Biking.

7th October

Ida, Swedish girl in my class, had a spare bike lying in her garage and she was kind enough to borrow it to me (until I move to another country, that is). I can finally move around quickly and smoothly without having to wait for buses that take forever and are always late!! And it’s great exercise going to school and back every day (12 km). Tack ska du ha, Ida!! 

My classmates Niki “Bubbles” Burton (Kiwi, which is a nickname for New Zeelanders, comes from a NZ bird, for you Finns who didn’t know), Eri (the crazy Japanese who made us drink shots with straws) and Carolyn (giggles) decided to hit the Gold Coast night life. Niki’s friend Felicity joined us as well. Since me and Eri are new to the GC, Niki thought it would be easy to meat at the Mermaid Tavern, a 2 story, quite laid back bar with live music on both levels. The tavern closed early so we continued to a bar in Broadbeach. Which was really random...And SOMEBODY spilled something red and liquid into my bag. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, thank’s girls! 

FYI (mum, that’s short for For Your Information) All the bouncers here are Kiwi’s or Mauri’s and they’re HUGE and look really mean. Finnish bouncers would cry next to them.

9th October

MSQ has been participating in an annual Brisbane to Gold Coast cycling event for years. Every year a bunch of massage students from the school get the opportunity to go and practice massage on the participating cyclists as they one after the other cross the finish line in Southport. This year there were 12 students from my class, including myself. It was a great experience, we all had a lot of fun and as if that wasn't enough we also got paid for being there! And free working shirts and lunch.

13th October

It was time for another pre-viewing at the Art's Center. This time we saw a spectacular one woman show called "The blonde, the brunette and the vengeful redhead" starring an award winning actress, Monette Lee. She played a 2 hour show with 7 characters with 7 perspectives on one single event. Amazing talent!

AFL.

All students in MSQ have to do 40 clinic hours in school and 100 outside of school before our Certificate 4 graduation 14th January. Now that we have completed our first part of the course, the anatomy & physiology and Swedish massage, we have started working in the clinic weekly. Basically this means that anybody can call the school and make an appointment for a massage given by the students (at a reasonable price of course). This is very good practice for the clients are “real people” that we are going to be working with in our future practice. The clients are also obligated to fill in an assessment form after each treatment which gives us therapists feed back for our treatment.

On 27th September me, Rhona, Lena and Kerry went to the Arts Center to see another preview of a play called The good doctor. It was a hilarious play performed by 6 talented young actors and actresses. Can’t remember when I’ve laughed that much during a play, probably never :D

 A few old school posters/postcards.

30th September we had a First Aid course in school which basically made us qualified first aiders. Let’s hope I never have to use my talent though :)

Australia has 3 different “footballs”. AFL (Australian football league), rugby and cricket. After 2 months I still don’t know the difference between these and I couldn’t be bothered to find out either :D But I can still go to a related-party, right?

1st October was the AFL finals and footie fans nationwide gathered their gang to watch the game on telly. Our family was invited to a house-BBQ-drink-watch-the-game-and-play-pool-and-darts- kinda party. The party lasted all day and night, including betting on the game (I bet even though I didn’t even know who was playing...but my team WON :P), multiple games of pool and for some reason I ended up working behind the bar making drinks to minors...

The party started with beer and cheese tasting...

 View from the party venue.

 Rhona in her AFL fan-shirt.

 Buffet :)

 Kerry playing pool.

 Rhona trying to play the didgeridoo :D (aboriginal instrument).

Popular Aussie beer.

A little hiphop.

Vannia, the peruvian girl in my class, had her 29th birthday 16th September and I decided we have to celebrate that! We took the bus to Broadbeach and went to a mexican restaurant for nachos and sangria. There were two guys playing the guitar and singing in the street, not far from where we were sitting, which kinda completed our celebration. We continued to a club called Envy, which happened to have a hip hop-night. Perfect. There weren’t too many people which made it even better and we danced the night away. 

Cumpleaños feliz churrita :)

22nd September was the date for my first exams in Anatomy & Physiology and Swedish massage. I was very nervous but it went well and therefore I decided to treat myself with some good music by going to EVE’s concert at The Beer Garden that night.

I had been given a free ticket to the gig by a former student of the Massage Schools of Queensland who was going to perform with his street dance crew at the event. I talked Arttu into coming with me since he’s been saying it’s dangerous for me to move around on my own in Surfers night time... :P

We arrived early to be sure we don’t miss the dance show. Well, like we all know, no show is ever on time and it ended up starting 2,5h later than estimated. There were 5 street crews, a few rappers and a magician show (which was VERY interesting...) to warm up the crowd before EVY EVE hit the stage. And she sure did! The gig took 30 mins and she didn’t perform even ONE song from beginning to end...Nevertheless, we enjoyed the concert and I must say it felt good to hear some classics from my childhood.

Feel me? ;)

Before the concert there was a photographer who wanted to take a picture of us but I kindly declined. Well, that didn’t help since there were 7 others in line to stalk us innocent out-goer’s. In the end one persistent lady took our picture. “Great! Now I’m gona be on some stupid partypictures.com site...”, I thought. I wish! Instead I found our picture and names in a full page story about the gig on the social pages in Saturdays Gold Coast Bulletin (newspaper like Helsingin sanomat)!! :D

Finnish night & Surfers Paradise.

On friday 9th September Rhona left for Sydney for her 30-year school reunion. She was so excited about it and being a woman, obviously, had a hard time trying to decide what to wear to the event. Well, who wouldn’t be a bit anxious trying to impress former classmates after 30 years?! And they were ALL girls!! Luckily we had attended a fashion event earlier that week and I had picked out a fabulous tunic for Rhona to wear. Unfortunately the reunion weekend in Sydney happened to be freezing so the summer tunic got left out :(

One of my former workmates, Teija, from Finland had been in Australia for a year and happened to be coming to Surfers that Saturday. Arttu was also coming back from his 2 week holiday in Tokyo so I thought it would be fun to arrange a “Finnish night” with the three of us. So, I invited both of them for dinner. 

Earlier that day I went grocery shopping to the local mall. Somehow my inside compass was a bit off and I ended up adventuring for 3 hours! It was a really hot day and I got around on my skateboard and by the time I had done my shopping (around the area of Mermaid Beach and beyond) my backpack was packed to the limit and I was soaking wet from skating my way from one place to the other!! By the time I got home I realized I had forgot the beef mince...

I prepared all the food, swept the house and made myself ready for the evening to come. Arttu was the first to arrive and I surprised him with a home baked Finnish rye-bread (ruislimppu)!! I actually made it myself from scratch and the look on Arttu’s face when he opened the cloth around the oven-warm bread was just worth all the blood, sweat and tears I suffered baking it ;) We ate the whole thing that day.

Rye bread in the making.

Fresh from the oven.

Teija arrived A BIT later but just in time for dinner. My home-made burgers were appreciated and delicious!! We had a fun night and stayed up until dawn. Thank’s guys!!

The following Sunday we made a tourist trip to Surfers with Teija. We went to the Q1 tower, Ripley’s believe it or not-museum, The Haunted House (a horror house we had to walk through...scared the living sh*t out of me...US!), the beach, did a bit of shopping, had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and finally had a beer at Avenue, a small pub that played live music. Sweet.

 Q1 tower.

 View from Q1.

 Looking South.

 ...and North.

 Their job is to pose when tourists want to take pictures.

 Ripley's. The worlds tallest man.

 "Mom, I thought it would bring out my personality better".

 Don't be shallow, I bet she has a great personality!

 Who else would wear this except James Brown. RIP.

Grasshoppers painted as Michael Jackson.

Of course we had to go in to the kids tunnel!

...and no problems fitting in.

The King of pop piece of art made of round lollies.

Worlds fattest guy. The on on the left that is ;)

Hard Rock Cafe.

What to eat...

James Brown ice sculpture at Hard Rock Cafe.

Shakira's pants made of rubber. Hot. Literally.

I finally got to see this live! You guys remember a similar pic from my farewell party event on Facebook? 

Teija had to leave Surfers on Wednesday to go sort out her visa. It was a short but lovely visit from her and we already decided we'll catch up again and continue from where we left off. Take care out there adventurer!

P.S. For some stupid reason I couldn't change the size of the font in the beginning. Sometimes we just have to live with these small flaws in life :)