Hyvää Joulua – Merry Christmas – God Jul och så…
Christmas finally arrived here in Sydney and also the day I’ve been counting days for the past few months – my FAMILY arrived!
17th December I woke up at 6am feeling excited, fresh and ready to welcome my mum, dad and my brother to Sydney. I took the train to the airport and as I walked towards the Kings Cross station I was amused to watch all the people going out from the night clubs and finishing their ‘big night out’ (looking not as fresh and cheerful). I can’t even describe how good it felt to meet my folks after half a year being apart. In one point when waiting them to come out from the passenger area I was feeling so emotional that I had to fight against my tears, but the actual embracing was nice and happy.
After dropping off the luggage to their apartment in Woolloomooloo we headed to the city and spent the rest of the day on the sea, enjoying the sun and getting familiar with the city. Finnish Chamber of Commerce organized its annual Christmas cruise for all Finns living or visiting Sydney. The weather was perfect, which was great surprise as it had been raining the past few weeks. We also got to eat some Finnish Christmas food and Karjalan piirakka, that I have been graving for the past months. Later on we went to my place with the whole family and I got to show my current home and the neighbourhood.
I still had to work from Monday to Thursday, so during the daytime my folks were exploring the city by themselves, visiting Watson’s Bay, Monorail, the Royal Botanic Gardens and other basic tourist stuff. During the evenings I joined them for dinners and on Tuesday we all came to my place and had dinner with Julia and Chris, so my parents could see the people I spent most of my time with.
On Thursday evening it was finally time to start our X-mas holiday and fly to Surfers Paradise, which is one hour flight from Sydney to East Coast, in Queensland. After a small hassle in the wrong airport we managed to catch the right flight, relax in the plane and start ‘the perfect holiday’; 16 days together with the family in Australia!!!
The holiday started nicely as we found out that the flat (Q1) I rented from some guy in the Internet happened to be in the world’s highest residential building (324m), five star accommodation with ocean view, swimming pools, gym, saunas (after 6 months felt soooooo good) spa, central location and 1 minute from the beach… not bad!
The first days we took pretty quite, because everybody was feeling tired and my parents and brother was still recovering from the jetlag and all the shopping in Hong Kong. Few days went pass just hanging on the beach (testing body boarding) and by the Q1 pool. Me and Jaakko also signed in an open water diving course the next day as we arrived and were busy with discovering also the under water life. Unfortunately my brother got stung by a jelly fish on his upper lip the first day we started the course so I was the only one to complete the 3 days course and now I am a certificated open water diver, jeiiiiii!
Christmas Eve this year was a bit different than last year in Finland. This year I was busy with diving from 8am. In the afternoon my diving instructor Adam took me and my brother surfing, which is SO hard btw. Later on we cooked a Christmas dinner in our flat, which didn’t include anything typical Finnish Christmas delicatessen. A typical Australian X-mas meal consists of seafood on BBQ. We made some steak with cream & garlic potatoes, avocado salad and for the desert oven baked cinnamon apples with ice cream, yummy! The best Christmas gift I could 
ever ask was to get the whole family to Australia, but even thought we made a deal; -no other gifts this year, I still got an iPod Nano, diving course, money… too much! I guess I have been an extremely good girl this year.
The next day we decided to explore the underwater world with the whole family and visited the famous Sea World. The weather wasn’t the best one as it was raining at times, but we got to discover all sort of sea 
creatures. We also visited the shark bay and got to see the most feared predators in Australia through the glass. You could even dip into the water to swim along with the sharks if you wanted to, but we saved that for the next trip ;)
Later that evening Marko joined our trip and came to Surfers to stay with us for the rest of the days. Unfortunately the weather started to go worse and Queensland had its coldest Boxing Day in the history, but hey 22 degrees is better than +2’c I reckon ;)
One day we rented a car and drove all the way to Brisbane, which is located around an hour drive from Surfers. My dad got to try out the local golf course and as the rest of our gang headed to the city shopping he got taste of Aussie golf culture. I also did a little test drive with his golf car, which was a new experience for me heheh. Brisbane was relaxed city built around the river. Reminded me a bit of Jyväskylä :)
Eight days flew by so fast and before we even realized it was time 
to say good bye Surfers Paradise and return to Sydney. The first part of our holiday was completed and a great success. And we only had one bigger argument (Anniina I bet you are proud of me). Loving my family!!!
17th December I woke up at 
After dropping off the luggage to their apartment in Woolloomooloo we headed to the city and spent the rest of the day on the sea, enjoying the sun and getting familiar with the city. Finnish Chamber of Commerce organized its annual Christmas cruise for all Finns living or visiting Sydney. The weather was perfect, which was great surprise as it had been raining the past few weeks. We also got to eat some Finnish Christmas food and Karjalan piirakka, that I have been graving for the past months. Later on we went to my place with the whole family and I got to show my current home and the neighbourhood. 
I still had to work from Monday to Thursday, so during the daytime my folks were exploring the city by themselves, visiting Watson’s Bay, Monorail, the 
The first days we took pretty quite, because everybody was feeling tired and my parents and brother was still recovering from the jetlag and all the shopping in 
Christmas Eve this year was a bit different than last year in 
ever ask was to get the whole family to Australia, but even thought we made a deal; -no other gifts this year, I still got an iPod Nano, diving course, money… too much! I guess I have been an extremely good girl this year.
creatures. We also visited the shark bay and got to see the most feared predators in 
to say good bye Surfers Paradise and return to 
No comments:
Post a Comment