At the Gates

This is my last post from Finland. I am currently sitting at my gate at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. It's also my first e-mail post so I don't know how good it will look.

The last few days have been very busy and a little painful. I didn't pack my stuff until yesterday when I was hanging out with my gf for the last time. Besides the stuff I took with me I also had to pack everything I left behind so my parents wouldn't be buried in heaps and heaps of clothes.

Saying goodbye to my girlfriend was really tough. Normally when you stop seeing someone your life is safe. Mine's not. It's scary. I'm anxious about getting jobs and places to sleep and getting around in Australia. It's a big place, bigger than Central Europe. And even though I've traveled a lot, I've never felt this uneasy about it. But experience does pay off. For some reason I beeped going through the metal detector and got an unpleasant groping for it. Plus my back was scanned twice, but neither really bothered or surprised me.

Yesterday I also saw my three best friends. I'm grateful for the time they were able to put aside to see me for the last time in 9 months. I'll be sending you postcards!

Goodbye to you all!

The Going Away Party

Yesterday, four days before my departure we held a joined going away party with Aki, who left for med school in Estonia this morning. The party was held at Kannas in (South) Central Helsinki. I were a little late for the party as I was preparing and burning a DVD as a going away gift for Aki. It's stuff we shot on an 8mm camera 6-7 years ago and that's all I'll say, cause we don't want the thing to go public (it's just so good).

When I arrived at the party fashionably late there was only one guest, a friend of Aki's, so I wasn't actually late at all and you wouldn't have known unless I'd just told you. Others were fashionably late too, but in the end a good portion of my friends and even some of my nicest co-workers attended the event. There were also some surprise guests, which was nice.

Notable guests:

• My brother
• My friend and co-worker LeBron
• My friend and co-worker Llanos
• My friends Valtteri, Pekko, Sanna, Anssi and Eve
• My co-workers Kimmo, Anni and Sonja

Notables missing:

• My cousins (Bono entertained them)
• Our friend Urpo
• My girlfriend (At the U2 gig, too)

I didn't take any pictures cause I don't take pictures in the dark, so this post is void of any visual aid. But take my word, most of my friends aren't that handsome anyway. I didn't get any going away gifts, but then again I wouldn't want to haul anyone's shit around the world anyway, so that's all good. U2 stole some of my guests and I was very tired after preparing Aki's DVD for most of the previous night after another evening on the town. So I headed to my girlfriend's place before last call.

Thanks to all the people who came and said farewell, those who missed it and feel bad about it can come see me at a special comeback party in May of 2011.

My next post might come from Hong Kong later this week, so stay tuned.

20 Days until departure (First official post)

Welcome!

In 20 days I'm going to do what I should've done a long time ago. As some of you must know, I'm going on a working holiday to Australia. This is something I have been planning for a long time, maybe 3 or 4 years. Still it came as quite a shock to a lot of people when they found out about it this past spring. Go before it's too late, it's now or never, yada yada yada...

I will be away from Finland for nine months, eight of which will be spent in Australia (probably). In three weeks I'll be in Hong Kong where I'll spend three nights before flying to Brisbane. From there I'll probably go to Cairns, where it's warm but not rainy yet. In the following eight months I'll work and travel and see as much as I can. Some familiar places like Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and hopefully lots of new places like Brisbane, Tasmania, Perth, Darwin and Alice Springs.

After the eight months I'll revisit New Zealand (this time on the Northern Island), fly off to Tonga and travel back in time to Samoa before coming back home in the end of May 2011. Okay, poor writer trick time. Here are some lists 'cause my brain isn't working very well.

Preparations for the trip I have done:

• I moved from my apartment in Turku to my parents' apartment in Helsinki and put most of my stuff in a locked storage for 15 months.
• I bought airplane tickets from Kilroy Travels for just over 2000 €. 1500 € was supposed to be my limit, but then I fell for Samoa and Tonga instead of San Francisco and LA.
• I've been working at summer camp for most of the summer to attain sufficient funds for my trip.
• Sold my old TV to a friend for extra cash.

Preparations I've yet to do:

• Buy traveler's insurance.
• Get rid of clothes I don't need anymore (coming to Facebook).
• Book accommodation in Hong Kong.
• Buy a trip from Brisbane to Cairns.
• Haggle with my phone company to free up my iPhone for use in Australia.
• Get a job in Australia. (I do have a contact in Sydney and one near Melbourne where I might go work on a wine farm)
• Prepare mentally.

Stuff I'm leaving behind:

• 1 girlfriend.

That's it for now. Out of the 20 days remaining, 11 will be spent not preparing for the trip but I hope I'll get everything done in time.

Please come back soon, I'll try to post as often as I can after I departure.

PS. Hit me up with any tips you have about working in Australia or abroad in general or about anything else in the comments.

PPS. Also check out my twitter feed (THERE! On the right!) for smaller updates.