Episode IV: A New Home

So...

I have to admit that I have had some emotional issues regarding home-sickness, my latest relationship and money. I can't promise that it's all behind me. There will be some shitty days. But I have no reason to complain and nothing to regret. Why? Well follow me and I'll recapture how I've settled into a new life and home on my two days off from work.

Yesterday morning I woke up at Alex's very tired. I took a shower, ate some breakfast, got my bags ready and went outside to play with the dogs. Sascha, my new German roommate, was coming to pick me up after eleven. So I waited. I must have thrown the drool covered ball more than a hundred times before I got bored of watching Hazel jumping for it. So I waited. And I waited. It was already over 1 PM so I decided to exploit one of the rules of the universe. You know if you are waiting something to happen, it rarely does. And when you least expect it, the universe gives you what you wanted. So I watched an episode of The Wire (I bought Season 2 on DVD from Melbourne, a gamble that paid off, twice). With less than 10 minutes left, Sascha came. He did have some business to attend to at the company but after that we took one of Alex's extra beds -- Sascha called it a "prison bed" -- and a mattress and loaded them into Sascha Pajero with my backpacks. Then we drove to Lillydale and left the stuff there, in my home to be. Right away we took off, cause we had to get Ana from the train station and head to IKEA to get some new furniture. Going to IKEA was not only for my sake even though my room was empty if not for the bed parts and the mattress. No, Ana and Sascha also needed furniture caused they moved in only 10 days before I came. So they fought over which couch they should buy for a long time as marveled at the weird sense that IKEA is really close to home. I have a lot of the same stuff in storage that they sold here. Globalization...

I wasn't part of the selection process but Sascha and Ana got themselves a new couch and some little stuff and I got new dark blue linen for my bed, a pillow and a cover. Very nice. We filled the car up and got the stuff home.

After loading up the car and setting up the bed I started settling in. Then I was welcomed into their lives with a glass of white wine -- Shiraz, I think. We ate some dinner and I retreated to my room where I got more payoff for my DVD gamble with my hosts portable DVD player. Now I don't have to buy a laptop or a portable DVD player until I leave here.

For our second day off we went to a shopping mall in the city. It was the South Bank shopping mall in a new unreasonably expensive part of the city. In the end I just followed Sasha around as he bought some nice new clothes that I'd never dream of buying. It was a higher end shopping mall, but there were the exact shops I like -- JayJay's and JB HIFI -- so I will be going back there when I get money. After that we picked up Ana from her job -- she's a dental hygienist, besides sometimes waiting tables at Rochford -- where she's been having a moral dilemma because her co-workers have been lazy and not doing their job properly. But she might be getting another job closer to home. A long drive later we got back home.

How good do I have it? I get payed every fortnight (that's two weeks) and my rent and expenses will be deducted on pay day so I don't have to worry about money. I will have three paydays before my brother comes to Sydney and I have to actually spend some money. Sascha and I go to and back from work together. The only minus might be that he has longer days so I might have to hang out in the staff room after work.

But who are these people, my new family? I got to talk a lot to Sascha these two days and I learned that he used to be a chef and then he moved into the hotel business. He did apprenticeships all around Asia -- Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur. Then he traveled around the world on a boat enjoying it. Back in Hamburg he was in charge of one of the best hotel restaurants in the world. Then he started his own business, a restaurant consulting company. He still has it but he came to Australia on a working holiday with Ana. Rochford Wines came along and they stayed. But they're not staying here forever. Ana is getting work experience while Sascha is the restaurant manager to keep himself busy. He has his company to go back to when they leave.

I don't know that much about Ana. She's born in Poland but her family moved to Germany, where he and Sascha met. But I can say that they've welcomed me to their life. They are very, very nice people and they've given me valuable advice on backpacking in Australia. I'm very fortunate and even though I feel a little guilty of how good I have it compared to someone in, say, Proserpine, I am going to take advantage of the situation.

So, 2010 will be a nice year and I'm going to make some money this month with 4 special weekend events starting with a Simply Red concert this Saturday. I'm going to save money for 3 - 4 months and then do some traveling without too much hassles looking for jobs. But nothing's set in stone. All I know is now I'm here and in no hurry to go anywhere. Summer's coming. I'm happy.

High note.

Feeling Good

A lot has happened in three days. On Friday morning I took all of my stuff, checked out of the hostel at 6:00 am and met Andrew from Rochford Wines. The drive was nice and we talked about football (Aussie) and Melbourne among other things. Andrew is in charge of pruning the grapes and I haven't seen him since he dropped me off - he probably only worked on Friday anyway and the grapes are not growing quite just yet.

At the vineyard I took my stuff into Helmut's, my boss and contact, office and met Alex. Alex and his wife Elizabeth - both Romanian originally - live on the farm and they're in charge of cleaning the restaurant among other things. They also accommodate a lot of new workers and I'm one of the lucky ones for this weekend.

Then I met Helmut and while I was under the assumption that we were going to talk about my job, he instructed me to grab myself a pair of rubber boots and tools and go to work. So I did. During the first day I compressed some dirt under a pipe, leveled out the ground where the open pipe had been, dug a hole in the road to find a burst in that same pipe and helped level a new access road to a forthcoming mixer's stand. I also felt a little lost in between since I didn't really know who I should be taking my orders from. I also met Sacha from Germany and he told me that I would be moving in with him and his girlfriend Ana as soon as they could prepare a room for me. It's as if they WANTED me to live them before they even met me. It's safe to say that Sacha is probably my favorite person here.

The vineyard is pretty big. It consists of some actually vineyards, most of them with white grapes assume. There's the main building which has the "cellar door" aka. the tasting restaurant at the front, after that is the restaurant with gourmet food and fine wine, naturally and next to the restaurant behind the bar and partly outside is the café. Next to that are some offices like Helmut's. From the café you can see the large field which already has a huge stage on it for concert season. Next Saturday's performer will be Simply Red.

After my first day Helmut told me that I would working under Sacha, who manages the restaurant, for the weekend and that I would work the same days as him from now since I'm going to be living with him. So my days off are Monday and Tuesday and the others I work. After work I took my stuff into Alex's car and got a lift to his house in the middle of the vineyard almost a "stone's throw" away from the main buildings. There I was welcomed by Elizabeth and her cooking which smelled almost as good as my grandma Pirkko-Mummi's, and two lovely dogs. Hazel is the young, active female who loves chasing and catching her tennis ball in mid air. She can jump the height of a car when she does this. The other dog is an older male and he likes to try to steal Hazel's ball since he can't catch it with speed.

So while Alex and Elizabeth went to work, I ate some food, watched some telly and fell asleep early.

On Saturday, after some breakfast of champions (pictured), I reported to work at 10 AM and Sacha pointed me to the bar where David in charge of the bar gave me a crash course in all the things around there.  I mostly washed the dishes and polished the glasses at first. I also filled some water bottles and recycled a whole bunch of empty bottles. The term juoksupoika comes to mind. Errand boy?

So the day went along and I got some new stuff to do either selling fudge, - not packing fudge, selling! - getting more ice for the restaurant and so on. I had no idea how long I was going to be working and I felt a little tired most of the way. After the restaurant closed at five we kept on working cause the vineyard was reserved for a function. We washed and polished every dirty glass, fork, knife and spoon. We rearranged all the tables in the restaurant and set them all up really nicely. I took control of getting all the chairs in place since there weren't enough restaurant chairs for everyone. When it was all set somewhere around 6 PM we got a break and I finally got to eat something. 15 minutes later I was outside telling cars to drive to the main entrance for the red carpet instead of stopping at the back door at the café and the concert field while the sun set. I got to breathe a little while when the cars stopped flowing in and after an hour I headed back in.

8 PM. 9 PM. 10 PM. The day just went on and on. The function was going to continue until midnight. A lot of polished cutlery and glasses later and after setting the tables again for breakfast, we got off work. After 16 hours of work.

The end of the evening was actually quite fun. Ar around 11 there were a lot of us polishing the glasses at the Cellar Door and we had some fun just talking. One of the girl waitresses is a special ed teacher, another one, Kelly, turned 26 at midnight and Tim and Darcy, two younger fellas were quite a funny pair. Tim actually does a spot on German accented Sacha, sometimes to his face and incredible good. "Yes sacha, I vill do anysing for you!"

In the dark I walked back to Alex's who spent the whole night cleaning the restaurant. Today I woke up, had some French toast (not nearly as good as grandma's) and went back to work. I even delivered some drinks today! And wouldn't you know it, six hours went by in a breeze. I sold a lot of fudge today and many customers asked me where I was from, because of my accent. 

Today I had to admit to myself that I really do have an accent. If I was to make a speech in English, I'd probably be able to do a good job but talking quickly I pronounce a lot of stuff badly and forget words when talking quickly. It also seems that I don't talk quite loud enough and I mumble the beginnings of my sentences. I should probably start saying "You know" or something like that when I start talking. Then again a lot of foreigners here use a much more broken version of English so I guess it's not too bad. I've also gotten a lot of compliments on my skills from foreigners but I gotta work on my Strine.

Speaking of broken English, I also met my other new flatmate, Ana, today. She was very nice and she gave me a lot of tips and nuances of the fudge selling and presentating business. We also talked about house rules (no insects, or the neighbor's cats inside the house) and working holiday backpacking.

After work I was greeted by some enthusiastic dogs and a meaty dinner. Alex and I took a drive to see Helmut's new farm -- check out the view -- where he was still working, driving a tractor between the rows with his glasses hanging at the edge of his nose for dear life.

Tomorrow morning Sacha will come get me and we might go to IKEA together and I will be moving to a spare room on their new home. I have no idea where it is or how much I have to pay rent. All I know is that they don't have a TV but they do have a portable DVD player. I'm excited. I'm...

Feeling Good.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Oh, I went there. Now if this was a news report it would start by telling the reader that I just got my RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol) certificate. Details about how this happened and why I got one would follow. Later on details about the RSA and the alcohol laws of Victoria would follow.

Luckily this is not a news report so I don't have to bore you with that. Instead I'll turn this post into an easy-to-follow list and some closing thoughts.

• An RSA is required by law for anyone who serves/sells alcohol. I paid $50 dollars for the course which lasted around 3 hours, including the test at the end
• I'm going to work for a wine company starting tomorrow, where I will -- among other things -- be serving wine
• I'm in Melbourne and it's cold here. I have to wear a jacket outside since the weather is like early spring in Finland, but without the melting snow
• It's also very cold inside. I haven't been anywhere this cold in regular houses since I lived in Alppila. I wear sweatpants, a hoodie and socks to sleep
• When September ends in Finland I will be meeting my future employer at 7:00 AM
• Daylight savings time begins between Saturday and Sunday
• I'm excited, though a little cold
• My plane trip from Brisbane went well. I finished the second to last Hitchhiker's story at Brisbane airport and completed my fifth Klosterman book -- all in just over a month -- soon after I arrived at the hostel in Melbourne
• Melbourne is a bit more expensive than Brisbane. The cheapest hostel would've been $20/night here. I'm paying $26. In Brisbane I paid $140 for a week, in Proserpine $175, in Cairns $18 a night.
• I have a tendency to type hostel with a capital H. It might have something to do with the movie with that name. These hostels seem safer and less horny than Hostel.
• That wasn't interesting or important
• Neither was that. Or this
• Moro? Moro! Get it here first! *Air guitar* 7-11, always something new.
• I'll tell you more about the Klosterman books in a future non-related post

Now, some closing thoughts. Hmm... Don't seem to have any. Oh, okay. I hate to admit this but I haven't been reading EuroBNTH even though it actually has three writers I'm interested in reading. These are Joonas in Italy, Toivo in Russia and Antti in... Now this is why I should've been reading. I'd recommend the blog but I haven't yet so maybe I shouldn't. Ah, why the heck not. Go read EuroBNTH at wordpress. Use those words and add a dotcom somewhere and I think you should find it.

I'll hit the sack and when I wake up the longest September -- at least it felt long -- in my life will be over. My August was actually the shortest one on my life. Or tied with 2008. Anyway, I'm getting picked up at 6:00 AM so it's night-y night for me.

Details about my job and why some people should also read Chuck Klosterman coming. See ya!

Sand In My Pocket

I did go on a day trip to Moreton Island today. Moreton Island is a 38 km long sand island approximately an hour away from the Port of Brisbane ie. the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Island is a complete national park although 50 people actually live there. I am currently sitting on the MiCat sailing back to Brisbane.

I have to mention that I was pretty bored and lonely after the weekend and even though I didn't like the actual movie, going to see Wall Street 2 on Sunday night actually made me feel better. The movie did make feel stupid and I gave it 2.5 stars.

Monday wasn't a special day but I had something to do all the time. I did my laundry, bought and wrote some postcards, did some reading, booked this trip and went to the movies yet again. I saw Despicable Me in 3D. It was dark for a "kids' movie" but I did laugh quite a lot.

Today I woke up at 6:00 AM or a little after it naturally because my "first" alarm was set for 6:00 PM. I'll skip the unnecessary details. First I walked, the. I sat in a car and after that I sat in another car before boarding the MiCat before 9:00 am. On the boat I read Chuck Klosterman's book about places of rock stars' deaths.

The term sand island might not mean anything unless you've seen one. Besides the volcanic rock that formed the north par of this island the whole island is sand. All the plants that grow there, grow out of sand. This place truly was unique in its own special kind of way. (An ironic sentence I'll never write again. From now on I'll settle on unique.) The sand's also the finest sand on earth, literally. It's the same sand glass is made out of. The roads, sand roads.

Now, I want to put the readers in my shoes. Or my thongs* to be exact. Our transport on the island was a minibus. A four wheel drive minibus. On monster truck steroids. Fittingly our guide and driver, Allan, was a monster truck of a man. With a girth of more than 2 meters this was one huge jolly good fellow. Somehow I felt respect for this man just for his mere size. Sure I could outrun him and I'd be less annoying to sit next to on an airplane, but roll us both down a mountain and I'm sure he'd win (obscure Jethro Tull reference).

*Not underwear but a Aussie word for flip flops. I guess in this case the gap next to the big toe is the crack.

The whole day was like a day in an amusement park. Except instead of standing in line for hours, the way you got from one ride to another was actually a rollercoaster. A slow rollercoaster that shakes you around. You remember those ping pong racquets that have the ball on the end of a string. Imagine you're the ball. The seatbelt's the string, the car is the paddle and the terrain is the arm violently smacking the ball again and again and again.

After an hour of that we got to a beautiful place called The Desert. I didn't get a good picture of it cause I didn't want sand all over my phone and the view from the parking lot wasn't that spectacular. There was a sand dune in the middle of this desert and that was the place for sand surfing. Quite simply the purpose was to lay on your stomach on a thin wooden board and bend it just a little so you wouldn't get sand in your face while you careened down the sand dune. Once down, climb back up and do it again. Now this was fun. Climbing up was quite strenuous but going down wasn't just lying down. With almost all of my weight on my chest which took quite a beating against the board bouncing on the sand I felt more spent after going down than climbing up.

I did four runs after which I was like Thomas Haden Church in Spider-Man 3. My arms and legs were covered in sand and my left pocket was filled with it. I have a hole in my right pocket so it was empty. We got back on the 4WD bus and headed to a swim in the lake.

Our second "ride" was swimming in the Blue Lagoon. The water was fresh and I liked the fact that nobody had a house or a sauna on the shore of the lake. It got rid of the sand and then we had some lunch. Then we drove some more.

On our last drive we saw Queensland's oldest lighthouse, a venomous snake crossing the road and a little town which reminded me of the island in Lost.

Of our five hours on the island, three were spent in the car which was bumpy for most of the time. Basically the whole 11 hour day only consisted two hours that wasn't spent on a boat or in a car. Still, I'd recommend it to anyone who spends more than three days in Brisbane. The thrill of sand surfing alone is almost worth the price of admission. A two or three day trip might be more relaxing with more time to do the stuff.

We're now arriving in Port of Brisbane and after a ride to the city I'll start packing and closing the Brisbane chapter of this trip. One more night and one more visit to the book store tomorrow and I'm off to Melbourne for two nights.

Thanks for reading.

Of Mice And Men

Photos from Saturday...

This weekend didn't go quite as I planned it. On Friday I was supposed to see Surfers Paradise. On Saturday I was going to experience the big concert at the park. Today I was going to go to the shoreside markets nearby. Oh, and tomorrow I'd planned on going to Moreton Island for a real holiday thing.

Friday I dragged myself to the central station and found out that a ticket costing around $20 would get me to the city of Gold Coast several km's inland from the beaches and the famous skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise. Had I wanted to travel between 3:30 and 7 PM it would've been closer to $30. Add to that the bus fares from the train to the shore, I didn't like the price of this trip. It would've also taken around 3 hours of travel to get back and forth to go to the sixth biggest city of Australia I knew nothing about and I felt dejected. I had no real interest in the area except for the q1 the world's tallest residential building. Getting a great view of a city with a historical name like Gold Coast didn't seem like worth $30-50 plus three hours of travel.

So, I hung out at the bookstore and remedied my Chuck Klosterman addiction for free.

I started Saturday by going to Fortitude Valley to check out the open air markets. Either I didn't find them or Chinatown actually is in Fortitude Valley. But it was raining and I wasn't going to buy anything anyway so I decided to take a longer walk back to the park where the concert was held. I stopped to look at 38 years of Australian Rolling Stone covers at a gallery on the way. I also took some nice pictures of the city in my way over Story Bridge.

When I got to the park, I was on the wrong side and there were a lot of people. Too many of them were of the annoying and noisy type. My suspicions had already been raised earlier but I wasn't sure until I got to the entrance. The concert wasn't free. Besides, it was sold out anyway.

I finished the book I was reading though and practically saved $36.

Today I hung out at the book store trying to save some money and totally forgot about the markets. I just forgot I had planned to go. I also put off the booking of tomorrow's trip that it was fully booked by the time I got around to it. Tuesday is my last day here and I was supposed to get ready to leave then, while tomorrow's weather forecast was much nicer. But I might have to do a lot of stuff tomorrow so I can go to Moreton Island on Tuesday. If the weather is nice enough.

Needless to say, I've been a little bored. I even watched 17 again at the hostel's TV room/mini theater. I've also been anguishing on the proper spending ways of my yet to be earned travel budget. In order to buy new stuff, say more shirts so I can do laundry only every two weeks I will need more space, which means I'll need a bigger backpack. And once I have that I can start buying more stuff like DVDs which I can send back home. But my little brain isn't used to being deprived of multimedia and my iPod has only 180 minutes of unseen video material, so I've come to yearn something that some people might deem useless or vain. I wan't a portable DVD player...

I'll let that sink in.

At first I was dreaming of a mini laptop, which would handle some of the things my iPhone can't do. But then I found at that mini laptops DON'T have DVD drives. Which makes them weaker than iPads with better choices of web browsers...

Now my mind has been wrestling between the pros and cons (I even made a pros and cons list) of a cheap laptop that I might bring home with me and a portable DVD player. The downside of a cheap laptop is that I really want to get a GOOD laptop, maybe a Mac, when I return to Finland. An extra laptop is a distant dream that shouldn't get in the way of experiences in Australia. Plus the advantages over my iPhone are: DVD playback, better keyboard, better web surfing (not faster though). That's it. All I would need it here for is the DVD playback.

That's where a portable DVD player could come in handy. It would be a lot cheaper than a laptop (pro), it would be smaller (pro and con), it might satisfy a need (pro), it'll probably be useless after this trip (con).

At the moment I'm leaning toward a portable DVD player, which would be like a $2-300 rental of something to entertain me until it breaks down or I leave. Seems more reasonable than using at least two or three times as much on something that won't be any more essential to bring back to Finland. What I've yet to find out is the battery life of these kind of devices. I also don't have money to throw away at the moment either so until a month or two it's all moot anyway. Plus by that time I might be able to enjoy myself with less multimedia anyway so we'll see. Just wanted to illustrate how bored I've been, dreaming about spending the money I don't have.

Now it's bed time and three nights until I fly down to chilly Melbourne to make some of my dreams a reality. If I do go on a trip to Moreton Island I will be sure to update you, at least with pictures.

Photo Essay: Roo Poo and Skyscrapers

Broadcast News

Good Morning... World?

Since my last post almost three days ago I've been to Chinatown, seen a foggy Brisbane from a mountain top, been to the movies, visited bunch of free museums and gone to a bar. I've eaten chicken curry, Subway, Hungry Jack's and KFC (pictured). I've also bought and read Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman.

I've also received some excellent news! My future employer phoned me Tuesday morning. After I get an RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol - or "alkoholipassi") certificate on next Thursday night a car will come get me on Friday morning to take me to Rochford Wines an hour away from Melbourne where I will meet my new boss and we'll talk things through. So with this HUGE weight off my shoulders let's look back at how I've been getting to know Australia's third biggest city and fighting boredom.

Monday night I walked to Chinatown to eat. It was the nicest looking, if the smallest, Chinatown i've been to (San Fran, NY, Melbourne and Sydney). My Chicken Curry was a small portion but it was good. I walked back to my hostel near the river and took some pictures.

On Tuesday I headed up to Mount Coot-Tha to see Brisbane from a distance. I didn't eat before I got there and there was nothing to do except eat and watch the sights, which were hampered by the clouds. But the food there was too expensive and I had to do something as the next bus was an hour away. I ended up going down a mountain biking track (a big no-no), getting a little lost and climbing back a steep hill just in time for the next bus. I was hungry, thirsty and sweating. I had planned to go to the Botanic Gardens and the planetarium, but I was too hungry so I rode the bus back to town.

I went to the movies that night. My choices were Easy A, which I have high hopes for, and The Other Guys. The latter seemed like it would be more hilarious so that my choice. I was pleasantly surprised and I have to say that it was better than Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Yesterday I spent a huge portion of my day at the free museums at South Bank just over the bridge from the Queen Street Mall that is just on the opposite side of "my" block. I went to the Queensland Gallery of Art, QLD Gallery of Modern Art, crossed the bridge for a Pizza sub (Like Chicken Pizziola without the chicken but with salami and pepperoni instead and then went back to the Queensland Museum.

The first one was in a beautiful building (my picture doesn't do it justice) and I liked the landscape paintings and the Australian art exhibit, especially the modern part of it. The GMA had a photo exhibit from a celebrity photographer, a something Kirkland. The best part was photos from behind the scenes Michael Jackosn's "Thriller" music video/short film. A $40 book also contained those pictures and quotes from most black musicians. The Museum celebrated mostly the nature of Australia and Queensland especially. There were a lot of kids there, because they're on a two week vacation before their last term of the year. This place had something for everyone.

In the evening I wanted to try a box meal by KFC before heading out to the Down & Under bar where my Canadian acquaintance works for a Wet T-Shirt Contest!!! How wild.

I probably am not in the mood for going out at the moment and got out of the bar after finishing my coke and seeing a competition for free bear in which a poor boy ended up having to "strip" in front of everyone. He took his shirt of and it. Was. Awkward. I got the he'll out and finished reading my Klosterman before calling it a night.

Now it's Koala Sanctuary time and tomorrow I might go check out the Gold Coast by train. On Saturday the Brisbane festival ends with a concert at the closest city park and every hostel is fully booked. Which means that my room will be full too. I just hope they aren't complete idiots...

So, still a week of vacationing before it's back to business for me. More from Brisbane later on.

Bye!