Living in the land Down Under

Hello guys. Sorry it's been a while since my last update and I can see that my most loyal fans have already started rebelling. I admit after having read my blog introduction from over a year ago, it seemed a bit far off as I did promise to write AT LEAST once a week! Holy s***. What was I thinking?

Anyways, let's get to the point here, if there ever was one. What have I been doing for the past five weeks or so. Not a whole lot I suppose. Then again, time flies when you work. February was quite hectic at work as we had people on holidays and sick leaves, but lately as things have become more "normal" around the office, it has been a bit more slow paced…if not boring. However, I am confident that there will be other challenges around the corner as we progress.

As for sports, I did join the Glebe Floorball Club and have been (quite successfully) playing for the team for around a month now. I managed to play in three regular season games in Hurstville and also at a few practice sessions in Marrickville. It is an extremely nice group of people mostly from northern Europe. However, there are also players from Australia in the team. Lots of Finns and Swedes of course. The level of the game here is not quite as good as back in Finland in the fourth division, but there are very skilled and talented expatriates here promoting this wonderful game on this continent. The best players could easily play for the top teams in the Finnish, say, second division but then again the worst ones would probably encounter difficulty even in the sixth division teams. That's just how spread out it is here in terms of skill level.

Oh yes, the Olympics came and went too. I was lucky enough to find two bars in Sydney that showed all of the games and was therefore able to see every Finnish game live. Sure, I had to maneuver around my working hours every now and then, but I think I managed it reasonably well. Most of the games I watched live on big screen at Darling Harbor in a bar called James Squire. The atmosphere was awesome as pretty much all the countries involved were adequately represented - especially Canadians (needless to say). To our further entertainment, we also got some commentary from the Australian Olympic studio hosts during intermissions and learned (among other things) that there are "three quarters" in a hockey game and that an intermission is the break between two quarters. We were also shown how a hockey skate differs from a speed skate. Priceless.

The weeks just fly by nowadays and even on Fridays you're usually too tired to go out or do anything special. Also as the floorball games have been scheduled at 8.30am in Hurstville on Saturday mornings, this has certainly contributed to my lack of activities on Friday nights. It sort of takes its toll on you also on Saturdays, but I have still usually managed to party "hard" on those rare occasions.

The weather has been hot and humid for the most part but also at times very enjoyable and not that hot. The fall is at our doorstep again and, I predict, within a month it will start getting noticeably colder and darker, which is perfectly fine with me. Today was an extremely nice Sunday too as my flatmate Andrew and my Indian friend Adi went to see the famous biologist Richard Dawkins speak about evolution and his new book "The Greatest Show on Earth" at the Sydney Opera House. He was signing the books afterwards so naturally I had to buy one and get his name on it. It's always nice to visit the Opera house regardless of the event. It has a lot of elegance and feels very cozy. On top of that, you are right at the core of Sydney. After the show we went for a lunch/dinner in the Rocks area and then walked back to watch the Queen Mary II - one of the largest cruise ships in the world - approaching the Sydney Harbor.

The upcoming week should be fairly interesting and still no particular plans for the weekend. We have been talking about having another country party at Andrew's ranch near Braidwood in the bush but have not yet confirmed any dates for that. Also, I personally would like to host yet another party in our apartment in Coogee. The only one we've had was last August (the housewarming party) which turned out to be one of the best parties ever. It also caused us to pretty much destroy our relationships with our neighbors - especially the Brits downstairs - but since they still haven't seem to have forgiven us, I'd say forget about them and throw another drinking frenzy in the near future. Also, as we have a long Easter weekend off from work in the early April (less than four weeks away!), we have been thinking about going somewhere for that period. Seems like Tasmania is overcrowded and the flights more or less sold out, but maybe Queensland or South Australia (Adelaide region) would suffice. Another option would just be to drive somewhere. We'll see how we go.

I should probably start writing these entries more frequently and succinctly to avoid stretching them like this. The thing is…I want pictures to go along with my posts and if there are none, then I lack the motivation to write. But still, you can always find some good ones. In this case, a windy Friday night at Coogee Beach will do just fine fellows!

Stay tuned and enjoy the upcoming Northern Spring.