Summer is here!!

I had a really good long weekend :D (It was Labor Day on Monday.) The weather has been excellent during the past week and I´ve spent a lot of time outside. It´s been hot (20-30c) and sunny but a bit windy on most days. Now I remember again why I love Australia! Seriously speaking, I was feeling a bit concerned earlier. Our new boss at work wasn´t giving me enough shifts. Holders of student visa are eligible to work 20hours a week, and I was used to working almost that full amount, until I was given less than 10hours for last and this week. Fortunately I got an extra shift this Sunday and I hear the roster for next week looks promising, too. I really need to earn as much money as I can before the end of the semester. I´ve got some major traveling plans (that may end up not being so major, depending on my financial situation) for December and January. Anyways, things tend to work out :) And thinking positively, I was lucky getting to work a lot during the cold winter months, and if I keep getting less shifts these upcoming months I´ll just have less money but more time to spend outside and with my friends.

Now, speaking of my traveling plans... I´ll definately do some more traveling in Australia in December, but haven´t quite figured out the route or dates yet. Perhaps flying to Alice Springs to see the outback and then flying to Cairns and renting a car to drive down to Sydney along the east coast. It all depends on who I´ll be traveling with and how much money I´ll have to spend. But I booked my return flights to Finland! Since STA Travel no longer operates in Finland I went to the Quantas office, where I got excellent customer service :) The lady who served me was so friendly and spent almost an hour looking for best available flights for me. Since I didn´t really get the flights I wanted she didn´t charge me anything, but I can keep calling them to ask for any added flights/seats or cancellations to get better flights. I think I´ll keep the flights I´ve got now, though, to avoid having to pay the fee that would be around $150. So first I´ll fly to Bangkok on New Years Eve. I´ll arrive there at 23.10, meaning that I´ll spend New Year at the airport. (This was the part of my flight schedule that I didn´t like. But even though I hear the fireworks in Sydney are fantastic I´m not feeling too bad about missing them, since after all I´ll get to travel in Asia!) Then, my next flight is 14.1. from Hong Kong to London. So I´ll get to spend 2 weeks in Asia, and also have to find a flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong, which souldn´t be too expensive. In addition to visiting Bangkok and Hong Kong I´m planning on flying to Phuket for a couple of days to enjoy the beaches. My final flight from London to Helsinki arrives at terminal 2 at 16.20, if anyone wants to come and see me :)

And back to my long weekend... (Sorry, I keep changing the subject with no logic.) On Saturday morning I went to the gym where I did an easy workout because of still having the flu. Then I prepared a ceaser salad for lunch and took the bus to Circular Quay, where I sat on the grass watching a street performance and eating my salad. There´s a Starbucks Cafe right next to the bus terminal, so I bought a tall douple chocolate chip iced coffee and I slowly enjoyed it sitting outside in the sunshine. Even though the sun was shining it was a bit too windy so I decided to walk to Pitt Street to check out some of the stores there, and Myers and David Jones, as well. I had been wanting to go properly shopping for the longest time - my mind was getting too limited constantly seeing only Giordano clothes - and I had a good time just admiring the expensive clothes without actually buying any. I missed Carla´s company, though. We used to go shopping almost every Thursday, and being in Myers without her felt a bit lonely. Anyways, I´ll just have to get a pair of these very short shorts to wear with or without black tights. I found a cool pair from Country Road - too expensive, and another from Kookai - not small enough sizes. So I´ve got a reason to keep shopping lol. Oh, and I found an international candy shop selling Fazer chocolate (including Geisha), Turkish Peppers, Marabou chocolate and a good variety of American sweets. I bought just a can of Cherry Coke to drink at Zain´s Birthday Dinner, which he hosted that evening. He had prepared the most delicious dinner with many different Indian dishes. For dessert Renar and Sharon had picked a chocolate mud cake from Michaels Patissaire :P Having the dinner, hanging out with people and watching The Simpsons-movie was a good end for the day.

Macquarie Bank

Pitt Street Mall

I know, this isn´t everything about my sunny weekend. But I got tired of writing last night, so I´ll just post this for now and write some more later today. Now I´m off to the beach, adios!