A visit to Finland

Quite a cake my wonderful sister made for the party. :)

When I booked my flights to Finland I was so excited and happy that I wanted to jump around and tell the world. Then came the doubts. How would I feel being in a country I had happily abandoned to have a life on the other side of the world? Would I feel I don't belong there anymore? Would I feel like an outsider among my friends? Would I fit in anymore? What if I missed home while in Finland? Would my friends and family understand? As horrible it may sound for my loved ones in Finland in my heart my home is in Australia so I wasn't too worried about leaving Finland again.

No place like this to spend the midsummer festivities.

The months I have been away haven't separated me from my friends and family but it has definitely shown who are those friends that will always be there, no matter what the life throws upon us. In four weeks I was pulled to dozens of directions. There were heaps of things to do and so many people to meet. All my closest friends and family (well almost all of them) knew that I was dead busy and running like a rabbit from place to place. None of those people complained I don't have enough time for them. Everyone made the most of the time I was able to spend with them. I knew I wouldn't spend as much time with everyone as I would have liked to, I just didn't have the time. But it was great I could go for a coffee with a friend and for that short time everything was like always. And my fears of not fitting in were for nothing.

The saddest thing in my visit back home was that a close family member decided to act like a five-year-old child and play martyr cos I had only two days I could have spent at their house. Initially I was warmly welcomed to go and visit but when I told I would be able to be there only two days I heard the disappointment in the voice. No wonder, I had been away for 18 months after all. What I didn’t expect was a phone call the following day to say not to bother to go and visit. It hurt and badly. I was so angry and hurt that I just wanted to scream and cry. And I did. But there’s not much I could do about it. I’ve been the adult enough over the years but I’m not prepared to be anymore. If I’m not welcomed then I won’t visit, as simple as that. But no blaming me years from now on that I didn’t visit, nor blaming it was my fault we drifted apart. If an adult acts like a small child so be it. I’m lucky to have other lovely people in my life who willingly spend time with me even if it’s only five minutes I can spare.

Typical Finnish scenery.

Finland is the country I've been living all my life and been driving on the right side of the road over nine years. And I've never been afraid driving no matter what the weather and road conditions. And now what? I had been gone about 18 months and it felt horrendous to drive there! How on earth did that happen? Couldn't I just comfortably drive anywhere on whichever side of the road? I walked on the streets and I had no idea which way to look at when crossing the road! :D I was like an alien there in the traffic. I felt much more comfortable when sitting in a train or bus than driving. But then again I didn't even have a car so at least I wasn’t even craving for the feeling you get when driving. I could have driven if I had been able to drive on main roads but not on the streets of a town or city. But now I’m back driving on the left side of the road – what a relief!

Sometimes I feel that I have two separate lives, one in Finland and one back here in Oz. Nothing had really changed in Finland while I had been gone. Okay, my friends have moved, someone has got engaged, someone has got married, someone is pregnant but they were still there and I just picked up

A place to relax and enjoy the view.

with them where we left off months ago. They are still the same and our friendships have lasted the distance and time. So I can rely on that my friends will be there no matter what. And then I have this totally different life in Australia. I've been asked what so good is there in Australia that I want to stay. I can always say that people are friendlier, lifestyle is more relaxed, the weather is better and I've got a job I couldn't have in Finland. But how could I explain that I feel that I'm home in Australia? I've always felt that way ever since I touched Australian soil for the first time over nine years ago.

I was supposed to go and visit Finland to see my friends and family. It was supposed to be easy to leave again and come back and live my life on the other side of the world. There wasn't meant to be any complications. But what then when someone still sweeps you off your feet and it feels right? What then when there's someone you've fallen for ages ago? What then when that someone makes you smile and you still get butterflies in your tummy after all these years? What are you supposed to do when something like that happens? All I know is that there’s about 15000ks between me and someone special and it’s all by my choice. I know the distance is huge but if two people really care about each other and want to be together you just have to hope the distance is not going to ruin it all. Nowadays we have text messages, mobile phones, emails, Facebook, Skype and many other communication apps with which it’s easy to keep contact to the other side of the world. It makes you think what it was in the old days when wars, migrating and many other reasons drove people apart. You had to write a proper letter and getting a reply for that could have taken weeks. I just wonder how those people kept alive their relationships. It must have felt awful opening up your heart to the other one and then waiting for a letter to arrive. Well it was a bit different time then. Thinking of what it’s been like in the old days doesn’t make it any easier but it gives hope. And hope is what I need to believe that things are going to be okay. I do not want to lose that someone special, not today, not tomorrow, never. 

"You can have it all. Just not all at once."
- Oprah Winfrey -

Miss lovely Jo & Ray from GKI
plus many other people I met there,
especially one funny laughing lovely Dutchie.

When you’re working and you suddenly see two familiar faces it makes you want to rush to them straight away. But when you’re in the middle of checking in people you can’t really do that. I was so torn inside with the desire to run and hug my friends and then the duty side of me telling me to work first. I just couldn’t believe my eyes! It definitely was the best surprise to see Ray and Jo standing in the reception! I was so happy to see them! And lucky they surprised me on a day I had an evening off! It was so great to meet with them and catch up. I’m still a bit shaken by their sudden appearance. When you’re made friends along the travels and you’re able to catch with them it’s so great. Next time I think it should be my turn to surprise and just arrive to GKI!

Not the kind of creature I'd like to find in my room!

Insects, the little creatures of this world, I can’t say I like them but at least I’m not really afraid of them, just don’t like them. And as I’ve learnt here my sister’s reaction to run to the other side of the swimming pool from the boys holding a redback in a glass jar is not too bad a reaction. I don’t think anyone really likes spiders, beetles and all kind of insects but some people really do have a severe phobia of insects. I could have never thought that someone could actually faint just seeing an insect. I might scream if a big spider landed on me but who wouldn’t? I can handle having a huntsman in my room – they are harmless after all, just a little bit ugly looking spiders. But given it’s a spider I don’t know what it is I surely go and get insect killer. I did have a hilarious encounter with a spider the other night. At first I just looked that it was a small huntsman on my door inside the room so I just went to have a shower and left it alone. But a while later I had a closer look and it wasn’t a huntsman, probably just some harmless one, but not a huntsman, that’s for sure. So off I went in my pjs to get the insect killer from the reception and walked back into my room. The spider was a really quick one and started to move towards me when I sprayed it. It took awful lot of the spray to kill the bloody bugger! And as you can imagine I was so full of adrenaline after the episode that sleep didn’t come too quickly! :D


Being on the other side of the world from all your friends and family can be sometimes hard.  When you travel and see new places all the time the time passes quickly and you hardly have time to be homesick. But when you stop for a longer time you start missing normal things like going for a coffee together, having a cup of tea over breakfast, popping in for a short visit. You start missing just talking and not needing to tell things from the past for the reason that they make you what you are today. But then again you meet these great new people who have their own stories to tell. And it’s a great feeling to start knowing someone and be friends. New friends who stay around don’t come easily or often in this town cos most of the people are just passing through. But then when you meet someone and make friends it’s great. Sometimes you meet people just for a fairly short time but you stay great friends, no matter what the distance. Without friends life would be quite empty. So please do all my friends know how much I appreciate you and how happy I’m to have you in my life.

"If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking, they can make you laugh."
- P. C. Cast -

Rain and chaos

It’s rain season here at the moment but we were blessed with mainly sunshine and great weather for a long time. A week ago it changed. On Saturday evening it started raining, and I mean really rain. It was like someone was pouring buckets of water on you, no sign of light rain. I walked at hostel’s car park ankle deep in the water in the evening. And the rain didn’t stop. At night you were able to hear the rain falling heavily on the roof. On Sunday morning when I got up the rain was as heavy as it had been all the time. Tiny harmless creek we have on the other side of the road from the hostel was just rising and already flooding to a side road. The rain was so heavy that it rained in through open doors even though we have a couple of metres of cover in front of the door! Driving to the bus stop at 7am in the morning was a nightmare: I could drive about 30ks an hour and some roads were really full of water, I just tried to go through the safest option with hardly any hills.

Around 9am the rain stopped. The rain, strong winds, high tides and big waves did its damage to the town. But we were lucky here. No one died and damage to the properties wasn’t massive in this town. But the storm that started up north in Queensland and made it way down along the coast damaged large areas in many places. Maryborough is about 35ks from us flooded fairly badly. Burrum Heads which is about 35ks from us was hit by a tornado. Bundaberg about 130ks north from here flooded in a bad way and it’s still isolated. In Rockhampton the river was still rising this morning. Whole farms been washed away with the floods. Thousands of people lost their homes in the floods. In Bundaberg a whole house floated about 200 metres with the flood waters.

The biggest nuisance for all travellers has been the fact that all the buses stopped operating on Sunday last week. All the roads getting out of Hervey Bay flooded. The highway was closed at several places due to floods. So there was no way in or out of Hervey Bay. On Thursday the buses started going down to Brisbane with restricted services but nothing north of Hervey Bay. Today the first lucky ones will be able to travel north to Agnes Water but that’s as far as you can get at the moment. Bundaberg is still isolated and the highway is closed in Rocky. No one knows when the buses start going north, they are hoping on Tuesday but no one knows for sure. Those who really had to get to Airlie Beach up north ended up flying up there via Brisbane. Some people paid $400 to fly from Hervey Bay to Brisbane. One couple paid $1200 to fly from Hervey Bay to Proserpine.





North of Bundaberg a bridge collapsed and floated down the river ripping of a major gas pipe. That is affecting lots of businesses in large area. Here in Hervey Bay many restaurants are closed because they don’t have gas to cook the food. At the hostel we don’t have gas either so we don’t have warm water, luckily the cold water isn’t that cold either and the air is warm anyway. Earlier this week some restaurants were closed because they didn’t have supplies to prepare food. On Wednesday there was even a petrol station closed – there was no petrol.

To put things in perspective: In Finland annual rainfall is around 700mm. Here in Hervey Bay in two days (practically in 15 hours) we got 250mm of rain, in Bundaberg the rainfall in two days was 370mm. So no wonder everything flooded. For people from other countries it seems to be hard to grasp the enormity of the rain and the damage it did. We got sunshine already on Sunday afternoon when the rain had stopped so for some it was hard to understand that damage around us has been bad. Even our beach is badly damaged. Basically all the beach accesses have been closed because the storm ripped off a few metres off the beach and now there’s about two metre drop to the beach from the beach accesses. A lot of trees have been uprooted due to storm we had and there’s a lot of rubbish on the beach. A couple of cafes that are situated right on the beach have been damaged as well. Here there’s damage but it’s small compared to the towns where houses have flooded up to the ceilings. A lot of people volunteered to help other people. Two fathers in Maryborough whom lost everything with their families in the floods took a tinny out and went to help other people to get to dry land from isolated areas. I do respect those people.

The wind and the waves washed away quite a bit of the beach.
Many of the beach accesses have been destroyed.

Uprooted trees are quite hopeless sight.

Not quite the normal sight to enter the beach.

Wonder where this sign is supposed to be, definitely not on the beach.

I was stuck with work for eight days and did some really long days. About 110 hours in 8 days took its toll on me and on Thursday evening I could hardly keep my eyes open anymore. The circumstances were new and unusual for me but I handled it well. Travellers staying here have all thanked me for everything I’ve done for them. And that’s what gave me energy to soldier on through those days. I’m not saying that I didn’t get tired but I did the best I could. I’ve never liked given speeches or speaking in front of many people but I got all people in one room and updated them all at the same time when I had something to update. I broke down once in front of everyone but so what, I’m only human. I’m so thankful that I had a great group of people staying here in the chaos.

The chaos is still not over but at least I got to rest for one day. So now I’m all ready for work again!

 

Even in midst of changed and ruined scenery you can find beauty.

 

 

I could say that I hadn’t been homesick for 11 months. But when you’re really tired and everything just gets to you, you just want your old friends beside you. The other night I was really graving for usual remedy: my friend’s couch, pots of tea and The Holiday. That’s been a remedy for so many things past years. Whether it’s been a broken heart, sad news in the family or just a really bad week that remedy has been making things better. I think the tiredness just got me feeling miserable. Normal teasing from a friend just got me crying. So it really wasn’t my night yesterday. Got into bed just after 9pm and put a movie on and curled up. Eventually fell asleep though and felt better the next day.  

 

I don't miss the snow but I do miss all those people to spend time with.

I went to the corner shop the other day and order lunch (was too busy working to make anything!) for myself, well it was kind of really late breakfast – 1.30pm! :D Said I would go and pick it up in a while. I returned to the hostel to do some paper work before driving the next shuttle. And as I was almost ready to go and pick up my toast for lunch I got it delivered straight into the reception – how nice is that! Couldn’t really imagine the same happening in Finland or in a big city here. Living in a smaller place has its own advances. :)

When you know that you have less than a month left on your visa it makes you worry and think what to do if the plans don’t come true. It’s stressful to just wait and do nothing. The knowledge that there’s nothing anyone can do to make things move quicker doesn’t help either. I’ve gone through in my head the scenario of not getting a visa to stay. Going back to Finland is not an option. All you back in Finland don’t think I don’t miss you, I do. But I’m not ready to come back yet. At the moment my life is here in Australia and I can’t imagine being anywhere else. As funny as it may sound since I come from a country with cold winters and often cool summers I feel that I’m home in this country of extreme heat and the tropical climate. I’ve dreamt of staying here so it’s going to be a huge disappointment if I don’t get to stay.

Very hot weather has been beating many areas in the country. I’m happy I’m living in a coastal town, not in the inland! The temperature has risen to +47 degrees in some areas. It’s hard to even think how hot that must be. Our hottest so far in this heat wave has been +33 degrees, so far off from the top temperatures. And even Aussies are saying it’s too hot! And it really is. All the clothes just stick to your skin and you just sweat doing nothing! But I must say that I way rather take this heat than -15 degrees – no question. Don’t miss the cold temperatures at all.

 

The other day I went for dolphin cruise, just to do something different on my day off. And I must say it was nice. Can’t really complain when the sun is shining, nice sea breeze is keeping you cool enough and the view is beautiful. We did find a few dolphins but how hard it was to try to take a picture! But seeing Fraser Island’s west coast was great, empty beautiful beach and turquoise water – picturesque view.

"I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh,
but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry."
- Unknown -

When you’re used to work during the New Year celebrations behind the bar it doesn’t feel bad to work just for the morning on the New Year Eve. At least I knew I could actually enjoy the evening and spend it in good company. I knew it wouldn’t be a wild night out cos I had the morning shift the next morning but still an evening off. And giving my colleague a chance to go out and have fun and then have to stay at the hostel myself didn’t bother me either. Maybe not quite the kind of New Year celebrations as I might have thought it to be on the other side of the world but it was great.

It did feel a bit funny to be swimming in the ocean and sitting on the beach on New Year Eve. But it felt great. I hadn’t been swimming almost for a month so it was great to just sit in the water and talk with a friend you haven’t seen for a while. Sitting on the beach talking one minute and then next minute just sitting without talking watching the world go by in comfortable silence. It’s funny how with some people you can be without seeing for months and just pick up from where you left. It feels like you had met just yesterday, no awkwardness at all, just comfortable time together.

The rain was unwanted on New Year Eve but nothing much you can do about the Mother Nature. Luckily the rain didn’t last the whole night. It did delay the dinner cos didn’t really want to get wet but we made it in the end. Never thought I could miss the fireworks on New Year but seemingly it’s possible! :D Well, they did have a funny time to have the fireworks: 9pm! We were still having dinner and the trees blocked the view. Well, maybe better next year!
Back in Finland the shops close at 6pm on New Year Eve and are closed on New Year’s Day. Didn’t happen quite like that here! The shops were open normally on New Year Eve, supermarkets open until 9pm. New Year’s Day felt like any other day cos most of the shops seemed to be open. Maybe with a bit shorter opening hours but still they were open. Not normal at all.

A friend of mine was eating a ham and cheese toast yesterday and it smelled really good. Since I haven’t had any red meat for fifteen years it was a bit funny to even want to taste it. Even funnier was to realise that it actually tasted really good! I had to go and get my own and test if I can really eat it all and still think that it tastes good. It did. I’m not saying that the one toast will make me eat meat but I guess I might be able to taste at least from time to time. No matter what some people might wish for, I think chicken and fish is still going to be mostly on my shopping list, not meat. So sorry for those who cook dinners with me – still no cooking meat.
I didn’t really think of making any new year’s resolution but thanks to my tasting of ham toast my friend decided it for me: if you have a chance you’ll try it. I’ll try to but I might fail badly. Well I guess only the time will show how it goes.

I wish all the best for this New Year for all my friends and family around the world.  Hope to see many of you later this year. ♥

"Don't be dismayed by goodbyes.
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
- Richard Bach -