turning into Ann-Marie. The problem with Anna-Maria is the fact that no one used it back in Finland. It was used mainly by my parents in case I have done something bad...my mom is especially scary in her "Anna-Maria Kristiina Karjalainen" with pitch getting lower and icy eyes letting you immediately know you are in trouble (And to clarify, this hasn't happened in near history, maybe when I was 15 or something). Anyways, I am so used to being called Ansku that it is very difficult to adapt to a new name, I don’t obey the name Anna-Maria unless it’s mom or dad. And yes, Ansku seems to be a bit too tricky to pronounce although two of my colleagues and Marijke do that and I always smile when I hear them say it. So far I have been using more of Anna-Maria, but if in a hurry, tired or similar I'll just say Anna because it usually does not lead to further spelling exercise. We'll see what happens with time. Surname is a different story. It is impossible for the Aussies and I am widely known as "the girl whose surname I cannot pronounce". People get very confused with so much consonants and weird pronunciation. And I end up apologizing for the complexity and saying that one of the key reasons I hope to get married is to get a new surname that is shorter and easier to pronounce and spell. Also the guy doing the travel booking says he doesn’t like to do those for me as he needs to spell out my name every time. Ha! Maybe this is the reason for my bad luck with travel bookings? I do! Anyone?

I’ve also had my share of Australian “mate” culture. “G ‘Day mate” is a common way to say “what’s up dude?” (Also “Ta” is very retarded way to say thank you) and miners use it a lot when they meet a male colleague, at least this was the impression I had over the 5 weeks. I also hear women calling their male colleagues mate, but not vice versa. Well, last week when one of my trainees was leaving the session he gently punched me to the shoulder and said “Thanks mate, good session mate”. I was shocked. Not because he said thank you but because of the “mate”. And the punch. The combination of double-mate-and-punch. I am not a mate. I am a female. I wear nail polish, in toe nails too. I have lip gloss. And make-up. And jewelry. And underneath the unisex company gear out of non-flammable fabric with reflectors and orange color there is a woman. Me! Anna, Anna-Maria, Ansku! Not a mate, mate! I didn’t say anything for the guy, I just gave a very confused smile and wished him a good weekend. Is it the short hair?

When I told this to my client contact (a lady) and few colleagues too, I was told it is a good sign that a miner is calling you a mate. “Because it’s an expression used when they think you are on their side and accepted”. Well, in a way I see the point and agree the intention behind the mate and the punch was good. It was his way of giving feedback. As in Finland no feedback is the good feedback here apparently ‘Thanks mate’ is a sign you’ve done well. And of course it is good to hear you’ve done well with the most boring topic ever. Also before starting I was a bit worried about the fact of being such an odd ball at the site with no credibility and was happy to see it’s not a case and I have a weird skill of being able to bond with people from very different worlds. But still I think being called mate isn’t very flattering, it was a hit towards my womanhood that is struggling to survive in the unisex, non-flammable gear. Don’t know if I should grow a thicker skin and learn to take the “hey mate” as a positive thing? Say “Thanks mate” and punch back? And learn to punch too? Oh well, it is a long way down from the world of office geeks in their socks and sandals to a mine site with these rough around the edges macho guys with dirty faces and dirty sense of humour. I needed a big change and I got it…gotta love the adventure. Also as Marijke said the punch on the shoulder is way better option than someone grabbing your ass. I second that. And it was good feedback after all.

As I told you weekend was very hot here in Brisbane. So far the nights have been fairly cold and day temperature max 23 degrees but last weekend we hit the 30 degrees and I didn’t even need my heated blanket. I haven’t really assimilated the fact that I am living in an eternal summer and that days are sunny by default and clouds or rain a rare exception. It feels unreal. I still automatically choose the sunny side of the road. I still carry pullover or a light jacket when going out at night although you don’t need it. I still feel like being on a holiday just for the sake of being able to have brekkie outdoors, visit beautiful beaches with 1 hour drive and wear sunglasses every day. It is amazing what warmth and sun can do for your mind and soul. You have the “life is good” mode on. Saturday was most likely the warmest day here so far, already at 10am it was almost 25 degrees. I put on my summer dress and headed to Dandelion & Driftwood for some quality coffee and brekkie outdoors with Kalle. At D&D I finally got the scones with cream cheese and raspberry jam and learned that traditionally scones are served with whipped cream and my request is a bit of odd one. I explained that throughout my life scones and bagels have been in the same category and best when served with cream cheese and jam and the owner told my categorization is wrong but he will get me what I want if it makes me happy. It did. D&D is a lovely coffee house. It’s very cozy, the owner has great sense of humour and they are passionate of what they do and serve good stuff. The only thing that sucks is the location, you need a car to get there conveniently. A car with aircon that is.

Saturday was also a moving in day for Marijke and had agreed to carry the big stuff with bunch of colleagues. She’s moved only 280 meters (280 meters closer to my place, yay) so it didn’t really make sense to rent a car/moving company and in addition moving is fun if you do it with friends. She had also borrowed shopping carts from Coles to help out with some of the stuff which was a brilliant idea in my opinion. We were a funny sight carrying the sofa and the mattress in the middle of the road as the footpaths are so narrow. For our surprise no one was blowing the horn for blocking the traffic but waving friendly instead and cheering for support. I also got a title of being “the strongest woman in Finland” as I got slightly upset with the guys analysing on how to get the washing machine up the stairs. In my opinion you do not wonder or analyze, you lift the darn thing and get it up the stairs ;) We got it up, and I got a big bruise in the process (my own fault). Anyways moving was fun and afterwards it was good to enjoy the afternoon sun on her balcony. Rest of the weekend was very easy going. I met dear Kaija after her holidays in Finland and saw bunch of pictures from back home that made feel a bit home sick for the beautiful Finnish summer. I also got salmiakki and Fazer liquorice which is always much appreciated. It is such a cliché, but salmiakki is pretty important part of life for a Finn…as is rye bread. Kaija is going to Finnish bakery in Brisbane this week to get me some and I think I will eat the first piece standing and keep a silent minute for it. Aaaah, think about it, rye bread with butter. Yes, I am hungry while writing this.

Now I am back here at Moranbah, giving training at Broadmeadow mine site. I had once again a bit of hassle with the travel bookings, or maybe just the common story of no bookings whatsoever made for me for this week. I arrived to the office with my suitcase, found out the lack of bookings, laughed (I am in the laughing mode already with these hiccups) and took the 2pm flight to Moranbah but had no rent car as they were sold out. In the plane I was sitting next to very talkative and very hangoverish “oil company representative” who talked so wide Aussie English it was a struggle to understand. Especially when I didn’t even want to understand. I tried very hard to keep him quiet by reading a magazine or listening to iPod but he didn’t care and kept talking talking talking and telling war stories from the site and me understanding maybe 30% of what he said. Why is it so difficult to say for a person that you’d rather read your magazine or book than discuss? And why some people are not able to read the social signs of other people wanting some peace and silence? I was wondering this for the total 1h50 minutes flight and didn’t come to a conclusion, the more beer he had the more talkative he went. At Moranbah airport I went to try my luck with the car hire companies and managed to get one due to no-show (how rewarding to realize other people are no-shows too) and without a map or GPS I drove to Moranbah and found the motel with first try. No wildlife in but no hairdryer, hand soap or lights in the bathroom either.

Training has been ok, but I find myself to be a bit tired of repeating the same thing over and over again. I have the tournament tiredness going on and it doesn’t help that one needs to get up at 5am to be at site 6.30 latest to start the session at 7am. I am not at all a morning person and should learn to be to make my life less painful. On Monday morning we had a fire alarm at the site (the beep beep sound) and went to the evacuation assembly area to wait for further instructions. Unlike at Keilaniemi here people act immediately when they hear the alarm sound (I first thought the sound was a truck reversing nearby and did not react at all). Apparently someone had a bun in the microwave a bit too long and the situation was over pretty soon. Classic, bun in a microwave oven!  Last night during my run (love sports tracker, its brilliant) I saw a dead snake. Not very fat but very long one. I was told it was most likely a brown snake, one of the most venomous snakes in Australia and a miner told me today you have 3 minutes of life left if it bites you and they are common in the town. Didn’t want to hear that. Anyways a dead venomous snake is peanuts as Marijke’s colleague had a goanna in her toilet. Yes, a freaking big lizard in the toilet, they are dangerous too. So now the site she’s working at has a safety rule of checking the toilet for goannas before sitting and also lifting the rim to check that there are no snakes curled underneath. How comforting. People say a snake or lizard in a toilet is a urban legend but really it isn't. I said to her that if I ever have any lizards or snakes in my toilet I’ll head to closest international airport and call it a game. Seriously. She’s a brave woman and nowadays a day can be considered good if there is no wildlife in the toilet. Back to basics.

Back to basics. Tomorrow I get to go home a day earlier than planned, sleep in my own bed, have proper coffee, blow dry my hair, sleep longer and wear a dress and high heels. Also I will most likely get fresh rye bread, but that's not basics, that's luxury here.

Pusssss!

//Ansku

About careless woman, High tea, no-show vol. 2 and Dysart

Weekend was full of action and excitement again and luckily I got my Sunday back due to training rescheduling. For starters I locked myself out when leaving for a dinner to Powerhouse. I took the rubbish out before catching the bus, realized I forgot my earrings, went back up to get them and found out I have no keys. Bummer. I called to my landlady Valerie to help me out and she said they are out of town and coming back only on Saturday around 11am. Shitshitfuckfuck, this Friday night will be a long one then. I had options of staying with friends, going for a hotel or sleeping under the bridge (there are plenty of bridges in Brisbane) and chose the first option. Thank god I have friends. I felt such a teenager at the 7/Eleven buying a toothbrush around midnight. Or even more so getting home on Saturday morning with a hangover, hair all messed up looking very much like yesterdays news and meeting Valerie at the front door. I think I need a spare key. I think she thinks I am a careless woman. I didn’t even wear my earrings. After a quick refresh I headed back to city to enjoy High Tea with the girls.  High tea is an old English tradition of early evening meal of the lower class that is nowadays misleadingly served as formal tea with cakes, bread and butter sandwiches and sweets. The “High” relates to the dining table it was served from instead of class and formality and in reality “low tea” is the traditional 4 o’clock one with variety light snack included. Anyways, Hannah had booked a table for us from Room with Roses at the Brisbane Arcade and in my hangover I was very much looking forward to the English scones with cream cheese and jam. Instead of the scones and cream cheese I got a porcelain stand filled with small sandwiches, tarts and cakes and also a glass of sparkling which was a much needed pick me up drink. How surprising that a careless girl needs a pick me up drink at High Tea. The cakes and tarts and sandwiches were good and plenty and peppermint tea tasted like peppermint tea. I found the whole High tea setup a bit funny and think I prefer afternoon wine under the sun instead of tea and overdose of miniature cakes. Later in the evening went to have pizza to Ferny Grove and to catch up with Ross. The real Sicilian style pizza was delicious as always and got also korvapuusti for dessert. Such a healthy menu I had that day.

Sunday was a SUNday. I went for a good morning run, washed the floors and cleaned my balcony and had strawberries and yoghurt as a breakfast at the balcony. I love Brisbane. It’s mid September and I am enjoying fresh strawberries outside as everyone back home seems to complain about weather getting cold and wet again. At least according to Facebook, location, location, location J Later Marijke and I headed to Teneriffe to watch a rugby game with few colleagues…in reality the rugby game was just a good excuse to have a bottle of white wine already at 1.30pm. I didn’t pay much attention to the game, but recall that Australia won Italy and the Italy team had a player who looked like a goblin from a fairytale.  Wine and company were good, as always and I think Teneriffe is another area of Brisbane where I could live, especially as there are quite a few loft apartments there. My dream is to live in a loft apartment near the sea. It’s good to have dreams. It’s good to have lazy Sundays. This one was especially sweet as I got it back only on Friday.

Monday morning I was prepared to go to the office as I didn’t hear anything from the travel agency and thought I am flying to Moranbah Tuesday morning. With a bit of doubt in my mind I decided to give them a call to check the status of tickets and heard my change request on Friday has not been acted on because I wasn’t authorized to change the reservations (reservations are done centrally via the scheduling team) and I was supposed to fly out on Sunday which I didn’t and was labelled as no-show again and therefore no flights were booked for Monday or Tuesday morning. Are you freaking kidding me? No. Apparently the agent dealing with me on Friday didn’t know the rules and forgot to inform me about the fact that she couldn’t proceed with the request and my reservation stayed as-is. Anyways within that call I was told to be at the airport and boarding in 60 minutes in case they get a ticket for me which gave me sufficient -15minutes time to change clothes and pack and head to the airport. In that situation I was pretty glad about the fact that at work I need to wear the terrible unisex company gear and could only throw in my travel clothes, running gear and personal stuff. I made it on time, I got the ticket, had even time for morning coffee as the departure was delayed. I think my luck with these travel bookings seems to be incredibly bad as already twice I have ended up being the no-show girl. Still I was happy to make it to Moranbah early on and drive during light time. The biggest worry on my mind was the driving instructions from the airport to Dysart as the piece of info didn't seem helpful at all: “1. Head southeast on Goonyella Rd toward Peak Downs Hwy”. Nice, thank you, but how do I know where is southeast? I know left and right, but no idea which of them is southeast when leaving the airport ( I still don’t get it how guys always know where north is? I strongly believe that the inner compass is located in the Y chromosome and that’s why women most often have poor sense of direction and know only left and right) So concerned about my survival in the wildlife and while waiting for the boarding to start I got myself a compass app from istore to help me out deciding the southeast of Moranbah airport. Btw, my current location is 22°58′S 148°36′E…Like it would say something, but anyways.

Moranbah was once again sunny and warm, almost 26 degrees. The tractor brought the suitcase and I went inside to the barrack building to get the keys to my rented car. I was expecting to get a big 4WD but got a normal size automatic (pheew) car instead. And it’s grey. Or brownish grey. Here we go. For my pleasant surprise I didn’t need the compass or the driving instructions as there was a sign towards Dysart at the airport. So southeast = left at Moranbah airport, made a note to myself. Turning left I washed the windows as blinkers are also on the wrong side of the wheel which seems to be the most difficult part for my little brain to adjust. I have very clean windows in the car. After some 10 minutes of extreme excitement, windows washing and squeezing the wheel like hell I started to relax. I had empty “highway” ahead, no turns, no fellow drivers and radio playing Justin Timberlake’s Cry me a river. I started to smile, sing, relax a bit and thought this is fun. I am driving alone in the middle of nowhere BABY! The singing paused every time a road train came across. They are huge, super long and shiny trucks that make you want to close your eyes and scream when passing. For my own safety I kept both eyes open and on the road but did scream a bit.

Dysart is even smaller town than Moranbah. According to the statistics back in 2006 cencus the population is under 4000. Again, most of the people here are miners working at nearby Norwhich Park, Saraji and Peak Downs mines. The motel I am staying at is a lot better than the previous at Moranbah. I actually have a hair dryer, free internet, handsoap (not to be taken for granted here), microwave oven and an electric kettle. There is a little path of ants passing my door, but so far it is the only wild life I have seen and I think ants are fine as they are small, harmless, have a path and are following it in a very disciplined way (discipline = good). Also when unpacking I realized I had carried a fruit knife with my hand luggage (I have a plastic folder of all my travel and training papers, had put the fruit knife in it when flying out of Moranbah two weeks ago as the folder was in my suitcase, forgot the knife there and took the folder to my handbag while flying in again). So, in addition that you are allowed to carry liquids on Sundays and Mondays you are also allowed to carry knifes without getting caught up at the security check. How comforting to know this. Not. I went to the nearby IGA grocery store to get some water and lunch for the next day and was forced to leave with cup noodles as there was nothing fresh in eatable shape in their selection. At least they had wine gums *sigh*.

Tuesday was a training day again on a site 70km from the town. I drove past the mine site when coming to Dysart so I knew my way already. I saw at least 5 dead kangaroos and 1 dead koala on the way and so far I haven’t seen a single living one so am a bit doubtful if they even exist. And as my colleague commented “yeah, and then when driving you will see a living kangaroo that ends up being a dead kangaroo when your car hits it”. True. So let’s hope I will see the living wildlife when someone else is driving. I didn’t need to get any visitors pass for the site as the training was happening in an “induction centre” that was a barrack office building with about 5 employees and few extra seats. Counting 1 + 1 = 2 I realized the training is happening in an open office. How convenient. I was also told that there is a blast (explosion) happening at 1pm and the site will be evacuated at 12.30pm which gave me 3 hours time to complete 4.5 hour session. No time for BS let’s get started then. Quick and dirty we finished on time, left the office amongst all the other workers, following the flow of cars I accidently went to wrong direction and had a first proper place for u-turn after some 20 minutes drive. I was expecting to see and hear the blast but basically nothing happened…a bit of a disappointment. Back in town I continued with work from my motel and went for a run. A normal run, no emotions attached run. Refreshing.

Today was kind of a “home office” day as the next training is only tomorrow. I slept long, had a cup of awful instant coffee at the balcony and started to catch-up with emails. Around noon I got an urgent email to print, sign and scan few documents and send them back ASAP. Sure, no probs I’ll print them out in the reception and scan and email it back. Easier said than done. I walked to the reception and asked if I could scan and email few papers. “Sure, but I am not authorized to scan and email so could you come back in an hour when the reception manager is here?” *Wot? Not authorized to scan and email??* Ok, no worries. I went back after an hour, met the reception manager who said the scanner is not working at the moment but I should go to the post office and they for sure can help me out. So I went to the post office and asked for help. “Sorry miss, we don’t have a scanner here, only a fax if that helps”. No thank you, could you please advise where should I go. “Try the library, they for sure have a scanner”. Great. So I went to the library, bank, electrics store, police station (met a very handsome officer, highlight of my day) and the reception of the second motel and no one could help me. Hear this out, the entire town of Dysart does not have scanning possibilities available. So after visiting almost every store and office in town, 2 hours of wasted time I faxed the papers, welcome to 1990's Ansku. High performance. Delivered.

To kill my evening time I went for a run again with a newly downloaded the sports tracker app. I know rest of the world has used it for ages already, but I am a bit of late bloomer with things like this. I was a bit surprised to find out that my average running speed is 8.2 km/hour because I thought it was a lot less. Yay! The girl who has hated running since skating times is slowly learning to like it again. So I set myself a goal of 10km before end of September, it’s good to have goals too.

Tomorrow I will see a new mine site and bunch of new people again. And after two nights I get to go back home to enjoy the good life, friends and random weekend routines. Outback Australia has the upside of sweet home comings....and I also have a package from Finland waiting that was left unopened in a hurry to get to the airport. Hopefully some Salmiakki in there.

Good night dear friends!

//Ansku

PS: Hear this out, weather forecast promises 30°to Brisbane on Friday and 32° for Saturday. The heat is on! Sweeeeeeeeet!!!!

About the Dark Side, The UPside and The Flying Finn

As you all know last two weeks have been super difficult at work. I had hardly any motivation to wake up, dress up, get myself to the office and stay there for some good 9 hours and enjoy other parts than lunch and coffee breaks and leaving the office around 6pm. Eventually by the end of the week the *hit kind of piled up and I ended up feeling very upset, out of place, sad, angry, cynical, snappy and everything in between. I think I hit the first low mark here, I knew it would come at some point and it came at a milestone of 2 months. The shitshitfuckfuck of life. (do not worry, it lasted 2.5 days in total and I’m a lot better already) Anyways for the 2.5 days I felt I am in a dead end and lost my smile…a violently familiar feeling that made the year  ago happenings feel like yesterdays news although the situation here is totally different and nothing makes the 09/2010 and 09/2011 comparable. I think the familiarity freaked me out even more.  On Friday I was so thankful to get my dear Marijke back to Bris and get quality time with her and have time for proper life updates. She has been through the same, understands the mix of feelings and says “it’s ok Anna, you are doing good and the things you are experiencing are part of the deal”. I can be a total basket case, unable to articulate the mess of feelings, be and look upset and say *uck five times in one sentence and wave my hands in an overly expressive way and she still says it’s ok. I am very thankful for having her in my life. She's a close friend aleready and I am lucky. And I look at her in her life and think in 4 months I will be ok too. She has made it, I can make it.  So on Friday night I was a basket case and she was well rested and full of energy after good holiday, some sort of a balance in the universe I would say. Jamjar was delicious as always and I think it is so far my favorite restaurant here. Saturday was still spent in The Dark Side although I very much tried to make the most out of it. It was also the first day of Brisbane City Festival and Riverfire was the kick-off for the 3 week period of cultural events in the city, like the Helsingin Juhlaviikot in August. We went to look the fireworks to Southbank amongst 10 000 teenagers. The event was declared to be alcohol free and there was a security check before entering South Bank but to our disappointment they didn’t even check our bags and let us straight in. A sign of us being too old or too trustworthy not to smuggle alcohol to an event like this. Anyways, the fireworks were very impressive and the show lasted almost 30 minutes. For the night we had tickets to a Festival week opening up party at George Square with 60s theme…I called it a night very early, crashed when getting back to home and went to bed early. Major inner BUUUU! I don’t want to be Darth Vader.

Waking up well rested on Sunday I decided to make it my therapy day. I did my morning run with new record of 55 minutes which is a pretty decent performance without breakfast and when feeling like shit. I think I have never been so thankful for the endorphins bringing the smile to my face and making me realize life is greater than emotional downturn and that I am in Australia BABY! Around noon it was about time to do the regular Sunday escape from Brisbane, another routine that I love here. The options were Montville (a small city 1h drive from Bris recommended by my colleague) or day in the city but in my unstable state of mind I was in definite need of the magnificent Pacific Ocean so decided to head to Burleigh Heads near the Gold Coast.

Burleigh Heads was beautiful and perfect place for a day of therapy. I got to walk in the sand, wet my feet, sit in the sun, be quiet and watch the waves form. Had excellent roasted pumpkin salad and a glass of sauvignon blanc for lunch with a beautiful view  to the beach (including very talented surfers again) and Gold Coast silhouette ahead and of course big portion of ice cream for a dessert. I think the pumpkin salad brought the smile to my face for good, and who says women aren’t easy?  Body, mind, soul, stomach, dessert stomach…in that order satisfying all. With my third spoon of honey comb chocolate ice cream a guy next to us was attacked and got beaten up right in front of our eyes. The guy attacking him said “the girl is my sister and you will never ever touch her again or I will kill you”. Right. That kind of a brotherly love. The whole event took most likely less than 2 minutes, ended when the attacker guy hurt himself when they both fell to the asphalt. He walked to his fancy sports car right behind us, got few high fives from his friends and drove away. Idiot. I felt shaky and started to cry. I have never seen a person getting beaten up in front of my eyes. I am 31 and this was the first time, unfortunately so. I wanted to give the boy being attacked a hug…he was very confused with the happenings, and his nose was bleeding badly. Poor guy. As the smile was again gone from my face the therapy day continued to Tweed Heads, to the border of Queensland and New South Wales, the town where you can change time zones and celebrate new year twice within an hour. The view and sunset was beautiful and afternoon sun very gentle. Forget what just happened as life is good. This is why I need my weekends and why I love to be here. It’s not easy, no one said it would be easy, but the upside is worth it. Right now this is the place to be.

On Monday I had the second try of the Defensive Driving course. I had triple checked the date earlier the week and double checked on Sunday morning. I arrived to the Motor School office at 7.30, was welcomed by the same guy Nick who last time accused me being “a no-show”, did the alcohol test and was asked to take a seat in a class room to take a knowledge assessment. Q1. What is the legal minimum tread depth for a tire? *ok, there might be a chance I can fail this part of the course” A: 3,0mm (out of my sleeve). Q2: How do you check the oil level in a car? *I know about this, have seen this back in 1998 in driving school but further than that absolutely no idea*. A: With the “stick” on the front part of the car. Q3. Are you allowed to do a U-turn in traffic lights with no sign? *aaaahaaaa, easy* A: Of course not. Etc. Most of the questions were dealing with traffic rules on different situations and some of them were sure tricky, mostly because of vocabulary. After finishing with the assessment we had about 2 hours of lecture about the concept of defensive driving, walk-through of key traffic rules and mine site specific hazards and loads of statistics about accidents on site. I learned bunch of stuff like, that whilst reversing you are allowed not to wear a seatbelt, if you are 3 m distance from your car and the car is not locked or the window is more than 5cm open you get fined , it is legal to touch the control panel to activate Bluetooth but not to touch the phone at any circumstances while driving (ending up to a conversation about Nokia Bluetooth functionalities and me being an expert about it) and with “no speed limit” sign the speed limit is still 110 km/hour in Queensland Australia and there are a lot of cheap 4WDs on sale in NSW as it is required by fairly new state law that car should have ABS brakes. After the lecture we had a “car inspection” (something one should do every time when driving a car that is not familiar) and I finally got a demonstration about how to check oils (and bunch of other liquids under the hood I didn’t really get). Also Nick explained in 90 seconds the process of changing tires assuming everyone knew how to really do it leaving me shaking my head when he asked “all clear?” He promised to give me a chance to change a tire before the end of the day but eventually we didn’t have time. So now I need to keep my fingers crossed and hope all goes well at Dysart next week…or count on the fact that I have bunch of miners driving pass who are more than happy to help if I end up with a flat tire.

Around 11.30 it was a time to hit the road and head for a lunch and then to the practice track. We were driving towards Mt Glorious and ended up in the middle of country side and eventually to a deer farm. It was another bizarre moment in Australia, I was attending a driving course and having lunch at a bambi farm. Weird. The owner said the flock is all ready for Christmas and I said I should try to get a ride to Finland then. He was all question mark and I needed to educate him about the origins of Santa Claus and Rudolf the reindeer. “That’s funny”. It wasn’t funny, it’s a fact. After the lunch we headed to the driving track. It was only some 3 minutes away and literally a cattle field. Jep, we parked our 4WD in the middle of flock of cows like it was the most normal thing to do. There were 4 baby cows and I learned they were born only 4 days ago. I took pics of course and my fellow course participants asked if we don’t have cows in Finland. Sure we do, this is just very absurd moment of life so I need to capture it. Nick started to place on the witches hats (a.k.a muovitottero) and the cows realized for their own safety it’s wise to back off for the upcoming couple of hours. Soon we had an empty “race track” in front of us. Oh my.

Next it was time to get behind the wheel and walk of the talk. We did bunch of different exercises like reversing through a line of witches hats (from left and right in turns) using the mirrors only and passing the test no hat could fall (I passed with first try, proud). Next was the ABS brake testing part where I got the title of “The Flying Finn” for speeding up too much. The idea was to speed up to 50km per hour and as the instructor gave a sign with a flag the driver should emergency brake and swerve to the direction of the flag. With my second try I got angry to the instructor for giving the sign to break so early (and giving me more distance to brake and turn and making the exercise less challenging) and he said “Miss Anna, you had at least 65 km per hour speed so it was a MUST”. Oh, really? I argued a bit about the speed but my passengers verified the fact. Bummer. But I still made the turn in time even with 15km/h extra speed and didn’t get a fine as this is an educational session, well done Flying Finn. What I found more difficult was the threshold braking, i.e the normal braking “just before the ABS kicks in”. This led to comments of “you must be the all or nothing type of a girl”…No comments *so true*.

The last exercise was the most fun. On a race track (or the cattle field) we were to practice curve driving. We all got 3 rounds and the idea was to try the “wrong way” (hugging the inner side of the curve) first, then the right way (hugging the outer side of the curve) and third one to repeat the same. I thought that with the first round we should go all wrong and with high speed also and half way my first round I heard from the radio “Anna, please slow down, you are off the road soon”. No I am not, let me go faaaaaaast! My passengers were once again commenting the experience to be closer of a rally race and I explained them that Finland is very famous of a) our well known rally drivers b) the unfortunate thing of rally English too. Anyways, with the second and third round I went easier and got good feedback out of my performance. It was fun, the first round I mean. After some 4 hours on the practice track we received our feedback from the session and headed back to the office in Albion. There we got our certificates (my very first Aussie qualification) and greetings of safe & defensive driving moments ahead and a special note to be careful with the accelerator. I think the whole day was very useful in getting more confidence driving with a big 4WD and learning a lot of useful things about the Australian traffic rules. A good day, it was good to finally LEARN something (hint hint hint). In the evening I had coffee with Marijke at Three Monkeys and was very happy to realize that only 4 days at the office doing the boring stuff ahead before weekend. I am still counting days to weekend. And I am still very bored at the office.

What else? This blog post comes late because I have used all evenings to do things and see people as next week I need to be alone again in the middle of nowhere, this time in Dysart. Most likely I will miss my precious Sunday and need to live up the whole week in six days. I also went to yoga on Tuesday and realized I should really balance out my rage runs and give my body and soul a bit of a break too. As soon as I am done with the mine site visits for a while I will focus on yoga…also with the idea that at that point I am less furious after work and need less of the rage runs to keep the lights on. We’ll see. On Saturday I saw a guy with “I live for weekends” shirt and I think I should wear that on the Casual Fridays at the office. I won’t. I’ll wear a dress.

Night all!

//Ansku

PS: Another reason for my late post is Extremely Lound & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. A brilliant book. Highly recommended. Also promise to add more pics to Picasa :)