Xmas in Brisbane!

For christmas me and Tytti headed to Brisbane. We got this amazing house through one of Tytti's customers, who is originally from Finland but has been living here for almost 40 years. The house had like 8 bedrooms, two kitchens, three bathrooms etc. Everything was free to us as well so all in all - perfect! On 24th, after my work, we headed to the airport and flew to Brisbane. Definitely a bit different xmas, but certainly a lot of fun! Kirsi and Samu arrived there on friday and our aussie friends came for a couple of days visit on sunday. England and Ireland were represented as well, since David and Jared came along. We stayed there altogether for five days and i bet i don't just speak on my behalf when i say that we could've stayed a lot longer! Here comes the pictures..

This is how it all started ..waiting for a train to the airport:

One way to spend the christmas eve - at the airport:

On a plane looking over the city, mostly south side of Sydney:

After an hour of crazy running in stores (we were in a hurry, 'cause everything was closing for christmas), we managed to get ourselves to Manly train station in Brisbane with million bags of food and alcohol beverages.. It was 10.30pm, we didn't really have a clue where were going and i have absolutely no idea how we would've gotten anywhere with all our bags, but luckily we ran into a couple of local guys who helped us carry our bags and showed us where to go to!

The next morning after a good sleep, we had breakfast on the balcony:

And here's the view from the balcony (looks a bit dry, since it was the time of tide):

My lovely lovely bedroom! (Mum would've liked this :))

The first thing i did when we got into the house was, of course, decorating the house!

On christmas day, we went out to look around in Manly and Wynnum:

Someone had gone a bit 'woowoo' with the garden gnomes...

The water was surprisingly really warm!

A huge salt water pool, where we spent approximately three hours with Tytti and Samu:

On sunday on our way to Brisbane city centre:

Xmas in the city:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It had to end at some point ..on our way back to Sydney we saw the most beautiful sunrise on the plane:

New Years pictures are also on their way, so stay tuned!

Sara, xx

last tuesday i had a day off from work so i headed to Ikea with Kirsi and Samu. i went absolutely mad because of all the xmas stuff and Kirsi had a hard time of keeping me away from all the decorations so i wouldn't buy too many things haha. but it was nice 'cause many things reminded of home and to get to eat "homemade" food - just perfect!

here we are on our way:

tattadaa!

meatballs and smashed potatos (mum's one is still way more better!)

couple of things i bought for xmas:
christmas without GLÖGI - no way!

and then i also got a nice surprise, christmas package from my mum and dad! we've been eating the gingerbreads, but other than that ..we'll see tomorrow!

tomorrow we're heading to Brisbane for five days so after xmas we'll hopefully have some new, cool pictures ..here it's just pretty much the same everyday!

sara, xx

jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way - christmas in australia on a scorching summer's day!

more mail arrived today! it was a total surprise which i didn't see coming at all.. when i got the two letters open, i just started to cry and it was actually the first time that homesick really hit me hard during these nine weeks in Sydney. but what did the letters have in them?

well, a traditional christmas calender from my mum and also another christmas calender from my dad. we always have Veikkaus calenders (and we never win anything), but maybe this year is different! i just don't really know how to collect my money if i do win ..but maybe i won't get ahead of things.

and dad also reminded us of the shark discoveries that have been increasing here a lot! thoughtful of course, but you really can't miss that info since it's all over the news and there's many warnings about that on the beaches..

look how pretty the picture is in the one that my mum sent! and it even has glitter on it! but i think that's something that mum did ;)

i've now opened three pictures so still 21 to go!

the calenders actually go well with my theme of today which was, surprise surprise, christmas! after work i went christmas shopping with my co-worker jack and it was a lot of fun! i really can't tell what he bought (if his girlfriend would happen to read this), but she's gonna be one lucky girl! i also bought some xmas decorations to our home and some presents, but i'm naturally gonna keep them as a secret as well.

everything else here is going fine also! Laura, Clarissa and Lauri are back from Gold Coast so we've been spending some time with them and actually on the 8th Kirsi and Samu are gonna arrive in Sydney too. so many friends in here at the same time - lovely!

we've been thinking about going to Brisbane for xmas with Tytti, but since we don't know about our christmas holidays, we can't really make any plans yet. Tytti especially is going through some changes 'cause she quit her job and is starting a new one tomorrow. it's sad that things in the first place didn't work out, but she feels that it was a right decision to make and from what i've heard, i can say the same. so let's just hope that the new restaurant is gonna have a better environment to at!

but now it's time to go to bed so good night everyone!

and lots of love to my world's best mum and dad! xx, sara

here it is!!

hi everyone! and sorry for the super long break in posting.. things in here are better than fine and since tytti found a job about a week ago as well, we've both been just mostly working. especially i, 'cause my workdays are usually 10 hours every day and i haven't had a day off since i started almost two and a half weeks ago. but i really really like my work and our team is the best you can imagine! i'm gonna take pictures from there some day soon, so you'll see whereabouts i work ..then i can also tell more about my work and the staff there.

we also had finnish friends in here about a week ago, which was of course more than nice! tytti's friend sini who has been in australia and asia almost a year now, flew here to spend her last week on this side of the world with tytti. and at the same time i spend my week with laura from helsinki (+clarissa & lauri, who i got to know through laura). we went out a couple of times, just chilled in hyde park and did a little bit of shopping. we also went to see the new michael jackson movie, which was inspiring! since that, i've been singing MJ's songs every day at work ..until this monday 'cause now all we hear there are christmas carols! it feels weird to sing about snow when it's roasting outside, but i don't complain. summer is here and i just love love love the sun and warmth!

today was probably the best day of the week 'cause i picked up a package from the post office. it was from my mum & dad ..full of sweet things! oh my lord, chocolate and salmiakki have never tasted better! i promised to take some with me to work so let's see how many new fans salmiakki will get ..i bet none! but then again that's good, 'cause then i'll have more for myself :)

as you can see, i couldn't decide where to start from so i just opened every package and ate everything at the same time!

now i'm off to work, take care everyone! we'll send some sun there.

sara xx

darling harbour

yesterday we went to Sussex St to see what the nightlife is like ..and have to say it was pretty awesome! so here's a couple of night pictures:

this one's taken from the bridge to Darling Harbour

today i went to visit Darling Harbour in the daytime with my new friend Rafiq. we also went to the Casino, which was huge! we played 5 ADs and won 10 ADs, so it was worth the trip i could say. it would've been nice to take some pics there but it wasn't allowed so.. here's some pictures from Darling Harbour anyway:

now we're gonna have a halloween party! good weekend to everyone!

xx, sara

ps.i got a job so now we need everyone's thumbs up for tytti!