Good Friday at Surfers Paradise

First weekend in Australia, and it was Easter. At Good Friday we quietened down and retreated to...

Surfers Paradise!

In order to take it easy and feel the complete relaxation and ponder over the meaning of life, we attended a spiritual learning lesson...

at "Get Wet" Surfing School

Our spiritual guide had an aura of relaxation to him.

After Surf happiness. We caught the waves!

After the peaceful battle of waves, it was time to ease to the night. There were Australian Street Entertainment Championships on-going, and we eagerly attended!

Colourful parrots have quite colourful sounds, ranked quite well on the street performance

There were a lot of acrobatics

A clown in the dusk - how poetic

After the beach was closed, it was taken over by the reckless windsurfers

All good, enjoy the Easter!


Ensimmäisenä kokonaisena viikonloppuna olikin pääsiäinen, ja pitkänperjantain kunniaksi lähdettiin surffaamaan! Paikkana oli aloittelijoille suositeltu Surffaajan Paratiisi, jossa oli hyvät aallot ja mukavan matalaa. Laudan kanssa vedessä painiminen oli tosi raskasta, mutta hauskaa! Pari pientä mustelmaa ja ruhjetta tuli, mutta muuten kaikki ok ja ratsastettiin aaltojen harjalla, ainakin satunnaisesti!

Ehkä saadaan myöhemmin kivoilta norjalaisilta surffikurssikavereilta valokuvia itse surffauksesta, toivotaan!

Kohteessa oli samaan aikaan tarjolla katuviihdytyksen Australian-mestaruuskilpailut, ja nähtiin jos jonkinlaista akrobaattia ja katusoittajaa, varsin viihdyttävää.

Mukavaa pääsiäistä! Syökää paljon pääsiäismunia ja selvittäkää, mistä ne pääsiäispuput niitä oikein tuottaa!

Uutta ja vanhaa

Last week in Finland:



Going to ski on the frozen lake! -12 degrees.



Some help is needed to cover the long distances in the Finnish wilderness

  First steps in Australia:


This Riverside isn't frozen.

Visual satisfaction in form of nourishment

Suomen pakkasista Brisbanen aurinkoon. Matka meni hyvin, jee!

Tällä viikolla ollut +30 joka päivä, pari sadekuuroa ja yksi ukkosmyrsky. Iltaisin on jo vähän chilly.

It's all good!
Vi hörs!

Meanwhile in Chile

Johannes participated a conference in Viña del Mar in Chile.

The Pacific and a castle

The Pacific and Viña del Mar on the background

The dogs are wild but taking it very easy.

Except this one. First looking intently at the waves, then selecting its moment it walks into the water and starts paddling, only to be turmoiled back ashore. And after a ten seconds of intent looking, the cycle repeats.

Wild cats of Valparaiso

Triathlonists in action

A gentle bus

All bodyparts need love!

Disturbing an artist in work

An aptly named place for all males to warm in the sun

You can see the panic in the professors eyes as he realizes the typeset selected. [bancomicsans.com]

Valparaiso at night

Johannes pondering on life in Santiago de Chile

Good night and see you in Australia!

Viimeinen ilta

Johannes on Chilessä konferenssissa, samaan aikaan toisaalla:

Last evening at home! I'm on vacation!

On moving by carrying boxes and by staying still for a long time

The pine cones in their natural inhabitat

Now it is done, we've touched all items we own or possess and packed them into 47 banana crates and wrappings. But not everything went into a storage, a large segment of things was seen as not relevant to our current life and several items such as university text books, a container filled with hand-painted plastic and/or metal warrior-figures (Warhammer Dark Elves to be precise) and three giant pine cones used as decoratives were discarded. Books into use at work by colleagues, figures into a local gameshop (they were slightly reserved about it until it became clear that they wouldn't need to pay anything, after which the box swiftly disappeared from sight) and the pine cones were dumped into the wild. But not without drama: I took the first of the three with me on our morning walk to Tapiola with Anna-Mari, selected an open spot in the forest and chucked it into the fresh and untouched snow hoping to see some squirrel or rabbit tracks as they went sniffing on the thing. The plot worked - in the afternoon the pine cone had gone but instead of baby-rabbit prints, eager child-footprints were leading from the road directly to the cone and back.Next morning I repeated the bite, throwing the next pine cone a couple of meters further to the sparkling snow. On the afternoon the cone stood intact but I didn't get devastated but continued with a third morning, third cone and third distance and behold, in the afternoon both cones were gone and there were again eager child-footprints bumbling through the snow leading in a very determined way to the pinecones and back.

Eager child-footprints on the right and the second cone on the left

For the fourth morning there were no cones left so I equipped myself with a decorative branch we had had in the living room. My avid plan of exiting communication with an unknown eager-footed gatherer was however sabotaged by a merciless cuddly puppy who attacked me while I was innocently walking to plant the fourth item. First the puppy pretended to be in need of some cuddling and play but as I started patting, she instantly grabbed the decorative branch right from my hand and after few jolly jumps crushed it into a pile of unidentifiable and non-decorative rubbish.

The fiendish twig-crusher

After moving became travelling, which regardless of the high speed feels like sitting in a chair for 24 hours doing nothing. Or then doing something and as I'd never read a single line of James Joyce, I grabbed Ulessys for a light plane reading. After a couple hours of munching I still hadn't read a single line of James Joyce as the book started with a 89-page introduction to the book written by a professor of a sort. While digesting on the analysis of Joycean Joy of text I suddenly had a revelation on what Readers Digest is all about. I've now read 90 pages of analysis on Joyce and most likely can understand more of that 90 pages than the awaiting 900 of the book itself, which is apparently the most important novel (and according to the introduction actually defining the whole concept of a novel) ever written in English. The book is seemingly so important and groundbreaking that conferences are held to discuss and argue about the different typesets used and mocking the shocking mistakes in some printings where gaelic word "sláinte" has been written without the accent (unthinkable!) and "im barr" instead of "mbarr" (or "i m barr"). I'm not sure whether I will ever finish this brick as I can hardly understand a single sentence in the book. Even rather short sentences such as "O!" and "Ah!" are actually far too deep for me, as the professor analyzes:
The seemingly endless 'O!' sound of the preceding passage is now a curt echo, as if in hollow mockery of Bloom's earlier excitement; and it is fitting that the very line which describes his recognition of her lameness should itself limp along, with stops and starts after each word or two, as if to re-enact the difficulty of Gerty MacDowell's movements. The innocent, open sound of 'O!' is again repeated two pages later to record Boylan's gasp of pleasure with Bloom's wife, when indeed it is over-ridden by the more knowing, self-satisfied grunt of 'Ah!'.

Johannes not understanding what he is reading at the airport

With Joys, -J

Muutto pulkassa = tavarat varastossa!

Tänään oli muuttopäivä, ja nyt on muutettu tavarat varastoon matkan ajaksi, huh! Kiitos vielä reippaille muuttohenkilöille, ei päässyt pukkaamaan turhaa stressiä! 

Luovumme tosiaan Tapiolan asunnosta ja muutamme matkan jälkeen lähemmäs Andemaarin työpaikkaa. Tulemme kotiin kesäkuun puolenvälin kieppeillä, eli pääsemme etsimään uutta asuntoa juhannusviikon kuumilla asuntomarkkinoilla…

Sukulaiset ovat onneksi menneet lupailemaan majapaikkaa asunnon löytymiseen saakka, kiitos jo siitä!

Hieno innovaatio banaanilaatikoiden joukkokuljetusta varten, nyöristä kahvat:

Mulla kulkee tossa 4 kappaletta, mutta Johannespa sai tuotua 8 laatikkoa kerralla!

Ja tässä laatikot lähdössä jemmaan:

Lähtö lähenee!

ps. termistä opossumi:

Käsittääkseni englanniksi on kaksi termiä, 'possum' (asuu Ausseissa) ja 'opossum' (asuu Amerikoissa). Suomeksi molemmat kääntyvät sanalla opossumi.

Ettäs tiedätte! :)