Family Ties

So, where do I begin?

After all the excitement on Sunday night I couldn't fall asleep. I kept thinking about all the things me and my mom talked about and all the other people that interconnect with our lives in Finland. It took me until 2 am to fall asleep, 4 hours left before wake up.

We had some breakfast and after that we were whisked off on our tour. Our driver and guide was a very funny bearded, tall man called Tom. The bus we rode with was pretty similar to the ones we used for commute in Proserpine.

Before the actual Great Ocean Road we drove through a couple places of interest. The first place was Geelong, Victoria's second largest city with a population of 130,000. It used to be an important gateway during the goldrush in the 1850's. The ships grew too big for Geelong's sandbars and as they moved to Melbourne, so did a lot of the people.

The next place was Torquay, Australia's surfing capital. After the second world war, local surfers invented the wetsuit and started their own company Rip Curl. One of the guys wanted to start his own company, Quicksilver. Right after Torquay we stopped at Bell's Beach (portrayed in Point Break by an Irish beach) and took some pictures.



The Great Ocean Road's divided into tree parts, Surf Coast, Green Coast and Shipwreck Coast. Like Australian names, there's no need for explanation. After the beaches and a teabreak, we arrived at the official entrance to the GOC. After that we saw a lot of green and made out next stop at Koala cove. We saw some colorful birds and a couple of sleepy and hungry koalas.





We followed the green coastline until Apollo Bay where we had lunch. Fish and chips, plus a coke. Then we headed inlands and went for a hike in the rainforest, where Tom told us some facts and some half-made up jokes in his usual sarcastic way. We still needed to drive for one more hour in the beautiful green before arriving at the Twelve Apostles.





There was a lot of people there and an option to see the apostles from a helicopter too. We took a walk and wound up at the shore right next to the biggest one. It doesn't translate very well into my pictures, but they looked freakin' amazing. I took a LOT of pictures and even posed in some of them myself.





After the apostles we checked out Shipwreck Gorge where a sailor named Tom survived a shipwreck and saved the only other person, a woman, to survive. They never got married. After that we saw London Bridge which had actually fallen down a couple years earlier just before some school kids were about to go down there. Two people were stranded on the other side though, a fact that Tom elaborated on with another one of his funny stories.

Then we had three hours left to get back to the city. We stopped for dinner at a little town and we -- mom and me -- chose Subway. We were tired but we chatted most of the drive back and I couldn't stay awake for long at the hotel.

I slept well and after breakfast we packed our stuff, took it to the car and checked out of the hotel. We started our day by going to the Eureka tower, the southern hemisphere's highest viewing platform. My mom had never been there before, but I had, coming home from New Zealand in March. The views were good and made more sense this time, because I knew so many more places this time around.



Then we went shopping. Or I went and mom ended up shouting -- Australian for paying -- for me. Besides some DVDs and some clothes from JayJay's the main thing was my new backpack/suitcase, which was twice the size of my former backpack. I won't have the chance to use it in three months, but I did get to haul it around the city for the whole day after my mom left for the airport.

First I headed towards the aquarium but I had to get some food and visit the bookstore, preferably a Borders. So I walked to the borders in South Wharf mall, bought Superfreakonomics and had Subway for lunch. I was on my way back to the aquarium when I stopped at the Village Cinemas in the Crown Casino complex to see what was playing. It was 10 minutes before a showing of Machete so I bought a $11 ticket, some soda and went in.



The movie was fun and afterwards walking to the train station, rolling my suitcase behind me, I must've looked really out of place, like a serial killer or something. But I felt like I'd just come back from a vacation, a new beginning of sorts. I hadn't felt this good after or during my off-days before and during the downtime I'd realized that I should have spent more time in the city. After my trip to Sydney, I will. I took the train home and sent some pictures to the blog on my way. I also stopped at Coles and McDonald's before finally getting home. I unpacked my new stuff and fell asleep after twenty minutes of The Wire.



Yesterday was back to work. Work felt very good, I enjoyed working outside again and the weather was nice -- sunny and 23 degrees. In the evening I tried to stay up and watch some NBA but I retreated to bed at halftime.

Today was more of the same at Helmut's farm, but the weather wasn't very nice. It started raining after lunch and even though it wasn't pouring almost at all, it was very wet. My socks were soaked, my sleeves and pants got wet as well as my gloves, which are going to get thrown out after tomorrow. Ending the day felt awesome and getting home to put on some dry warm clothes felt even better. We have house guests, Axel and Maria, but them being German and all, there's no point listening them to talk and laugh. I'm heading to KFC for dinner and the I'll do some stretching so I can work outside without feeling it on my hamstrings as badly.

So, I saw my mom -- the first familiar face since Baabäk in Hong Kong -- for the first time in three months. Our time was together wasn't very long, but she'll still be in Sydney when I get there next week. I actually do feel like I just had a vacation and in just four days I'll start a real vacation with Brotherman in Sydney. It'll be great to get back there after two years and I'm really fortunate to have this opportunity to see my family here. If I'm unlucky, it'll be another six months before that happens again.

Well, I hope everyone, myself included, has a great weekend. My nephew -- Call me Don Sakari -- turns one this weekend. Congratulations! Don't party too hard.

Kept it koel!