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!