Nobels and North Shore Hike

On Tuesday I was already feeling better, and since it was raining Carla and I decided to go the UTS to check out Beautiful Minds Exchibition. It had been in the main lobby for the past couple of months but I had never taken the time to take a closer look at it. The exchibition was about Nobel prices that people had won over the past 100 years. It had came from somewhere Europe and UTS was its only location in Australia. To be honest, it was nothing special and we spent only some 15min looking around before heading to Bulga to drink hot chocolate with Till and Denise :)

Beautiful Minds Exchibition

Later that night NignNign had a party. The original idea was to have a girls-only party, since Carlos is the only guy left in flat 6 (some people are moving out already), but it ended up being just a general Geegal party. People were drinking all sorts of stuff: pear liquor, tequila and sake. I drank only tea, but ate tons of cake, chocolate, licorice and chips (and felt so sick afterwards). We were just sitting in their loundry room; chatting, taking pictures and being silly, and more people kept showing up. The funniest moment was watching everyone´s faces drinking shots of sake (Japanese alcohol) because they so really strongly disliked it! I headed to bed right after midnight and the rest of the party didn´t go on much longer, either.

Darkan, Nign Nign, Andrew, Denise, Carla, I, Claire, Shinae and Ricky at "Girls Night"

When I woke up on Wednesday it wasn´t raining :D It´s been raining here almost every day for the past weeks, so no rain is always good news. Since Carla is leaving back to Holland in a couple of weeks (snif!) she had gone through the Lonely Planet to find out some last things she still wanted to do in Sydney. One of them was a North Shore Hike, along the coastline on the other side of the bridge. We took a train to Circular Quay and started walking towards the Harbour Bridge. But on our way we spotted a mall and this souvenir shop inside of it. The shop was having huge closing down sales, and we ended up spending over an hour there! I found two cool photographs of Sydney to hang on my wall when I go back to Lappeenranta (and hopefully find an apartment there), a handcrafted hairclip made of eucalypt and two pots made and painted by Aboriginal Australians. All of them were at least on 70% sale! After such intense shopping we felt hungry and decided to have lunch at this cute cafe we had seen on our way to the mall. So we walked back there and ate delicious prawn soup before having a second try getting to the bridge.

The cute cafe at the Rocks

We crossed the bridge, took some more pictures of the Opera House (I´ll end up with thousands of them by the end of the year!) and started the walk along the coastline. The beginning of it was actually just in some posh neighboorhood, but we enjoyed looking at the houses. I seriously would consider settling down in Sydney someday if I had a good reason to (which would be either a job or a man, I guess). Even though we had our Lonely Planet it was a bit hard finding the right streets so I think we ended up walking more than the recommended tour. The best part of the walk was seeing Sydney from the other side of the water. It got dark while we were still walking, so we got to see all the city lights, which was beautiful! I don´t know why, but ever since I was a kid I´ve been amused by the silhuette of city lights of a big city at night. Maybe it represents something vibrant, ever chaning and exciting to me. Anyways, the end of the walk would´ve been a return trip to Mosman and back since the last ferry departs from Taronga Zoo. We decided not to walk further since I had gotten dark and pretty cold already. So we took the ferry and bus back home. We made "Pancakes in Geegal" (inspired by the popular restaurant Pancakes on the Rocks). I made the mix and after discovering we don´t own a whisk ended up breaking all the flour chunks with my fingers, which took forever. It was worth it, though, since we had such a delicious pancake dinner with vegatable and fruit fillings, watching House and Medium.

Sydney

Sydney at night

Movies (and stupid flu)

Naturally I had to catch the flu right after being done with exams, so that I couldn´t do anything but go to work and rest at home. I worked every evening from Friday till Monday. Saturday night everyone else was going to all these parties (people are constantly having parties now that the semester is over!) but Carla and I decided to stay home and watch a movie. Fortunately Tim has a good selection of movies and he recommended us this one called Once Were Warriors. It was filmed in New Zealand and was really good indeed. It was disturbing, basically telling about this aboriginal family with a violent father. Watching that movie made me grateful of having such a good family! It also made me more interested in the aboriginal people. It´s unbelievable they didn´t gain the right to vote until sometimes in the late 60s! Right now news are full of aboriginal kids´ rights and the way how they´re being treated.


At work

The Sydney Film Festival was going on for the last couple of weeks here. Unfortunately I hadn´t time to go to see most of the movies because of preparing for exams. They showed movies from all over the world! Suprisingly many movies were from Russia, and from such European countries as Holland and France. None from Finland :/ Carla and I went to see an Israeli movie called Hot House on Sunday morning. The movie theather in Circular Qay was almost full already at the 10am show, so the festival must´ve been popular. Hot House was an interesting document about Israeli and Afganistan political prisoners. Since their political parties are involved in such activities as terrorist attacks, many of their leaders and candidates are in prison, where they study and educate each other. They effectively run the political system in and from prisons. The document was based on several interviews, and it seems like they´ve got such strong propaganda, views and attitutes it´s hard to see them reaching any sustainable agreements in the near future. The most shocking was when they interviewed this beautiful lady, who had planned and assisted a suicide bombing in a restaurant in Israel. They asked if she ever though of the innocent people killed there, she replied no, and when they told her 8 childen were dead she just smiled. It was hard to interpret and analyze the movie with hardly any backgroup information about the political situation in Israel, though, which reminded me of how little I generally know about what´s going on in other countries.

Yeah, so, I hated having the flu. Not feeling like doing anything, being lazy at work, not going to the gym. But I´m getting better now and had a nice day full of activities today :) I´ll write about it later, though, since I´m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open...

Winter break - finally :D

Yeah! I´m finally on my winter break. No uni for the next 5 weeks :) I don´t actually have a lot of plans yet. I´ll keep looking for cheap flights to any destination that´d be worth visiting during the winter. Fiji would be one option since the weather is good - sunny and 30C - these months. I´ll definately go to Canberra and probably also to Newcastle since they´re so close. While I´m in Sydney I´ll do some sightseeing, work and train. I haven´t been running for ages - the cold and rainy weather makes the gym seem like a more attractive option.



So, I had my finals. I think I should´ve spent more time on studying finance, since now I overestimated my skills and did pretty poorly on the exam. I´ve got a good feeling about marketing and management, though. The subjects overlapped each other a lot, so studying for the other one helped with the other one, too. Both of the exams were held on Wednesday at the Wentworth Sports Arena in Glebe. I had a nice seat in front of the window; looking at a green sports field. Not that I had any time to spend looking at the field, though, since I almost ran out of time writing my answers. I think our management professor is in trouble, though. At our last lecture he shut the door and gave us all the exam questions and correct answers to copy. Then maybe a week before the exam we got both a written letter and an email from some UTS officials about a security breach. Apparently some students had complained, and the above exam paper was replaced with another one. So we weren´t asked the questions given at the lecture, but the exam wasn´t too hard anyways. Besides, I haven´t gotten any marks for my assignments even though he promised to have them before the exam. Oh well, I´m all done now and happy with that :) The results will be published in around a month, when I´ll also get to know whether I won or lost the bet with Tim (about going for a dinner at the Sydney Tower).



Anyways, since Wednesday was the last day of exams for our marketing major project group (for everyone except Simon) we decided to go drinking that evening (including Simon, exluding Kara). We had a great reason to celebrate - we got 23/25 for our written major report and 4/5 for our presentation :D I think we were, if not the very best, at least one of the best groups! First I walked to Mats´ aparment, that is right next to Broadway Shopping Centre, to have a few drinks of rom-and-coke and talk mostly about Scandinavian stuff. He´s from Norway and doing his whole bachelors degree at the UTS. Then we joined this girl (forgot her name but she´s a friend of Amanda´s) for a taxi to Amanda´s place. She lives in a nice studio quite close to Kings Cross. Simon was already there, and these two Mexican girls joined us a bit later, too. We were just sitting on the couch/floor and drinking and chatting. Amanda and the Mexicans made me drink quite a few shots of tequila :P It didn´t really help me to speak Spanish, though - I´ve managed to almost totally forget everything Javier taucht us last fall :/ From Amanda´s we took a cab to this nightclub, where we just hung out and danced. I was too drunk to really have a good time there, though. I kept thinking I had lost my jacket and purse and spent most of the night looking for them. At around 1am I decided I really was too drunk and tired, and took a cab home. I lost a $50-note on my way home :( I must´ve dropped it when I was paying for the taxi. When I got home I talked to Tim - who announced I was truly drunk - and also to Anu online.

Our IM project group - Simon. I, Mats and Amanda (Kara missing)


I woke up at around 9am and had the worst moral hangover, especially after finding out I had lost that $50. The day was totally useless - I couldn´t go to the gym, clean my room or do anything productive. I only went to the mall for an eye check, and spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching a Japanese animation movie. Later in the evening, when I was already feeling more like alive again, I went to this Chinese restaurant with Keiji. He had planned to take me there since my Birthday, but we had been too busy with working and studying. The food was delicious - fried rice and duck - and we spent some two hours there eating, talking and drinking several pots of tea :) We also ordered these Chinese desert drinks, that taste so good! So about drinking (to get really drunk), I think I´m kinda done with it. I don´t like not really knowing what I´d doing, and I totally hate the tiredness of the next day. And I actually prefer just sitting in some nice place with friends; watching a movie, eating good food and just hanging around. Or going to some cool cafe where the music isn´t too loud to have proper conversation.

Celebrations and donating blood

I´ve been living my every-day life lately; working, studying, training... I´m looking forward to being done with finals and being able to do more fun stuff, like traveling and exploreling Sydney. There´re still many places in Sydney I haven´t been to yet! I kinda miss the feeling of being a tourist :) But since I´m not new anymore I guess next semester is going to be more every-day life and routines. I´ll still have to keep in mind this is an unique experience that doesn´t last forever and I should make the most out of my time here! I´m planning on doing so by minimizing the time I need to spend on studying: choosing only 3 easy subjects being taucht in city campus. The less I study the more time I´ve got left for everything else. I can be ambitious and aim for high grades when I go back to Finland.

So, last Saturday we celebrated Madeline´s 24th Birthday in Gumal. It was me, her, Carla, Till, Julia and this other German girl whose name I forgot. They were drinking wine and I had a can of Coke. (I still don´t feel like drinking at all.) We played card games and I lost this Dutch game. For punishment they ordered me to knock on someone else´s door and ask for a BDay drink. I actually managed to get a packet of hot chocolate powder for Madeline; the girl opening the door was really nice :) At around midnight everyone else headed towards Three Monkies (a club close to Town Hall, I think) and I walked home. I didn´t have to work until at 12.30 on Sunday so I could´ve gone out, too, but I felt lazy and wanted just to lay in my bed under my thick king size quilt and read a book :)

On Tuesday we had a farewell party for exchange and study abroad students, organized by UTS. Actually I don´t know why I was invited even though I´m not leaving, but I joined Carla, Madeline and Till to go there. The party was held at the Graduate School of Business lounge room, which is a nice place with couches, coffee machines and a large balcony (not quite as friendly and cousy as Kaplaaki´s kiltis, though). The staff from the international office was there and we were provided beer, lemonade and chips. Just like all previous "parties" this one was just sitting around and talking to people. They don´t seem to be too keen about organizing any kind of entertaining. When I was the secretary of international affairs at LUT and organized these events I always tried to come up with some kind of games and activities, which most students seemed to like. Well, in fact they had a little exercise for us. We were randomly divided in 8 groups, where we had to find the person geographicly closest to us and talk to him/her. I had a short discussion with this German guy before I decided to leave the party and go to the gym instead.



On Thursday I, Tim, Shinae, Moy, Cameron and Nicola (Cameron´s friend) went out to eat to a Spanish restaurant. Tim had promised to buy me a dinner for my Birthday but both of us had been so busy with work and studying we hadn´t had time to go until that day. It was raining so we took the bus there and got to choose from a few Spanish restaurants. We picked well and had a delicious dinner at this nicely decorated restaurant. I ate a combination of different seafoods: prawns, scallops, fish...I can´t even name everything I ate. Especially the sauce tasted so good!

Nicola, Cameron, Tim, I, Shinae and Moy at the Spanish restaurant


Madeline had asked me to go to donate blood at the TAFE (polytechnic schools are TAFEs in Australia) next to the UTS. Red Cross had a moving blood service there for 2 days. They come there every 3months, which makes donating easy for all students going to TAFE and UTS. We used to have the same system at LUT but unfortunately they don´t have the resources to keep doing it anymore :( Anyways, after coming back from the gym on Friday I rushed to meet Madeline at Gumal and we walked to the TAFE together. I hadn´t been there before, and I walked around a bit when I went to look for a cafeteria to buy a snack. The building looks nicer than our uni. We had to wait for a while for our turn to donate. The system was really similar to the one in Finland. They had less strict restrictions, though: hemoglobine level 112 instead of 125 and weight 45kg instead of 50kg. I was asked if I wanted to donate a smaller amount since I´m pretty small, but since I had always been fine giving the standard amount I did it this time, too. At first my hemoglobine was just 107 but they remeasured it and got 128, so I was allowed to donate. (It´s weird how 2 minutes can make such a big difference.) Donating was fine, just as always, and we were given goody bags with chips, anzac cookies and a Mars bar. After the donation I went to Coles and home, and studiet for the rest of the day. I hadn´t felt that strong after donating blood for ages!



Now I´ve been just working, and every moment I haven´t been working I´ve spent at home studying. Well, I also went to the gym and watched TV... I´ve got two exams, International Marketing and Global Strategic Management, tomorrow. I´ve just gone through lecture slides (too lazy to read any books) and written some example answers. Right now I feel so tired. I think I´m just gonna go downstairs to prepare dinner (bought heaps of vegatables today :P) and see if there´s anything on TV... Carla, Denise and Till are in Perth now. I really wish I was there with them! I was planning on going and coming back just in time to do my exams, but decided to be a good student instead and stay home studying. Hopefully it pays off and I get good grades!

Rain :/

To be honest, I really have no reason to write. I haven´t done anything worth mentioning over the past couple of days. Working, going to the gym, watching TV (I´m getting addicted to more and more shows), shopping...basically everything except what I should´ve been doing, which is studying! The weather is miserable at the moment: dark, cold and pouring rain :/ On the other hand, it´s a good reason to stay inside; wear pyjamas and whoolen socks (I´m so glad Mom told me bring a pair!), drink tea and watch a movie. I just wish it was warmer in our loundry room. My room is allright now that I´ve got a heater :)

On Wednesday Carla and I had a super shopping day. We took the train to Bondi Junction and spent 6 hours at the mall there! It´s a pretty new and posh mall with 4 floors. We had lunch at a modern food court, sitting next to a window with a nice view over Sydney. We also had coffee and muffins at a trendy cafe. The rest of the time we spent shopping :) Most of the stores were rather expensive so we just admired the clothes. We found some nice things from Benetton; I bought a bag to wear with my white sneakers. From Bondi we took the train to Martins Place and walked the wrong direction trying to go to Pitt Street Mall, where we just went to Body Shop to buy a Birthday present for Madeleine. Well, we also went to this shoe store and Myers. I had fallen in love with this butterscoth colored long tweed winter coat around a month ago, and now that I´ve got a job I wanted to buy it. Unfortunately they had already sold all of the long ones :( I´ll need to keep looking for another coat...


A view of Bondi Junction


T-shirt at one of the stores :)

We just finished watching the movie Mean Girls and I´m struggling to keep my eyes open. I´m working tomorrow again. Work has been good so far :) Yesterday I learned to hem pants, and after closing we went to have dinner together with Mel (our assistant manager) and Josh (a new co-worker) at this Chinese place in Chinatown. I´ve got a good feeling about this job and especially the people I´m working with. Allright, I´ve got no idea what I´m writing...I´d better go to bed now. Good Night lol.

Italian Festival

Today I went to East Sydney to see an Italian festival with Carla and Moy. It was two streets full of little places selling mostly just food: bread, pasta, cheese, cakes, coffee and chocolate. To be honest, I had expected to see a bit more of other stuff, too, like Italian art, souvenirs etc. There were also three stages for singing and playing performances, and we got to see some traditional Italian costumes. It was tons of people there; tasting the food, walking around and enjoying the sunny day. We bought Italian breads and went to a cafe to eat them with cappucinos. Then we walked past this little store selling European brands, and Carla ended up buying a shirt and two bags. (She´s becoming a worse shopaholic than me lol.)

Italian performers

Since there weren´t a lot more to see there, we decided to walk to Circular Qay to have some ice cream. We walked through Botanical Gardens and saw the Rose Garden in its winter form. There weren´t many roses left, but we found a few big ones that smelled really nice :) There was a little market in front of the Opera House, and we spent some time looking at photographs of Sydney. I found a perfect one with beautiful coloring, only it was too small. I know I´ll eventually find the kind of photograph I´m looking for, though. On our way towards the train station we stopped by at few clothes stores. I bought a cool lifesaver T-shirt and a warm jumper, both naturally on discount. Then we got ice cream from Kopenhagens and sat on a bench eating them. It was quite a lot of tourists there. I guess people from other countries are on their summer vacations already and traveling to Australia. I´d come here during the summer, though, if I could choose.

Oxford Street

In the Rose Garden