About buying stuff, Byron Bay and Wollongong

I think it is because of Mom that I managed to buy an extra mattress and balcony furniture within 6 hours last Saturday. She kind of got fed up to the situation of me sleeping on the sofa and her sleeping on my bed and us carrying back and forth the spare mattress that Marijke had kindly lent and eventually needed back as she had visitors also. Half way us carrying the mattress back to Marijke’s Mom said with extremely strong tone of voice: “this will NOT happened again and we WILL get you a spare bed THIS weekend”. With the emphasis on NOT, WILL and THIS I knew immediately that I had no options but to sort this out within 24 hours, or even sooner. So the first thing on Saturday morning we started to look for balcony furniture as she knew it was my first priority and finding one would take time and effort to browse around eBay (they sell a lot of new stuff in ebay here) and if I had the balcony stuff sorted out I would be more ready for the bed shopping too. For my big surprise I found an offer of 7 piece set with starting price of 699AUD (buy now price of 1500AUD) and bidding ending in 2.5 hours and decided to give it a try. I have never bought anything from eBay before and was super excited. I bid the starting price of 699 AUD an hour before the end (because I was so excited to know if there were other people interested of this piece also and opening the game is of course a way to find out) and started counting minutes and refreshing the page regularly. An hour is a long time, 60 minutes, 3600 seconds. Thousands of seconds. Not good for the immediately if not sooner girl. So I had breakfast and refreshed the page, I went to shower and refreshed the page, I dressed up and refreshed the page, I had more coffee and refreshed the page and the last 15 minutes I sat on my sofa sweating and refreshing the page. The end result? Nothing happened! I watched the seconds count down and got a “you have won this bid” note to my screen. That’s it? No fierce raise of bids and figuring out how far the competitors are willing to go? No panic? Just seconds vanishing one by one and a note on the screen? So I paid 699AUD for the set which is an extreeemely inexpensive price (especially during spring when the season is starting) and made few jumps and screams for being so happy. My Mom said I am a little “kukkuu” but agreed I made a good deal. Yay. After a visit to West End market and big mug of coffee it was time to face the reality with simple “now we will get you the bed, right?” It was more of an order than a question. That’s right Mom. Nose towards IKEA *sigh*. I didn’t feel more ready for getting a bed and felt hesitant making the decision and asked for a confirmation if she thinks I am making the right choice or not and she answered “it’s your bed, I cannot make a decision for you darling” which didn’t help me at all but made me feel worse (of course I knew that I was the one making the decision, but her being here kind of makes me want to share a bit of the “responsibility”…play less of an adult and still feel I am safe because she’s a mom and moms are the ones who take care of you). I stretched to make the decision and did lose my temper a bit for a stupid reason of her asking what kind of extra sheets I need.  My capacity to make any additional purchase decision was nil and I just wanted to “get outta here” and buying sheets felt like her asking me to figure out what do I want to do in life when I grow up. I DON’T KNOW. I really don’t know Mom. But we got the sheets, delivery for the mattress for next Monday and glögi and ginger bread too and I felt bad for being snappy with her. She meant good, I shouldn’t get upset about that. She’s visiting me at the other end of the world after all. And I have missed her.

Sunday was planned to be an adventure day and this time we headed to Byron Bay. I haven’t been to Byron before, have heard it is THE place to see/know/love if you happen to like laidback atmosphere, beautiful beaches, surfers and hippies of all sorts. Byron is approximately 160 km from Bris, so you need to kick-off early to make most out of it in a day. The very first impression is super relaxed and the people very homogeneous in their pursuit to be different. You see two types of girls; the ones with hot pants and loose top and the ones with maxi dress and thongs, hair on a loose pony tail, everyone having a tattoo or ten. Guys are surfers in their shorts and thongs, most likely without a shirt (which I generally dislike outside beach territory but secretly like as they are great to watch) and moustache of course for the sake of Movember (I think for the sake of Movember, I hope so). The traffic jam starts way before the Byron “city centre” and is slowly proceeding towards the beach and the light house…many people had bikes too, even saw a guy driving a bike with a surf board and still don’t get how he managed to do that (long arms???). With Mom we were in a tourist mode and decided to check the light house first. You get to the light house via lookout route, 700 meters of climbing up the stairs with a great view to the magnificent Pacific Ocean. It was cloudy when we arrived but the sun got out kind of without giving notice, so we managed to burn our skins a bit. Well, to be dead honest I did realize at some point that the sun is out there but was thinking that as we are only walking (and not laying in the beach as most of the people) it won’t catch us. Lessons learnt: sun will catch you even if you are walking. Check. The lighthouse was normal light house, but the view more than awesome and the ice cream cold enough to help you cool down after the climbing. On the way back down we went to check the beach and walk in the water. I also draw a bit of father’s day greetings in the sand, took a pic and send it over to .fi and saw at least three dolphins jumping next to the surfers nearby. Rest of the afternoon was extremely slow with a bit of late lunch and wine at Balcony (thanks Kaisa for the tip) and visits for few shops and heading back home half asleep. Back in Brissie I was dead tired, skin burned, nose too and called to dad to wish happy father’s day. He was touched by the pic, he’s super excited to come and visit me in few weeks. I am excited too!

This week has been very random. Mostly because I had a biz trip to a new site location and was expecting the delivery of the furniture but the company let me only know the date (Wednesday) but not the time and I was supposed to fly to Sydney on Wed afternoon and was afraid I will miss the delivery and they will leave the stuff on the street and someone steals it. I did send them an email asking for time confirmation or if they could even give me a 30 minutes heads-up but they never got back to me (and the company does not have phone number which of course made me a bit suspicious doubting if I will ever get what I paid for) so I needed to be on stand-by all Wednesday, which I hate more than anything, feeling a bit nausea too as my stomach doesn’t want me to be on stand-by either. During my lunch break I got a call “Hi, it’s Blaa Blaa Blaa, we are here at your door delivering the furniture”. A “Ouh, great, I am not there, I am in the CBD having lunch”. *crap* So I ran back home (15 minutes, luckily I didn’t wear high heels that day), carried the furniture up (wearing a silky dress, not a good combination with the dusty packages), run again to catch a bus and was only 4 minutes late from a meeting starting at 2.30. Pheeeeew. That was close. I heard it is very common in Australia for the carries not to tell you the time of delivery or even if they do it’s totally fine to be 2-3 hours late. I do see a market here, market for those who think they have better things to do than sit at home and wait for the doorbell to ring. Time is part of the “no worries” concept here and I find myself struggling with it. They try to get away with everything with the “no worries”. Well, waiting worries me like hell, as does unpredictability and not sticking with plans. Mur. And this event was the main reason why I feel my week has been random. Me control freak? Not at all.

So Wednesday afternoon I left to the airport feeling extremely relieved for having the furniture delivered and counting hours to get back home again to unpack and put it in place. I was travelling with my colleague Bec (the one who’s a star in football and super positive and bubbly) and enjoyed the Quantas platinum lounge service as the traffic jam to airport was less than we expected and she’s a platinum member. We arrived to rainy Sydney at 8pm, rented a car and drove to Wollongong…well she was driving, I was responsible for being the map (mistake, big mistake) and got lost only twice with total 4 turns we had to make from Sydney to Gong. The Novotel Hotel was super nice compared to the motels in Moranbah and Dysart, it actually had a big lounge, restaurant, several function rooms and hundreds of very drunken teens celebrating something. OMG the flashy dresses shaky steps with 14cm high heels and flirting with the boys. I felt very old in my business casual dress and ballerinas. The night was too short and the next day busy with workshopping from 7.30 to 4.30 and then driving back to Sydney airport and taking flight back to Brissie. It was a pity we didn’t have any free time as Wollongong has a very nice beach. The mine sites nearby have exceptionally low personnel turnover, I asked why and was told “because of the lifestyle”. In Wollongong you are an hour away from Sydney and can live in a proper city with beautiful beach and good surfing opportunities and still make shitload of money. And what do Moranbah and Dysart have? Nothing. Just the money. Anyways I hurried back home and the moment I stepped inside I dropped my carry-on luggage to the hallway and ran to balcony and attacked to unpack the furniture. In 45 minutes I had them in place, in 1 hour I had also take-away sushi and wine in place, in 1 hour and 5 minutes my quality of living had officially reached the next level: Welcome summer heat, welcome long evenings on the balcony, welcome friends. Good life.

Soon I am expecting Marijke to come and test my new balcony in terms of pre-party before the Accenture End of Year event in La ruche. The End of Year party is kind of Christmas party here with free drinks and food and people dressing up. I am excited to see how the Brisbane office behaves…you know, does they have the “Go on be a Tiger” attitude like Helsinki office has in the main events. I will definitely wear a short skirt and high heels according to the Soul theme and hope to keep “mopo” in order and behave as it is the first office wide party here. Ok, now I better go and figure out what to wear…decision decisions.

Pusss,

//Ansku

PS: After I get this post published….RAI RAI RAI!  

About failed bed hunting, Mom, amazing Emma and Life

Starting to write this blog I had to think twice what has happened lately. With the first try I freaked out that nothing has happened and my life is all boring adult stuff with work and grocery shopping. With second try I started to count the people I have met and the wines I’ve tasted and felt normal again, my life isn’t boring here yet.  Yet. Well, it is following some kind of routines from Monday to Sunday with less fuss and surprises than in the beginning but it still isn’t boring. I am not an adult. So starting from a good routine of Friday night being reserved for project drinks, I decided to go for a glass, enjoyed the bar and the company and was told by Marijke to be quite tipsy already at 8pm when she arrived. It happens. We were at Stanford Hotel inner court next to Moo Moo that is supposed to be the best steak restaurant in town (got to our list of course). It was a nice bar, lots of space and live music. Most of the people leave from the Friday drinks quite early, luckily I am not one of those people and continued to Exchange hotel in a group of five. Exchange was the second bar I visited after my arrival to Australia, during my second evening and meeting Marijke for the first time. My memories from Exchange were sweeter than the reality last Friday. Ummmmm, I am most likely 10 year older than average Exchange visitor, my hemline is average 40cm longer, and I am average 10 drinks behind. I have no share in the game, and I think I didn’t have a share 4 month earlier but was just so messed up and jet lagging that I didn’t realize it. Taxi > Bed > Sweet dreams > no alarm. Sweet. Friday, check.

Saturday was all about bed hunting and world saving with dear M and good wine. So after getting up amazingly early on Saturday without any sign of hangover and having 2 cups of coffee and salty salmon bagel at Dandelion and Driftwood I was well prepared to spend the rest of the day in various furniture stores looking for a bed. I think I need a bed, at least a spare one for my quests but I could also be in a need for a new “master bed” to suit my tricky back better. My back complains a bit these days and I am not really sure if it is the running or the mattress or combination of both or something else. So for few weeks I have been playing with the idea of getting a new bed, swinging between cheap quest bed and super expensive quality bed depending on the day and mood and maybe coming to a conclusion that I am not mentally  and emotionally ready to buy a new bed. Too many “maybe” and “might” and “idea” factors and too little drive to get really something done....I think it shouldn’t be this tricky but realizing it is. Somehow buying a bed feels like the biggest decision of my life at the moment, well it pretty much is one, but shouldn’t I now be eligible enough to make the call as I have ended here by myself too? Or is the amount of decisions one can make in a year constant? And is a year a calendar year, or the FY I’ve been used to during the past 3.5 years?  And does a huge life changing decision eat out your capacity to decide what to have for dinner or whether to buy a new bed or not (certainly feels like it)? Meaning the Balance in the universe thingy? But anyways while looking for the right bed I got more inspired about pillows, laundry bags, outdoor furniture, book shelves, lamps, cups, mirrors and pictures, and with pillows meaning the decoration pillows and not the ones you sleep with, which could be a sign of not-being-ready. Pillows and laundry bags are more innocent, they do not consume your energy. So basically I don’t have a point here, I didn’t get a bed or pillows or anything else to my home but ended up to Marijke’s cosy balcony having a good girl talk with a bottle of red wine. The warm evenings are perfect for spending long nights at a balcony, in Bris balcony is your living room...it’s where the life happens. Bed is secondary. So I should get the balcony furniture first?

And then Mom. My mom arrived last Sunday, early around 7am. I left to the airport super excited. Excited to see a loved one, excited to hug a loved one and excited to see if she has changed a lot or gotten older. I took a Finnish flag with me, just to stand out from the crowd and after some 15 minutes of waiting I got to wave the flag. There she was, my mom, looking extremely fresh and happy and of course tears in her eyes as soon as she saw me. I cried too, no doubt, and it felt so good to hug her. Welcome to Brisbane Mom, welcome to Australia. This was the feeling I counted on when leaving Finland and saying “see you instead”, the sweet reunion. You believe when you see it, hope to have many more. For my relief she didn’t look a day older, she had new glasses and very her style black and white tunica and black sneakers. Same perfume too. Mom as I know her, familiar. We were back home already 7.30am and I felt more tired than she did after waking up 5.30am. “So, should we go out for a brekkie and then to explore the city?” Mom, you have travelled some 24 hours with hardly any sleep, you should be extremely tired and trying to sneak for a proper nap (I headed straight to bed from Airport and slept for some good 5 hours and woke up to Kaija calling from the reception and saying we were supposed to meet an hour ago. Oho). But no, my mom didn’t want to sleep or stay inside, she wanted to go out and DO STUFF *Superwoman* So we went to have brekkie at Gunshop coffee, ate outside, walked up and down Boundary Street and she kept saying it felt so unreal to be in Brisbane right now. It was unreal for me too. She will be here for a month and I think my cupboards will never be that organised and shiny as they are now as she has a tendency to clean. In addition to the cleaning service (no, my home isn’t messy...but sure there is some room for improvement and wiping) I get scrambled eggs and rye bread for breakfast and proper food for dinner too. During the days I am of course at work, so she has time to enjoy Brisbane, clean and hang out with Kaija. When I come home I spot another cleaned area and fridge filled with proper food. Heh, for the first time my fridge looks more like a fridge than a wine cooler, even my brother’s wife would be proud! Currently here in Brisbane there is an advertisement campaign going on about being prepared for natural disaster and having 3 days reserve for food and water to manage well and I realized I have a reserve for a damn good world saving weekend (includes wine and chocolate), but not much food as such. It takes a mom to change that and if you are prepared nothing happens, right? I am spoiled. My mom loves life here, Brisbane is friendly to all sorts of people and helpful too. We don’t have much plans, she wants to just enjoy and be. So most likely we’ll go to Moreton Island for a weekend, Kaija will take her to a road trip and rest of the time we go by the ear. It is also awesome she gets to meet my people and see what life here is all about. I believe it makes it easier for her to go back home...realize that my life has its flow and have more context to it. When she is home I can say I have spent a long evening again at Marijke’s. She knows the place and her. When I say I had brekkie at Gunshop she can imagine the big toast poached eggs and rocket salad. When I say I went for a run to the river side she knows the route and asks if there were other people running too as the riverside is a bit scary in the evening without any lights. All in all she has started to build a map now. We have still 3.5 weeks to go, hope all goes well.

Wednesday was a big night in terms of Maslow Hierarchy level 2, getting my hair cut updated. As I told, the last time at Fuckenheim for Hair was pretty traumatic and I was not at all satisfied for the quality of the cut I got and I decided to give another salon a try and got a recommendation from Marijke to call for Emma at AKA togninis. Her hair looks pretty, mine could look pretty too. Once again I went inside with mixed feelings, please do not *uck up my hair. Long story short (3h 15 minutes long story, jep I sat there for 205 minutes!!), Emma is amazing!! She looked at my hair and said the cut is all *ucked up. She said it has no shape and no volume either. She said it’s been cut with 1990’s style. She said the highlights are way too thin. She said it will take some 2 cuts to do the damage control and she has a plan for my next style (I indicated that I am pretty done with the fringe and asked her to come up with something). She also wants to be BIG in the business one day and participate to Milan and New York fashion weeks. She’s amazing and will make the dream. So 205 minutes later I was back in the game again and all smile and wanted to give her a hug. I didn’t, but reserved next appointment and thanked her for saving my day. All smile, situation calls for drinks. So I got drinks to an empty stomach and ended up being tipsy at 9pm and blaming for the big excitement and good looking damage control. Cheers for Emma. Lime rooftop is nice too.

Then few words about life. Life happens. I have realized it lately. During the past 4 months four of my good friends have became parents for the first time. Two of my friends have separated from their long time partner. One is considering a divorce. Two of my friends have fallen in love madly and ended up with a broken heart. Few are struggling with the busy life of working parents and small kids.  Some are waiting for the news if they get to keep a job or not. New jobs. Big things. Life changing things. Being this far you see things from a distance, literally and figuratively. I am excluded from the “noise” and just get the facts as they are, the emails, messages, Skype calls from Finland with get-to-the-point approach. I get the end result but not the processing part and it feels weird, as I am the type of person that has a need to “be there”, I’ve been used to being there. I feel I should be able to be in two places at the same time knowing it is impossible. I know every upside has a down side but I’m still fighting against. And maybe there is a bit of fear too, fear of missing something crucial and fundamental, like life would happen outside my territory? I should learn to be “grounded”. So what I try to do is to shape up my Skype and email routines to be more in touch. Even short calls or messages, just catch up and hear the latest news. To know where people stand between the big announcements and news, be part of the processing. And please do the same (many of you do already, thanks) to know what’s happening with my life…the stuff outside this blog, there is a lot of that too. A lot that isn’t public.

Love,

//Ansku

PS: Shhh, posting from work as my computer got stuck last night just before publishing. Don’t tell anyone. Thanks. And have a great weekend too!

About Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne and St Charles Simulator at Coolum

Oh dear, so much has happened during the past two weeks that I don’t know where to start. Well, I love Melbourne. I want to live in Melbourne one day. Love with capital L. Love at first sight love. Ah, missed this. Melbourne is very different from Brisbane, it has more culture, soul and edge, and it’s somehow more European, more exciting and diverse, more like a proper BIG City. Comparing to Melbourne Brisbane feels like the cousin from the country side, not that exciting or sophisticated and with sub-urban label (with no offence to cousins at country side). Anyways, my main reason for visiting Brisbane was of course the wedding of dear friends, a nice Thursday evening cocktail party with zero of the typical wedding formalities like must have games and speeches etc. Ceremony was simple and short and the bride and groom a beautiful couple very much in love with each other. The venue was a fancy old restaurant with superb service that didn’t let my glass empty even for once. Early in the evening I made a promise to have a glass of water “in between” drinks, but the “in between” did not happen and so didn’t the water drinking. I think it was around mid-night I threw my shoes away to feel more comfortable at the dance floor, danced like there was no tomorrow and around 1.30am left the venue bare-foot and took a taxi back to my hotel. I had sore feet from the dancing and sore hair from the drinking, managed to remove my make-up though. Friday morning was not good. The sun of Melbourne and the inner sun of Ansku did not shine…luckily it rained (as it very often does) and I didn’t need to get up early and start exploring the city. I got up around 11am, got out around 1pm, walked in the rain without umbrella looking pretty miserable, got a chicken salad and Bloody Mary (jep) for lunch around 3pm, got enough of being awake and headed back to the hotel for a nap around 5pm. Afterwards thinking I feel slightly ashamed. I was in Melbourne after all.

But I did manage to explore a lot of Melbourne after I survived the dread of day after. To start with, the restaurant and bar scene is great. No, it’s awesome. It is a pity than one can have only one dinner per day and only few drinks in an evening as there are hundreds of places to explore. Dinner wise my absolute favourite was Cookie, recommended by a colleague, tested on Saturday night and by far the best wine-dining experience in Australia, somehow very similar to Farang in Helsinki but lot less of the Asian atmosphere but more cartoon and fairytale style instead. The food was delicious Asian Fusion meant to be shared and price more than reasonable. I considered it to be cheap.  Finally I can believe that Australians do know how to run a restaurant!! Second best dinner was Il Bacaro, a cosy high profile Italian. The problem with Italian is that it rarely is surprising…good, but not mind-blowing. Like the restaurants in Brissie. Or maybe I am just too high maintenance? I got bunch of other recommendations too but as said didn’t have enough evenings to test more. My absolutely favourite Bar was The Melbourne Supper Club at Spring Street. You need to know what you are looking for and where to look for or you miss it. Luckily I was accompanied with Sami who has a very good nose for excellent bars and we found the entrance after walking pass twice. The atmosphere reminded me of few bars in Barcelona, cosy rooftop, great drinks, men smoking cigars and drinking whiskey and women drinking fancy cocktails. I got a fancy cocktail too, or two actually… Melbourne Supper Club is on THE list.

Melbourne is also about excellent shopping. I got a tip from a colleague to head to Chapel Street at Windsor and to start the shopping tour with brunch at YellowBird, order at least one Bloody Mary and only after that make a move to explore the shops around. I did exactly as told, enjoyed a big fat toast with a spicy Bloody Mary, didn’t even mind the rain (is it morning drinks that help people in Melbourne deal with the sucky rain?) and had no problems in spending way more money than planned, but bought strictly quality stuff that can be used both in business and party mode. I did most of my shopping with T. L Wood, an Australian designer with very “my style” collection. She had a good eye on what would suit me, a lot of the stuff did, and I left with a big bag saying I will be back. This is also something I had missed since leaving Finland, finding a brand or a boutique to be loyal to. Chapel Street is like Boundary but a lot bigger and better. It has loads of local designer shops, big international brands too, restaurants, coffee houses, variety of people and good buzz. One cannot get a hold of Chapel Street with one try, it leaves you hungry for more. The only shopping I did outside Chapel was Haigh’s dark chocolate scorched almonds, another “must try” tip from a colleague who loves chocolate even more than I do. Haigh’s had line-up every time I passed the store, the chocolate might help dealing with the rain too? It didn't rain on Sunday but still the situation called for a “pure sin” brekkie at Max Brenner before heading towards St Kilda. You don’t get proper food at Max, you get chocolate in many different forms. Seriously, no dish without chocolate. So I got a waffle with ice-cream, strawberries, bananas (still very expensive in .au, enjoy if you get one) and chocolate FOR brekkie, BECAUSE I am an adult and CAN decide of my daily menu by myself. I felt a bit sick afterwards and thought my Friday-Saturday Bloody Mary was way better choice nutrition wise (which reminds me of one particular mid-summer party where Aki made 10l of Bloody Mary for brekkie, oh dear). Anyways St Kilda is a small and lively beach city with one main street packed with restaurants, shops and coffee houses. The beach is a typical city beach: too many people, touristy and dirty. Beaches and weather, the cousin from the country side wins. The last few hours in Melbourne was spent at Botanical Gardens and enjoying afternoon sun and drinks by the riverside, then “bye bye city of Bloody Marys, chocolate and shopping! See you soon”. Very soon I hope.

Monday morning wake-up was a painfully early as I needed to head towards Sunshine Coast and Coolum already 6am to attend a week long Knowledge Transfer Workshop. I landed to Bris at 10pm, got less than 5 hours of sleep, cursed the iphone wake-up ringtone as I would’ve loved to stay in bed longer and continue living life in Melbourne time. Rise and shine. Up and Out to pick-up my colleague Bec.The Hyatt Regency Coolum was very nice and luxurious with big golf course, several pools, tennis courts, day spa and only 1km away from the beach...something I of course had no chance to enjoy with the tight schedule ahead.  At 8am I met some 200 colleagues from Australia, Singapore and Indonesia and felt like being at St Charles with Accenture Core training, wearing a necklace with a name tag, trying to resist conference candies available EVERYWHERE and having an overload on information, faces, names, coffee and delicious food. Coolum was a luxurious St Charles Simulator, an adult summer camp.

During the first day I realized that content wise the training should take a month, instead of a week and every single sentence and real-life example and scenario our faculty was telling was worth gold and I should’ve been able to speed write down EVERYTHING. There is so much I don’t know and understand. Stupid girl. I was told that most of the people attending have been working with the topic for years and that I shouldn’t panic for not being there, but I still did as I have a tendency to be the immediately if not sooner type of a girl and I hate the feeling of “just not getting it”. Back to the tennis court, starting from the basics, looking like an idiot missing the easy serves and realizing you need to practise hundreds of hours to get to the next level. Patience patience, there’s no shortcut to jump to the expert path, there’s no immediately if not sooner, so all I could do is pay attention, twist my brain to understand the concepts and terms and code language flying around and ask stupid questions during breaks. The sessions were from 8am to 6pm and I was completely exhausted at the end of the days. Evenings where luckily less busy than in St Charles...had a glass of wine and dinner with colleagues and headed back to our villa early for a hot chocolate and sleep, except for Wednesday which was THE party night with BBQ and free drinks.  I, once again, made a sort of promise to go just for the BBQ and hit home early but was convinced by my colleague Charles that this night will be spent on the floor dancing our asses off. Ok! Charles is quite a persona, very “intense” as Bec described and soooo funny that  he should be in entertainment business rather than working with the  letters S, P and A. So surprise surprise in no time I found myself at the only bar around the resort thinking sleeping is so overrated. The fun part of the evening was definitely the rough miners who after too many drinks thought they are a) extremely good dancers b) extremely attractive c) extremely funny approaching women with the weirdest moves and pick-up lines ever d) extremely persistent with their pursuit. For a second there I felt very homey, men get few drinks and “boom” their self confidence is 2km high. Anyways by the time one miner from my break-out group (older than my dad) was dancing without a shirt and opening up his zipper too I decided my eyes had seen too much and called it a night.  On the way back I saw a little baby kangaroo, the first living kangaroo spotted here in Australia which made me so excited I totally forgot the damage of half-naked miner dancing fiercely to the beat of Michael Jackson and got sweet dreams instead of nightmares. Two more days to go. Friday afternoon all the information was poured to our heads and it was time to start well deserved weekend. I felt dead tired, head spinning and somewhat out of place...too much information and too much happening within a week. Late afternoon we headed to Kaija and Ross for a dinner and was welcomed with a big hug and smell of Sauna. Yes, they have a proper Finnish sauna on their backyard and a pool next to it to cool down. It was just what I needed: sauna, pool, smoked salmon, excellent red wine and dear friends. I was normal again. Or at least “normal” with my terms. On Saturday I attended a hen party, on Sunday I had a Martha Stewart day and long long Skype session with little people. After Skype I cried. No drama, the normal story of missing the little people. Sometimes a good cry helps. Chocolate helps too.

This week has been incredibly normal. I go to work, I do work, I get home from work and enjoy life at home. I still have the flu, so no rage runs or yoga or anything else exciting until Saturday which is my internal deadline for being well again and kick-starting the sporty life. Last Thursday I hit the 4 months milestone and made a promise to start having more healthy routines in life...a promise that is worth saying out loud. A promise that is good for Ansku

4 months is 1/3 of a year. Not sure if it is a lot or not.

Love,

//Ansku

PS: In four nights my mom is also coming to Bris, she arrives on Sunday morning and stays over for a month. It will be weird to have “life from Finland” here with me...something that hasn’t been part of the setup since Eepi left. And obviously, can’t wait to get a big warm hug from a loved one. Four nights.