ID6 - One Way Or Another

Wow, what a weekend. On Friday I worked from 9 am until 10 pm, on Saturday from 8 am to 1 am and on Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm.

On Friday the concert arrangements were in full force. Darcy had brought some of his friends to help and we put up a big marquee in the cafe with Richard, winemaker-Andrew, Alex and Graham. We also put up some fences, but a lot of work was left until Saturday so I, again, was out of work from 3 to 5:30. Then I helped Krystal and Aimee put up some cheap furniture in the backstage area. At 7:30 Helmut called me up and me and Richard moved nine pieces five meter pipes on the green in front of the stage. The pipes were really heavy and very hard to lift. I felt I was close to pulling an abdominal muscle on the last one.

Then the diggers arrived and I mostly stood around and made and brought the real workers some coffee. Helmut wanted me to stay until Sascha and Ana were done setting up the restaurant. It took them forever even though they had the returning bar man Goldie helping them. Goldie is a tall Indian man and everyone seems to like him. Everybody but me that is. He keeps calling his co-workers his bitches and he has this general arrogance about him. Of course he's friends with Sascha and he exploits that friendship to his fullest. I haven't seen Sascha talk that much during workman he did with Goldie on Friday. Because Goldie is a casual he gets payed by the hour and he doesn't seem to be in a rush to get some things done and to get home like some people. Ana also takes her sweet time when she's setting up the restaurant. But finally we were able to get home. Sascha and Ana went out for a drink with Goldie while I saw LeBron James blow out his former team in the first quarter.

I woke up at six the next morning because I thought we'd be going back at seven but Sascha slept in. At work I first helped Darcy's friends set up the chairs in the VIP areas near the stage. Then I moved in goths restaurant where I was supposed to work the bar with Goldie. Instead I barely saw him and ended up working for him. I was so overwhelmed at the bar by myself that my emotions boiled to point that I ended up shouting at Ana and Sascha, kicking a barrel and Sascha threatening to throw me out if I ever did that again. We both brewed for awhile but he was very nice to me from then on. He hadn't seen me pushed that far and was probably thinking something must have really been wrong for me to get that steamed.

I fortunately got to take some time of from the bar as I went to help Rami move the trash and recycling bins down to the shed. On the first trip we were helped by Rory and Rami asked me if he could go back to the restaurant quickly. I told him I had to go back too and that we should just do this together quickly. Once we got back up, Rami said thank you and headed back inside leaving me in charge of five more bins!

It was hot but it gave me time to cool off mentally. I actually wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about working in the bar. To be honest, I think I'd rather work outside five days a week than try to keep up in there. Fortunately we were ready and the customers arrived soon after I got back in. Goldie actually worked pretty fast at that point. At that point the time just flew. We did get a lot of glasses to wash and polish...

I was feeling pretty good and especially good when Blondie performed. I actually ventured outside a couple of times and circled around during Atomic, probably my favorite Blondie song. I was too self conscious of my Rochford attire to full enjoy the moment. But it was still great. This day was a big factor in making me want to come down and do this job. The way it sounded back then was a little cooler and than what it has felt like. But I think I can truly say that seeing Deborah Harrie perform on that stage is the most incredible thing that has happened to me at the job and something I will try to cherish as long as I can for the rest of my life. Still doesn't make all the other stuff worth it. Fortunately the money helps and can generate more unforgettable memories for me after I leave this place.

The main act was The Pretenders and during their performance I was sent outside to sell drinks in the parking lot marquees. I generally liked it, but boy, half of those people shouldn't have been drinking anymore alcohol and many more would have been better off with light beer. Plus these thirty to forty year old Australians who barely can afford to come a concur like this are the worst kind of consumers in the world. Some people tried to get their drinks without paying the full price.

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While I was writing the last paragraph Sascha got a call from a hysterical Eva. Alex had hit on her at home earlier and last night she was attacked by a stranger in the city. She can't live with Alex anymore and she's moving in with Sascha and Ana and I'm moving in with Alex or maybe Boaz. It's not fair but we have to help her. Wow... Let's just get back to the story.

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The evening wound down and we polished "so many glasses" as the hysterical waitresses said it. I also got to guard the wines so drunk people wouldn't steal them and met my old friend, the guy from the Farnham concert with the Finnish girlfriend. She had been there too but she'd already left. Earlier in the day I met Rebecca, Richard's daughter, who lives in Sydney and who I'll be meeting down there to check out her project of teaching school kids leadership skills. The last things we did was tear down all the marquees and carry all the trash bags from the VIP areas near the stage over the fences.

Six hours of sleep later it was back to work for me and Sascha. I started outside with Helmut, Richard an others. We cleared the winery area of all the extra crap and had some lunch. Then everybody else left and I had to go work inside.

David was in the bar and he was worse than ever. I guess he was tired too. He didn't talk loud enough for people to hear, he kept running into me and was just a general pain to be around. Then Goldie stepped in to "help" us. He's more relaxed than anyone and sometimes he's just talking while I'm constantly working non-stop and he has the nerve to say that I'm too slow...

All of a sudden the day was almost over and the chefs went home. Sascha told most of the waitresses to "knock off" and go home. One of them was Goldie who stayed for two more hours, but fortunately he cleaned the bar pretty well while he was there. I, once again, became Rami's bitch. First I took all of the kitchen's dirty rubbish bins out and then I cleaned the floors. When that shit was done it was still only five o'clock and some of the customers were still there. One of them bought two ugly paintings for $395 a piece. After me and Eva had polished the last glasses I spent an hour reading my magazine before we left giving Eva a lift to the Lilydale train station.

I almost fell asleep in the car. My legs were killing me and I don't remember feeling so exhausted since working 18 hours in a day as a moving man. Still I was able to get some KFC and enjoy a couple of excellent episodes of Six Feet Under in the living room while S&A were away at the movies.

Today's my touristy day in Melbourne and currently I'm in the car with Sascha and Ana who are meeting Goldie for lunch in the city. I'm trying to gather my thoughts about all this Eva-Alex business. I could stay with Alex and work at Rochford until the end of January like I planned to. Then again it might be the opportunity to make a change earlier. One idea I came up with is to look for a job in Tasmania and staying there for a month before going to Sydney if I found one. The restaurant work is so hard and unnatural for me at the moment that quitting doesn't sound too bad. Besides I don't think it'll be easy to stay civil with Alex who's basically responsible for the situation and who I'd be staying with. I smell a vicious circle. Boaz is great but he has to go to work at 7 am so often that it would be counterproductive staying with him. Less time to sleep and relax a little better? But the number one person I want to talk to is Helmut.

He might be grumpy very often but I like the man and he's given me a pretty good job considering the circumstances. I don't want to disappoint him especially during their busiest time of the year and he might be able to lessen my workload in the bar. Or I could be taught how to use the till and make some coffees. But I will always be slow on Sundays. No matter how hard I try that's what it'll look like to the people who judge my work performance. It's just so stressful. Maybe the universe can give me a signal...?

I wanted to end this post with a salute to Finland on her 93rd birthday. I have never been a very patriotic person cause I think blind patriotism isn't very smart. Just because some things have been the way they are since World War II doesn't mean they couldn't be changed. While I reserve my right to criticize the country and some of it policies I have fallen in love with it while being away. Not only does Finland offer at least a passable quality of living to rich or poor and the world's best education for everyone, it's "all free" and people are happy to pay their taxes and vote for the people who don't neglect the less fortunate. I'm not saying I'm looking forward to waking up before 7 am through out my career as a teacher, but I will het used to it and I will get to enjoy the world's best winter. Not too cold, but still snowy for quite some time. Besides, spring and summer are awesome in Finland followed by a beautiful September-October with leaves in all colors and beautiful sunsets. The months I'd pass on are the dark-but-not-always-snowy November and hayfever-May. Finland is a beautiful country and there are a lot of smart people who want the best for not only themselves but others and the whole world too. I love my family and my friends. I love Helsinki and Turku and I want to spend more time in Naantali. Next summer I want to go to the Midnight Summer film festival in Sodankylä and maybe go up to Kilpisjärvi on the same trip. I'm looking forward to coming back next summer and making and keeping on making our summer house in Vihti enjoyable for myself and my family for many, many summers to come.

Wether you're going to the party, protesting it, watching it at home or you couldn't care less Stay independent and congratulations!

Happy Independence Day F!

Hahn Solo

Blog news:

My very important poll for the blogs new language got an incredible 10 votes in three weeks (one was mine). I thought about going into Finnish, but I want to practice my English a little bit more. On the other hand whenever I write in Finnish it's starting to feel like I can't do it anymore. I might do a 180 when I'm halfway through this trip around New Years. Back to the blog...

A weekend at work turned into three days at work quicker than you can say "Haha, very funny Sascha." I wanted to update the blog on Sunday to attract the most readers possible, but it was not to be.

Saturday was pretty awesome. I had a lot of fun working in the bar with Louise again. It did get very busy at one time, but John Farnham fans behaved better than Simply Red fans so the customers were quite nice and almost no one ordered anything special. Something about Lou's joyfulness brought out the crazy in me and I started talking to her in a Russian accent and calling myself Boris (I don't think Australians remember or have seen Borat). "I go make toilet, now" and "I will crush you" were my favorite phrases. We did get a great flood at the bar, but we also got time off during Farnham's set and free pizza to munch on during it. All the waitresses were nice and in a good mood too (except for Ana) and we all had a good time. Although nobody ordered a "Hahn Solo" it felt really good.

Sunday was supposed to be more of the same, but a shorter day. We started by restocking the bar and by taking all the enticingly available wine bottles next to the kitchen to the back. All of a sudden Helmut comes in and tells me to go outside (Yes, I just switched to present tense). I really don't want to go outside, I have my new good looking trousers on and I'm starting to get good at this job plus I really want to work with these people as much as I can. Helmut talks to Sascha and sends me outside.

I was furious. And lost. I went outside and tried to find something to do. But I didn't know, what I was supposed to be doing. Graham didn't know what I was supposed to do. I went back in and came back out. Finally I heard that I was outside, because we didn't have enough people over 18 to sell alcohol at the marquees outside. After a little juggling I got to sell some booze to people, some of whom were pretty intoxicated to begin with.

After my break they closed a couple of stations and I never got back to selling. Instead I had to restock the iceboxes behind the salesmen and collect trash from the numerous port-a-potties. I felt out of place with my black trousers and rubber gloves.

The rest of Sunday was pretty stupid, but time went pretty quickly and I got to work with Tim and Darcy, who are just about the most lovable, smart and funny boys/guys I know. I worked very hard and got a huge splash of water thrown on my pants to show for it. Afterwards I still had to wait for Sascha, so I could go home. Eva, a new German waitress, waited with me too because Sascha had invited her to our place for dinner.

On our way home Sascha told me that I'd have to go back to work on Monday. I thought this was just his stupid jokes, that he could see it from my face that that would be the last thing I'd want to hear. I didn't even acknowledge his comment and just watched out the window. But I had to ask him if he was being serious. Boaz had asked him (hours earlier) if he could get some help for Monday.

Eva stayed for dinner and I had to keep the conversation going in English so that the others wouldn't talk German all the time. She was a very nice, warm person and very German looking. Her English was a lot better than Sascha's or Ana's and I learned that she's from Aachen near Cologne (Koln).

Monday morning I woke early to Boaz's text message but he didn't come pick me up. Instead, over two hours later Sascha took me to work. Boaz gave me a Red Bull and an assignment outside. I set up the whole cafe (Boaz did help me a lot) before going on a break. After the break I helped David, Meg and Boaz inside. Before long though, Helmut called me and told me to go work outside with Richard.

When I found Richard he had enough help so I dragged a couple of empty recycling and trash bins back to the winery and went back inside for a while. One of the three wine tour busses had cancelled though and it was quiet. Richard came in and gave me something to do. So I spent the rest of the day working with Rami's Indian friends who weren't as lazy as Friday's bunch. We changed the concert signs from the past weekend with INXS and a new Blondie/Pretenders sign, we drove all the random pellets lying around an either took them back to the winery or threw them in a pile to burn and we drove around the vineyard looking for and ripping out all the red and white plastic tape we could find. And that was the day.

Boaz gave me a lift home and asked me if I wanted to hang out with him the next day. I agreed and he told me he'd pick me up after work. Right away I headed to Coles to buy some food and on the way I took a detour to VideoEzy where I bought 48 Hrs. on DVD. I also ate some McDonald's because I was hungry and tired. I fell asleep in my room before Sascha and Ana even started to eat dinner.

Yesterday was one of the best days in Australia so far. Sascha slept all morning and I ate some breakfast, read my book outside, washed my linen and black trousers and wathced DVDs in my room. I went to McDonald's again for lunch. Sascha went to pick up Ana and while he was gone, Boaz gave to pick me up. He dropped Rami off at Coles and we went inside to buy some dinner ingredients. Then we drove to Boaz's place.

Once there, I met Boaz's roommate/landlord Made from Indonesia or Bali to be more exact. He was customizing one of his four motorcycles at the moment and he worked as a chef in a restaurant nearby. Inside Boaz gave me the tour and I could sense the comforting feng shui of the apartment. Right next to the front door they had a Dojo where Made meditated and where they both did some martial arts. I don't remember which one... They also had a very nice terrace outside, with lots of room.

We sat down in the living room with Boaz and he asked me about my life in Finland. We talked about basketball (he's a big fan and half-jokingly called footie a "gay sport"), Rochford and the people there. Boaz told me that I'm a humble person and used quite a nice analogy; People are like cans of soda. Some make a lot of noise because they are not full, aka. they don't know stuff but they have to talk to hide the fact. Others are like myself, we don't make a lot of noise, cause we are full; We know what's going on but we don't have to talk shit. We talked about the importance of speaking English as understandably as possible and Boaz told me that my English was exceptional for a foreigner not from an English speaking country. It's safe to say that I like him a lot. He even wants to go play basketball with me.

Then we watched The National Treasure, which was surprisingly good, especially since the premise was a little stupid and ate some dinner with Made. He was a very interesting person and we talked about poverty in South East Asia compared to the Socialist Democratic system in Finland. He was glad that him and Boaz had gotten out of the nothingness of their home countries to a place where they could get paid real money for the same jobs. The conversation also turned to alphabets. He told us that the Bali alphabet actually has a meaning when you put it in order and form words with letters next to each other. It forms a sentence which roughly translates into "There are two warriors. They are both strong and they fight each other. But no one ever wins." Sounds a lot better than "A, B, C..." to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He also told me that the Bali New Years Day is actually a day of silence. No working, no traveling, no fucking, no loud talking, no eating, no drinking. All they do for one day is read, meditate and think. I want a day like that sometime next summer. No TV, no music, no computers, only sitting and being. I have to practice my meditating skills first :)

We started to watch Gridiron Gang starring The Rock, but were a little too tired so Boaz gave me a lift home. Sascha and Ana were already in their bedroom, but in our living room I found a new resident. A 32 inch TV and a Blu-Ray player.

Today me and Boaz are going to the beach somewhere a 50 minute drive away from here. He's going to pick me up in a couple of minutes and then we're off.

Simply (just) Red - My First 'Day on The Green'

With a concert looming, a lot of people were working very hard, myself included. On Friday Ana joined me and Sascha and came to work at Rochford after working four days at her own job. I didn't get to see either very much that day as I was busy working with Richard and a couple of others, putting up fences on the green in front of the stage and all around the winery as well as other manly stuff. It wasn't a long day but I continued working outside on Saturday morning so the days are a little muddled in my head.

I got off work at around 5:30 PM, but ended up waiting for Sascha to do some paperwork until at least sundown (somewhere closer to 8 o'clock). We had McDonald's for our late dinner.

On Saturday the three of us were on the move very early and I was feeling very tired, mostly because of the physical nature of the work I had been doing. We set up some takeaway food and wine marquees (large tents) before getting to eat a staff breakfast. Even though it was a concert day with the gates opening at around 2 PM there were a lot of wine tour customers around noon which employed the wine tasting people as well as the waiters, the chefs and the bartenders.

After tying some bricks to protect the marquees from flying away and putting up some signs I was able to escape the outside work and get behind the bar. I was working with Louise and we were in charge of the bar. The bar fridges had been emptied of our normal stock and re-filled with our concert stock. I ended up pouring soft drinks, cold beers, many, many glasses of wine and to mix some drinks. We started around 1:30 and almost just like that the sun had gone down and Simply Red was on stage. We closed the alcohol service and I moved to my speciality, polishing glasses.

Serving drinks was a lot of fun and we worked really well together with Lou. I did most of the walking stuff while she had to do all of the coffees and handle the money orders (ie. the spirits since all wines, beers and soft drinks were included in the ticket prices). Sometimes I was alone at the bar and did quite well even getting a $20 tip from a very nice young lawyer. There were, of course, some mistakes but things were so well prepared and the selection of drinks was so narrow that I was able to handle most of it. I had fun.

The night lasted until midnight before we got to leave, which everybody was actually surprised by. I talked to Helmut as we were fetching all the rubbish bins and he seemed satisfied with how things had gone and how hard people had worked. He also said that me, Sascha and Ana were invited to his house after work next Sunday.

Sunday morning I got to sleep a little later and even had time to take a shower. Again I was working at the bar, this time with Bree or Brianna. Before the tour busses arrived we were doing really well, but then we started running out of clean glasses and getting buried in coffee orders. I handled most of the alcohol and soft drink orders (I'm glad that I got that RSA) but the extended selection had me searching for wines at times when I could've been washing the glasses and helping Bree out. In the end we survived but the last hour and more was a joint effort of polishing glasses. While polishing, I talked to couple of the waitresses, Sasha and Taylor, and both were really nice and asked a lot of questions, a deed I still need to learn to return. But the conversations were still nice and went into surprising directions as good conversations always do.

When we finally got rid of the last group after five and after Tim, Taylor and I cleaned the bar I still had to wait for Sascha. I surfed the Internet until my battery died, made some coffees and just sat there. I couldn't wait to get home for my days off and to finish watching the second season of The Wire that I had been watching an episode a day on average. We stopped by the store and ate delicious pasta bolognese at around midnight. Sascha is a great cook and we also arrived on a solution on how to spit the food expenses. I finished the magnificent DVD set and got some valuable shut eye.

Today I have washed my linen, read some of my Hitchiker's book and just sat in the 21 degree afternoon sun. I burned my arms a little but I applied Aloe Vera while watching Ridley Scott's Robin Hood on Sascha's portable DVD player. In between I also had a really good chat with Sascha with him doing most of the talking about my life. A very nice day. Tomorrow we're going to the city and I want to buy some new magazines (in case my battery fails me at work again), season three of The Wire, new pants and maybe some shirts and socks so I don't have to do laundry too often.

After tomorrow it's back to work on the vineyard and I can't wait till the next 'Days on The Green' two weeks from now. John Farnham even has a very good song on my iPhone (You're The Voice, check it out) so the music can't be too bad.

Until next time, no worries.