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.
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