Ice hockey in Adelaide
Time is a difficult thing to measure. Here I am, uploading tons of pictures to the internet, while I should be having my dinner before I go out with Ahis and the rest of the finnish ice hockey team here in Adelaide. Just a few days ago I was with Viki, feeding dogs, in newham. The long bus trip from Mel to Adelaide. Days spent watching the World police & fire games and wondering the streets of Adelaide. Everything seems to be light years away from each other and I am somewhere, drifting in time, lost between all this.
I can't blame though. I'm really enjoying my time as I have my always loving Carina sending me messages all the time. I have my floorbal friend here to go out with and as Carina already told I am going to Barossa valley wine tour tomorrow. The weather has been really great for someone who is on a holiday but locals are always seaking of rain. Perhaps it is that I'm carrying rain with my name so I'm not so fond of such an awful weather.
The finnish ice hockey team won chezk team today with a crushing numbers of 5-1. This means that our boys will play in the final agains Montreal team from Canada. Todays game was a superb performance from the whole team. I'm sure the boys had something to show after sluggish game and earned defeat on the game played yesterday.
So, tomorrow I'll start my day with a glass of wine in the Jacob's Creek winery. Enjoy the pictures I've uploaded!
Melbourne in March
Melbourne in March is a little like Helsinki in August. There are so many events going on at the same time and such pressure to see as much as possible that I often end up seeing nothing at all... Only in Mel there must be tenfolds the program of Helsinki. We have the Loreal fashion week, Grand Prix motor race, World Championchips in swimming, Queer film festival, Moomba festival, waterskiing festival, Food&Wine festival, International flower exhibition, just to mention a few. The list really is endless.
Combined with a daily dance/swimming session, the episode with the stolen phone (that caused serious hours on the net), my desire to spend time just hanging around and the amount of walking this city requires; this almost starts to resemble work! Now I can hear you going "Shut up woman" and you're right, no it isn't work, but yes, it is lots to do. Fun things to do, you just have to choose events according to interests and budget.
Living centrally is a great advantage, some happenings I've just stumbled on on my way home! I've managed to catch the grand prix finals (GO Raikkonen =) !), one of the queeries films, some swimming rehearsals, I snooped around the Loreal tents and watched some fashion shows on the outside screens (tickets way too expensive) and accidently walked by some waterskiing one day. Not bad! So if someone feels left out on the email front, I apologize - have been busy but will try to write more frequently in the future!
Should I bring up the food? My first time in Mel I gained 8 kg in 5 months... There are so many cakes to eat (even when only counting the flourless ones) and so much superb cheap takeout from all over the world that you would need a much bigger budget, much more time and an endless digestive system. Making your own dinner almost seems like a waste...
I got my new phone and am now trying to learn how to use it. It's more like a computer really, so it will take some time, but if I get everything working it should be a good one. Today Im doing practically nothing. Everything is aching from maybe too much dancing and it's crazy hot outside so I'll head to the outdoor pool and play with my phone and read a book. On saturday we do a winery tour to the Yarra Valley - only to be beaten by Raine who'll do a Barossa Valley wine tour (biggest wine area in Australia) tomorrow from Adelaide. GGGrrr!
Catch you later!
-Carina
News from the farm
As Carina so kindly pointed out I've been "working" in Newham for a while. I've been treated more like a honoured guest than one of the slaves I was prepared to be. I have to tell you I've been enjoying my stay in here so much and this experience exceeded my best hopes thousand times. I've spent most of my time with Viki and been trying to help with the boarding kennel as best as I van. I mean I love the animals but I'm sure someone else might be for a better help. Well, I've enjoyed my stay and as most of you know I'm not normaly talking too much but I've been trying to speak with Viki and Barry as much as possible. Thanks to the cost cuts in my company my english has been rusty for some time and it's been a real work for me to twist my tong for the english.
Anyway, this place I'm living in is blessed by a wildlife I've never seen before. I mean where ever you go you'll see kengurus. If I want to see parots I just open the front door and take a look at the close by trees. the small spiked kidneys (or how ever you spell those) wonder all over in here and then there are the spiders and other creepy crawlers all over. Then there are the lovely dogs and all other animals I've must have mentioned already. I think I've never been so happy as I'm in here but then again I feel so lost with the lovely people I'm living with. They've been so kind to me that I feel almost shamed to not be able to fulfill my tasks any better. They show me all the places around here and introduse me to other people all the time and suddenly I feel like a young child again. I'm not sure if you can understand my feelings but I feel being able to live my childhood memories all over. I know, I wasn't in Oz when I was young but the feeling is the same as when I stayed in my godmothers farm. That's something I'll never forget and I don't have the words to thank Viki and Barry as I should.
Tomorrow we're going to one of the wild life sanctuaries where I can see crocodiles and such. That should be a blast! For the evening we've planned to go to one of the wineries to listen some local music and enjoy the local products.
I hope the pictures I've taken will give any credit to the places andf things I've seen but I still have to wait until I get to Mel or Adelaide to upload them to the net.
Things happen in dorms...
It's been a busy couple of days for me. Things were going really well, me enjoying myself and the city, finding nice dance classes, meeting some people, even my back doing pretty OK. When things are that great you know something's about to happen. So this saturday when coming back to the hostel from a hot lazy day at the pool, I found that my phone/camera/mp3-player-all in one amazing machine was gone. First I thought someone in the dorm had just misplaced it, but it soon became clear it wasn't to be found, and that we had other things missing from our dorm as well. As I know of, a total of 3 cameras, 2 mp3-players, one laptop and my machine were stolen by someone who just walked in from the street, grabbed the things and propably already sold them onwards. (Here I have to say that it was the first and last time ever that I left the phone in a dorm charging, only cos the battery was flat empty.)
Life's hard without any means of contacting anyone or any numbers for anyone, I didn't even have an alarmclock or watch! Not to mention the light I used to read books in bed when the lights were out in the dorm... So the next morning I slept til 10, cos nothing woke me up! (I had plans before that) Went looking for my phone in the pawn shops a few blocks away, but no luck so far. Now Im hoping to get something back from the insurence, but we all know how fast that works. And the numbers to the people I've met in Australia, the pictures on my memory card and a lot of other things stored on my phone I wont ever get back. I even had to close my internet bank codes, cos I had a pic of them on the phone! God knows when I'll get new ones, not being able to show up at a bank in Helsinki myself.
I was lucky enough to have already arranged to go and meet Raine at the farm, and the amazingly kind people who he "works" for (lives with) managed to lend me a phone for a week (I now use my finnish number again) and let me use their computer and phone to try to arrange things. Thay also let me stay as many nights as I wanted, fed me, let me rest, showed me around, took me to some wineries with tastings and drove me back to Melbourne! Thanks to them I'm a totally new person again and have the energy needed to try to find a new phone and some means to pay for it. So life's back on track =) And the farm is great, but that's Raine's bit to tell you about!
As my aussie number does not exist anymore, sms will reach me at +358505306415.
-Carina
Greetings from the farm
Here I am, an hour north of Mel, writing to you via 33kbs
modem connection!! I didn't even realize there are places without broadband. They have a broadband across the street but it seems this place is just a few meters too far.. Anyway, here I am living with a really nice family and with a zillion different animal. There are alpacas, all kind of dogs, chickens, lambs, all sort of parrots, cats, horse and many things I don't know how to spell. I would love to upload you some pictures but the connection is too slow for the pictures so you have to wait until I find a better place to send them over.
Bats, Batman and pilates
The last few days have gone more or less for the sight seeing of the suburbs. After the bike tour on the last Wednesday I was in a walking tour this Monday. The walking tour took us across the CBD of Mel. We visited many hidden places which were not only really cool places but also hard to find too. For example there's an old building which was about to be demolished out of way for the new skyscraper - until they had this superb idea. They saved the old building, including the high dome and build the new skyscraper over the old building like the sarcofag. Now, if you know where to look for you can find a hidden dome inside the skyscraper. Pretty cool, huh? The walking tour took us along some famous but silly sounding streets and the day was an good exercise.
On my way to Port Melbourne on Thursday I visited the IVI office. It's the volunteer organization I am using to get a placement here in Victoria and later in Fiji. It was a nice visit and it gave me a bit more secured feeling since we have been contacting them only via email. I also contacted the family offering the placement and made the arrangements to get to the Macedon Ranges on Wednesday. At the moment I don't have a clue what to expect from the following two weeks but I'm sure it will be something totally different compared to my office work. I'm looking forward meeting the family who's kind enough to offer me this placement.
It's not easy to stay in shape while traveling but I've been trying go jogging from time to time. Pilates, yoga and the basic weightless exercises are the things I've been doing when possible. While in east coast I was swimming and surfing but in Mel you go for the things you can do in the parks. So, on Sunday night, after a long and exhausting day I went to the riverside for my pilates training. It was well beyond the sunset and the moon and stars were visible. It was a beautiful place by the river and suddenly I was surrounded by strange noises from the trees close by. The voices were getting close and it was then when I noticed the huge dark shapes in the sky. No matter how common those are in Mel but I always find the beauty of the giant bats just stunning. So, there I was, doing my pilates exercises on the riverside, surrounded by the winged shades, under the silver moon.
Melbourne
Time to write again! We wanted to see the east coast, and now we have, but when moving places frequently, it doesn't leave enough energy to also write and email.
Raine already told you something about our travels on the east coast. Im glad we saw all those places, but Byron Bay was no question my favourite of the bunch. The other places were more "smalltown Australia", nothing wrong with that, but maybe not so much my scene. Noosa was nice, with beatifully planned city infrastructure for the rich and the famous and Bundaberg & Mackey showed us what Australia is like when neither in a big city nor in the coutryside. Airlie beach from where the tours to the Whitsundays depart, is a very beautiful small town with more tourists than locals.
Our sailing trip was a great success and the occational rain didn't disturb us. We had some superb Italian food on the boat and we had a lot of fun snorkling among the colorful coral and fish. There was only 9 people on the boat so we got to know every one, I even got an invitation to stay with a Canadian couple in Vancouver when there. As a first time sailing experience it was great to have both still waters and heavy wind (although my stomach didn't like the heavy wind part...) Cos of deadly jellyfish (!) we had to wear specially made stinger suits when snorkelling, Raine looked just like superman in his, shame we dont have a picture of that =) EDIT We DO have pictures of that, in the Whitsundays picture folder!
From Airlie beach we took a bus to Mackay, spent one night in Mackay, took a plane to Brisbane, spent 9 hours in Brisbane (actually enough to see it), took a flight to Melbourne and here we are. Every one already know it, but this really is my favourite city on earth. So Im gonna live here for a month and do whatever I feel like, I just enjoy myself so much! Im now staying in a city centre (CBD) hostel with Raine, but when he leaves for his farm, Im moving to an inner city suburb called Richmond from where I have lively cafe'/bar Brunswick street in the east, Italian food Lygon Street in the west, Carlton gardens in the middle and CBD a 20 min walk south =) Can't complain about that!
That's about it for now, Im off to my second dance class here. (Need that after the chocolate truffle+chocolate souce breakfast yestarday and the buckwheat pancake/bacon and egg breakfast today...) As Im learning to save my pennies, this was written on a free library computer =) My pictures will come later as the free computer couldn't download them... =)
-Carina
