The Last Dance

Ok, I admit the heading has been borrowed from a famous athlete, which some of you might have noticed but to be fair, it suits the occasion nicely. Not only have I been working on my salsa-skills at the local studio since the early November, but also my time in Sydney is growing very thin and actually as I'm writing this I can already say that I am leaving tomorrow!

The last weeks in Sydney have been amazing. Simply, AMAZING. I don't even know where to begin. Although it's always hard to say your goodbyes to friends who are leaving, it also means a closure to an era. Furthermore, at the same time you are free to enjoy the warmth in Sydney as the brightest and hottest months are approaching. You get to do this without any worrying over assignments or even work to be honest. Just relax.

After Riku and Wade left the building, another friend of mine, Antti, came over from Perth (see my earlier entry from the W.A in August) to visit. It was a busy time altogether as yet another friend from Finland, Marjut, came over for a quick stop. At the same time we had a "Return Home-Seminar" at the University Campus, which, for many of us, represented the actual graduation ceremony. The real thing is next May but most of the international students will have flown back home way before that time so this was as real as it got for most of us. It was held at the Main Quadrangle, the oldest and the most prestigious part of the Sydney Uni, which actually dates back to the late 1800-century. We had some speeches and snacks there but more importantly were able to get our pictures taken in our academic dresses. This was certainly a special occasion for me personally as this sort of attire is not used in most places in Europe (to my knowledge). I uploaded some of the pics in the respective folders so be sure to check them out.

The weekend was jam-packed with partying and seeing friends, but the best was to come as on Sunday Antti and I were off to New Zealand. I visited the south island last May (as people who have been following this blog may remember) and it was absolutely gorgeous. This time we went to explore the north island and I can't really say that it would have been one bit less stunning. Just in a different way. While the southern part of the country is characterized by its abundant, high mountains, the north is more about thermal grounds, volcanoes and indigenous Maori-people. The scenery is not quite as ragged but nonetheless beautiful. We started our journey from Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. We made our way East to Rotorua, where our first Maori encounter took place. It was a rather touristic (but still very nice) Maori-concert/performance accompanied by a delicious meal, "hangi". Also, our Maori-host deserves a round of applause for his language skills. There were 26 different nationalities on the spot and this guy actually was able to speak every single one of those languages. Even though it was just a few sentences, it was still very impressive and surely a great way to build up good reputation and rapport between the visitors.

From Rotorua, we drove south to Taupo, a small town in the middle of North Island. If Queenstown is the adrenaline rush-capital in the south, Taupo could be its equivalent in the north. Sure enough, we had to get some action with Antti. Therefore we signed up for skydiving and jumped out a plane from 5 kilometers. It was a tandem-jump (which is the only kind you are able to perform without any training) but nevertheless an amazing experience. Bungee is one thing, but a 60-second freefall over Lake Taupo and the Tongariro national park with its mountains and snowy peaks is something you can't experience every day. It was a beautiful, calm day thus making it a perfect one for jumping. There were three of us in the plane. Antti, me and Scott, a British guy we met at the skydiving center. Each of us had our "jump masters", who took care of pretty much everything. All you needed to do is take a deep breath and enjoy the ride (fall).

Having mentioned the beautiful Tongariro National Park just a bit south of Taupo, I need to go back in time for just a moment. One day before our jump, we also conquered a volcano. Namely, Mt. Ngauruhoe (2300 m). This mountain is better known as Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings saga. Even though our trip was an action-pack explosion overall, I would seriously argue that climbing on top of this mountain was the highlight of our trip and felt awesome. It was roughly a two-hour walk to the root of the mountain from where we started but the way up was just horrible. Antti didn't seem to have that many problems, but I started having horrible cramps in my legs about halfway through. The surface of the mountain consisted of loose lava stone and gravel, which caused every step to slide back and made advancing really difficult. Once we got a hold of more solid cliffs and rocks the way up became a bit easier. Closer to the summit, we started seeing more and more snow and had to stride our way through a snowy part of the hill as well before finally (after about 2½ hours) reaching the top. The view from up there was unbelievable. You could see the whole alpine crossing with its red craters and emerald lakes and then all the way back to Taupo. We were one of the last people at the summit that day and as the sun was close to setting, we needed to head back down after a few (dozen) mandatory pictures. If going up was tough, coming down was, at the beginning, even harder and actually very dangerous. We chose a bad path to come down from initially and had to maneuver our way sideways back to better grounds. At one point it seemed that the only way down was to let go and pray but luckily we were able to maintain our grip and not fall. The final result of the day was, at the end, rewarding. One conquered mountain, sore legs, trashed shoes, a sunburn and an incredible feeling of achievement (relatively speaking).

The trip wasn't quite over yet. Although the nightlife in Taupo was quite bad (still better than in Rotorua on a Monday), we didn't let that dampen our spirits and kept going to Raglan on Wednesday. This is a "legendary" surf town adjacent to the famous Manu Bay. Antti was into surfing and naturally wanted to check out this spot. Once again, the weather was simply beautiful and the waves were great. We were lucky. After his bold surf in sunset, we drove back to Auckland where we started from. Thursday was the last day of our trip but there was still no lack of action for us. We met up with Alan, my boss, who lives in Auckland. One of his local employees (Jersey) is a commercial pilot and they had organized a little joyride for us two in his two-seated aerobatics plane. We drove to a nearby air strip and got in the plane one at a time. Jersey was a bit of a red baron and pulled off incredible loops, barrels and spins. We got up to 4-5 Gs and he also let us steer the plane, which was a great experience as well. After breakfast, we paid a quick visit to the Auckland Sky Tower from which we also decided to jump off. It wasn't really a bungee jump as there was no free fall but rather a "controlled" jump with a wire slowing your speed down. It was still an exhilarating experience and for some reason they let us jump twice, the latter being free of charge! There was no time to stick around after the jumps and Jersey took us back to the airport where we then caught our Jetstar flight back to Sydney.

The last weekend was like a cherry on a Sunday for the perfect week. We went out on Friday ("D in a B theme"…well, actually it was a Christmas party) took it relatively easy on Saturday and then on Sunday went lawn bowling in the city as it was Andrew's (my flat mate) birthday. This game is apparently typically Australian and reminded me of petanque. The only real difference was that the balls were bigger and you sort of bowled instead of tossing or throwing the balls. It was good fun and a social, low tempo event where the main idea was to chill, drink some beer and chat.

Can't top that week very easily. Today was my last day at work (at least for a while) and my 25-hour horror flight back to Europe departs on Wednesday afternoon. Tomorrow will be spent by organizing things (if needed), packing a bit, chilling and having the last drinks with friends at Darling Harbour. On Wednesday I will make my way to the airport through our office to say goodbye to Alan and Andrew. I still have no idea whether I will be back here in January or February, but it is a realistic option if nothing else. I will have to compare my options and more importantly see how I feel once I'm back. There's a lot to come back to and a lot to stay home for. That sums it all up quite nicely, doesn't it?

Friends, it will be so good to see all of you again. It will be a blast, I'm sure. Sydney and all you guys I have had the privilege of knowing during my year here, wherever you now are, I will miss you and I hope that our paths cross soon. I will take home with me a hell of a lot more than a suitcase full of clothes. It's filled with great memories, warm feelings, a degree, work experience and a bottle of Midori 500ml liquor. I have created two new photo albums for you to check out. One from the graduation ceremony and the other from our recent trip to New Zealand. Also, I added a couple of pictures from our company's Christmas party to the Sydney-folder.

I promised that the last entry wasn't going to be the last one. This IS going to be the last one. At least for a while. 29 blog entries since February…I guess it's a satisfactory outcome. You can be the judges of that. I aim to provide quality rather than quantity ;)

"It's not the mountain we conquer - but ourselves" -Sir Edmund Hillary

Bye Bye Sydney.