A busy week or so. Lots has happened. The most important news I suppose is that I have found work. While sitting in the Sauna on Sunday night I got a text message. I was a bit surprised because no body here really has my number and certainly have no business messaging me at 9pm. Sure enough it was a message saying that the person who they had hired had dropped out and seeing as I was next in line, would I like the job and can I start tomorrow? Yes and yes.

Today was my second day and I am beginning to feel some pain. The job I got was the one I mentioned in the last entry that I was sure I got. I was very happy because my record has yet to be broken. I have never had a job interview before and not been successful. The record was shattered by this interview, until Sunday. I am working for a gardening company. They are contracted to all sorts of places both private and public. This week I am working at Finland (or Scandinavia's only) Mormon temple. I didn't even know Mormons had temples?!? It is pretty much what you would expect from a job at a Mormon hang out. We are not allowed to wear singlets or shorts, nor are we allowed to drink coffee or tea! ''What do they drink?'' I asked, Coca-Cola was the answer given! That, makes no sense to me. Smoking is not permitted either but that's not an issue. I have spent the last two days raking grass. My wrists have seized up something shocking. I can hardly bend them at all. The work is not to bad though. Outside and in an interesting place. Once all the initial ''after winter work'' has been done it is only maintenance work so the work will likely be at a different place each day.

Julia and I went to dinner with two of her yoga friends last week. Two fellas named Ian and Tero. Ian is from Canada although he has lived in Finland for many years. Tero is a born Finn as you can probably tell from the name. Tero is a music critique as well as translating books from English to Finnish. He was a truly strange character. Imagine Woody Allen's personality and Ghandi's looks and that is what you get with Tero. A strange character, I didn't really know what to make of him. He was perfectly nice but I couldn't predict him at all. When he told us that he was planning to try some stand up comedy I almost shot coke out of my nose. He was possibly many things but funny, was not one of them. Ian, as I said was a Canadian. He has lived in Finland for years thought and is quite settled here I think. He reminded me of my friend Callum from back home. Dinner was good although the service had much to be desired for and by the time we had  payed Tero was ready to choke the waiter for his incompetence. This amused me somewhat.

On Friday night Julia, Janna and I went to check out a band named Suburban tribe. I first heard them last year back home when Julia was living with me. They rock. Check them out if you don't know them. Great music, great live performers and the singer has rad dreads! I decided against a late night because I had Yoga the next day. Yea, you heard it. I did Yoga! Because I had painted the shelves at Studio 8, Kole and Helena kindly allowed me to take a beginners class free of charge. It was pretty cool thought something that I am far to lazy to partake in regularly. I can see the benefits and how it would be worth doing but the thought of becoming a person who constantly think about the way he stands, walks, bends and functions would drive me nuts. It did slightly improve my posture though which is good and I have been trying to keep good posture as often as possible since then. It was good to see what it is Julia loves so much and spend some time at the place she disappears every morning. We learned an exercise called the ''half sun salute'' or something a long those lines. It was surprisingly difficult for something that appears so easy. It is one of those relaxing techniques that is not so relaxing though. I have found Saunas like this recently. In order to relax the Finns choose to sit in a hot box. Eventually it gets farkin' hot so they get up, wrap themselves in a towel and go outside. Then it gets to cold so they get up again, take the towel off, have a quick shower to drench themselves and then back into the box. Repeat this for 1 to 2 hours and you have a sauna experience. To me it seems like a lot of work to relax. When I relax I like to not move. Yoga was like this. I understand it as an exercise regime but not as a relaxation. It was hard work and required a lot of standing up, sitting down, spinning around, sitting back down and standing back up.

On Sunday Julia and I spent the day wandering around Helsinki city looking for something fun to do. We found nothing. Other than pubs, cinemas and shopping the city has nothing entertaining to offer. We thought we would play some pool but all the pubs were shut. Then I thought we could go to a game arcade, turns out their are none. That night we were supposed to head to Aussie bar for ANZAC day. We dropped in at about 2 O'clock to see what was happening. 5 people sat, drinking beer. That was it. Everyone who was invited by Julia and myself piked out and I didn't feel like spending time by myself so we stayed at home and relaxed... By sitting in a hot box until we could hardly breath, then sitting outside until we nearly froze, then having a quick shower and getting back in the hot box until we were boiling in our own juices again and on it went for an hour and a half. 

    

Still looking for work. Things are beginning to get desperate now. I am running out of money quickly and without a job I cant get a social security number. I need to register for the SSN before I have been in the country for 3 months or I have to leave the country. I can head to Sweden or Estonia and come back and that 3 months resets so it isn't to bad but without money it is hard to get to either places. At this rate I wont be doing any racing either. I am looking at 800€ to register for the races alone. That is without travel, food and accommodation. I had an interview at the beginning of the week. It went really well I thought. So well in fact that when one of the interviewers got a phone call on his phone the other one told me that she thought I had the job in the bag. I got a text the next day saying ''thanks, but no thanks'' (''kiitos mutta, ei kiitos''). I had another interview today. The guy is insisting that I attend a ''OH&S'' course before he can hire me. The course costs 100€ and lasts one day. It means you get a green card and I suppose lets employers know you can work safely. 100€ is 200AUD plus I would need to pay extra for a translator unless I wait for the next English course which is in two weeks. Their is still no guarantee that after I do the course he will hire me anyway.

I went skating with Janne (yksi) and a new  fella, Sami yesterday. Janne found a rad little path at a pask in Espoo during the winter so we went to check it out. A really fun spot. Short, windy, quick and super narrow. Everyone got some fresh road rash and Janne unfortunately, ended up with a swollen knee. He will be ok though and I will be back at that spot for sure. We had a birthday party at Liisa's last night too. A fella from Belgium but of course he couldn't get home.Because of all the volcano ash all over Europe nobody can fly anywhere.

Today, other than the interview in the morning, was a lot of running around to different agencies trying to sort out work stuff. Now I am getting ready to go to dinner (with what money?) with a couple of Julia's yoga friends.

I had VPK on Tuesday again and signed myself up for some ''crazy, official, marching birthday party'' without knowing it. I got fitted with some formal attire and asked if I had a tie, white button up shirt and black, leathers shoes at home... ''uh, no''. Why would you ask a guy who's head is half full of dreadlocks (rasta) and is wearing an odd pair of sock if he has a tie and a white shirt. We got to practice the formal drills which was kind of fun and I managed to surprise everyone while we were lined up. Starting with the first person in the line we all had to yell out what number we were in the line. Normally I am skipped or someone says it for me but this time I was ready. Everyone looked at me when I said ''Kahdeksan'' (8) and it made me feel pretty good. My counting is pretty good now and I am starting to pick up the prices of things when they are said at the register of shops without looking at the screen. Everyone from Europe used to complain to me that Aussies speak to fast but they can get bent! No one speaks as fast as the Finns. If you look up ''motor mouth'' in the dictionary you will see the Finnish flag next to it. It's funny because Finns are pretty quiet people but once you get them going they are fast as lightning.

Anyway, I'm late for dinner now (sorry Julia) so I had better go.

Moi, moi.

I just entered a writing competition. You can see my entry HERE and all the others HERE. All stories have to be a maximum of 800 words, travel orientated and to the theme of ''the world is at my feet''. You can vote for the ones you like the best and a ''peoples choice award'' will be given out at the end.

Be sure to check it out, their are some good entries!

!COUGH! vote for me !COUGH!

I am running out of things to title each blog so if you have any ideas for titles please let me know.

Hmmm, Well. Last night I went for a skate with a few of the local fellas. It was good to meet some people and have a roll. We went to an area about 20 minutes out of Helsinki city. It was a new road and quite strange to skate on. Because of the construction trucks that drive up and down the road both sides of the road were super slippery from oil and rubber. But the middle of the road was dry and grippy, so you were always on your toes. We hung out for a couple of hours and then headed off. Apparently a car track has just reopened so we were going to go and ride there tomorrow but the weather man tells us it could be raining. We shall see.

I am still frantically looking for work. I am running out of money very quickly so I hope something comes up soon. The application deadline for the editing job is on the 19th so hopefully I hear back from them soon. I have also signed up with an agency that finds short term replacement workers for companies while their staff are sick or on holidays. I went into the office today but they were closed for some training stuff so will try again on Monday.

Today all the supermarket shops are closed because those checkout chicks are on strike. If you read the previous blog entry that contained my rantings about Finnish checkout chicks you would know that they don't actually do anything. They sit down (Aussie checkout people don't even get a seat, they have to stand!), scan items and take your money. That's it. No weighing, no packing, no nothing. I am not even convinced that they stock their own shelves. I think they hire outside agencies to do that for them. So now they want more money for doing nothing. Good on em, don't we all want more money for doing nothing?!?!

I missed VPK on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit flat and didn't really feel like spending 3 hours in a room of people so I just spent time at home.

I have just completed my work task for Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto (Finnish nature conservation society). I was tasked with finding possible international organisations that may be able to help in spreading the word of the Saimaa seal.

I find it a bit strange really. If I asked you to think of the most endangered animals in the world today you would probably
say something like the Siberian Tiger (population of 200) or perhaps the Mountain Gorilla of eastern Zaire, Rwanda and Uganda (population of 700). Giant Panda (fewer than 1000) or even the Australian Sea-lion (12,000 to 14,000). Saimaannorppa would probably not spring to mind. Most of you have probably never heard of them (I certainly hadn't) but of all these figures that I have just quoted the only one that comes under the Saimaannorppa's population is the tiger. Currently there remains 200 to 250 Saimaannorppa in the world but nobody knows anything about them. There has been no international campaigns or media on the subject. When I was in Portland, US last year I met a girl who's mother lived in Finland. Although the girl was English she had just spent the past year and a bit living here too. She had no idea that the seal existed at all and told me that ''I think you might have the wrong country'' regardless of the fact that I was wearing a shirt with a picture of a seal on it that read '' Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto''.

Looking at some of the places and organisations around the world involved in marine mammal work it is amazing the length that they will go to, the money that they will spend and the resources they will source to get their message and opinion across. In Finland though, nothing has happened. All the information, all the debates, all the arguments and slander have all stayed in the country. In Australia the Government is always wanting to be seen to be doing something. They will throw money at a problem so quickly if they think it will win them votes. Here though the Government seems to the anti-Saimaannorppa. Refusing to do anything about it. Only 2 weeks ago a youth politician fella claimed on his blog or twitter or whatever that ''it would probably be easier and nicer for the seal if we started eating them and using their fur. At least then we would then have a reason to protect them. If we wiped them out completely then we could put all of the money from seal research towards protecting the Saimaa area.''   

It's funny, if this had been said back home I would have been rigid. I would be writing letters and making phone calls and all sorts because this guy is obviously an ignorant moron who should not be playing any part in politics other than making  the politicians coffee. But here I was ok. Maybe because I know I will only be here for so long it is not worth wasting my efforts on letters and phone calls. Maybe I think that because I may only be here short term I should focus on more productive things. Maybe because it is not an Australian animal I don't feel any ownership over it and there fore I can remain level headed. I don't know. Maybe subconsciously I am thinking ''it's not my problem, I'm not Finnish, I'm an international'', but if I am subconsciously thinking that then was there really a point to the work I just did trying to find international support, because they would probably think the same as me. Perhaps it is because I haven't seen one yet. It is not that I don't care. I do, a lot. It just effects me in a different way.

Funny how the thought process goes. I hope that something can be done soon to help the animals. The Finnish commercial fisherman seem far more intelligent than the Aussie ones. A lot of them go along with voluntary fishing bans during breeding season and even help with some of the research stuff.

If your interested in this stuff then check out this site HERE. A band named 30 seconds to mars did a song (beautiful lie) and tried to raise some awareness of how global warming is effecting the natives of Greenland and other low lying areas. It has now grown into a really cool website, full of good stuff and some of the photos are great. If you wanna listen to the song or see the video check it out HERE . Good song and great cinematography in an amazing area.

Anyway....
This blog entry was meant to be about skating and work stuff.

I should mention that on the 25th of April Aussie Bar is holding an ANZAC day thing. ANZAC day is to pay tribute to the ANZAC's that lost their lives (and even those who survived) in world war II. It usually entails ANZAC biscuits and  a minutes silence. Also it is a public holiday. Aussie bar are holding a shindig on the day. Wear Green and gold for the chance to win things (Green and Gold are the Aussie colours) and come and have a beer.

More Details here

ANZAC - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.       

The sun is shining, the temperature has reached a scolding 10 degrees, the roads and foot paths are dry. Spring is here!

So last week my blog was posted on the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairswebsite www.thisisfinland.fi which is pretty exiting I think. It is strange to think that people I don't know would be reading this but it is kind of cool too I suppose. Julia and I have been applying for jobs left right and center. Julia is now teaching a class of people who are applying for university in political history. She has also just won another position last week interviewing tourists who are leaving the country. What was good and bad, how much money did you spend, where did you spend it. All that kind of stuff. Seeing as she speaks something like 6 languages she was a shoe in really. I have made it through to the second rounds of an interview process with the Finnish times. They are looking for someone to edit stories for their English paper so I thought I would be pretty good at that. I have just finished editing two practice articles they sent to me which was a bit of fun. I quite like writing I have discovered. I posted the link to this blog on my application so if the Helsinki times are reading... I love your paper and hear that you are all VERY good looking and charming people.

The last week has flown past. As well as looking for work I have been contacting many different companies  regarding sponsorship for my European races as I am running out of money here extremely fast and at this stage, I am not sure I will be able to race without some sort of financial help. So if you are a large, wealthy, extreme sport orientated company...  I love YOU and hear that you are all VERY good looking and charming people. 

On Tuesday I had VPK of course. We got to play with chainsaws which I always love. I am a qualified chainsaw operator so it was great to do something I knew quite well. It was good fun and seeing as I hadn't been in a couple of weeks it was nice to do it again. On Wednesday I had a job interview which went really well. The interviewer was very positive and I was to receive a call from him Wednesday this week. It turns out though after some research that I would have been doing up to 4 hours travel by train and bus (there and back) per day at 6 in the AM for only 8 Euros an hour. It was also a problem that some of the first trains don't start until 6AM but the starting time for the job was 7AM so it would have just been to hard. I don't want to be the person that is always late and always holding things up so I rang back and kindly declined the job but asked them to keep me in mind for anything closer to Helsinki.

I cant remember what happened on Thursday or Friday. Nothing exciting apparently. On Saturday Julia and I went out skating for the day. We headed to a big stadium which has an underground carpark and spent a few hours there. Then to a path way that runs parallel with the train tracks. It was fun to be outside for the day and spend it with Julia. Fun to be skating again. After skating we headed to the Bamboo garden to meet Janna and have some lunch. Always good food at that place and we sat around for a couple of hours talking before heading back home. O, wait! I just remembered. Either Friday or Thursday I met up with a Scottish fellow named Donny. He is the husband of one of Julias friends, friends. You heard me. So, anyway. We caught up for a coffee in the city and chatted for a couple of hours. He has been in Finland for 15 years he is a veteran. We didn't talk about anything special. He has just gotten a new job so we spoke about work. He does some meditation stuff and fire walking so we spoke about that sort of stuff to. It was good to meet someone new, who was also a tourist, even if he had been one for 15 years. Seemed like a nice bloke. Will catch up with him again soon. 

Sunday, was the interesting day. The day when I was to meet Julia's old man for the first time. Him (Anders) and his partner (Christina) own a place about and hour out of Helsinki. It doesn't seem like a long way but it makes all the difference. We ended up in a quaint, quiet little town. The name doesn't escape me because I actually never knew what it was. Anyway, I'm going to call it... Quaintquietliltown. We got a lift in the morning with Ilkka who is Noora's husband who is Julia's sister. Work that one out! Norah had already arrived to Quaintquietliltown the day before and spent the night at the grandparents house with the two kids, Elias and Ines. I had met Ilkka and Noora once before at a cafe but it was a fairly brief meeting. While eating breakfast Julia was complaining about listening to Judas priest so loudly and so early in the morning. It was funny that when we jumped in Ilkaa's  car the stereo was blaring ''BREAKIN' THA' LAW, BREAKIN' THA' LAW''. We spent the trip listening to Ilkka explaining how he twists the lyrics of 80's rock music lyrics so that they can be explained to the kids. We arrived in Quaintquietliltown and took a quick drive around to see if there was a carwash because Ilkaa was meant to do that the day before (Dont tell Noora!). They didn't have one of them but they did have a church which was built in the 1400's. The road that the town is on is named Kings road. The reason being is that it was a very early trade route. It follows the old mail route from Bergen, Norway, via Oslo and Stockholm to Maarianhamina (Mariehamn) in Åland, and via the archipelago and Turku all the way across Southern Finland to Vyborg and St. Petersburg in Russia.  Being in Medieval times kings would often travel on this road to visit different areas and Kingdoms. Hence the name.
When we arrived at the house Christine was busy cooking up a storm so after a quick meet and greet Julia, Anders and I headed down to the local docks to have a look around and check out the family boat. The boat was being stored in a shed because the water it still ice but we went in and had a look. I don't know how big it was, maybe 15 to 20 foot motor boat. Quite impressive, though, I have always liked sailing boats much more. We had a look around the area and checked out some other boats before heading back. We ate a lot of food. Christine went all out with the cooking. I am still eating it now actually. Everything seemed to go well I think. Anders and I seemed to get along pretty well which is the main thing I suppose. After lunch and a slice of orange mud cake that was so rich I could only eat one bit (I think I might be getting sick maybe?) we packed the car with children and were on our way. The trip was spent entertaining grommets in the back of the car with mittens, sunglasses and small brown transformers that looked suspiciously like big pieces of poo with small men living inside. Toys have changed since I was a kid.

That afternoon Julia and I headed to a rad spot for skating I found around the corner. It is an access ramp for a block of apartments. Not super wide but it's pretty damn steep and has a pretty nice surface. I have been working on my stand-up slides lately so it is perfect for them. Julia came to see if she could get some happy snaps of me skating. We hung out for a little over an hour of super fun skating before heading back to have a Sauna.

Tomorrow I was meant to be skating with Knutti (K-nude) but he just sent me an e-mail saying he cant come. In case your reading K-nude... You have ruined my week and I will never forgive you! No, I kid, I kid.

(The photo of the church isnt mine. It was sourced from www.visitespoo.fi) 

 

Well I have had quite a bit of progress as far as the Saimaa Ringed Seal is concerned. I have received an e-mail from Juha telling me that he would be happy to take me out in the summer to try and spot the seal. Very, very good news and I am really excited to see the Saimaa area and of course the seal. I have also had a meeting with the staff at Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto (Finnish Association For Nature Conservation) and I have been given a small project to complete by the middle of this month. It is not paid work but it is nice to be involved and meet with the people who are responsible for conservation efforts of the species.

For Easter Julia and I headed off to Tampere which is the neighbouring city to Helsinki. Julia's cousin Maria who has the crazy rottweilers lives and works in Tampere now so we went to spend a couple of nights. The city is a two hour train trip from Helsinki and for two hours sitting in a chair with no services of any kind in a device that is run on electricity you will be charged 30€. That is 60 AUD! I spent the trip trying to work out exactly where my money was going. When we arrived in Tampere we wandered around the station for a bit trying to work out which way we had to go. Being spring now the snow is beginning to melt and (in the Finnish sense) it is starting to warm up. This brings out all the crazy fashions which is great fun to watch and comment on. The station was swarming with young teenagers who clearly had nothing to do on a long weekend other than hang around a grubby train station. Most of them, although dressed strangely seemed perfectly normal, rowdy teenagers. One though, nearly made Julia and I bring up our breakfast. She was wearing a skirt which was incredibly small. I know you have seen small skirts before but this wasn't so much a skirt than a belt. EVERYTHING was visible! She was not the most blessed person as far as appearance was concerned either and almost being able to see what she had for breakfast was not helping her cause.

With that image embedded in our minds for ever we started wandering to Maria's house. We were greeted by the two mad dogs and after a bit of hanging around Maria and Julia decided to take the dogs out for a walk. Normally I would have joined but Tampere was the driest place I had seen in a long time and I wanted to find places to skate. I wandered around for ages, I didn't get a whole lot of skating in as most of the good places were still to wet but I found some pretty great areas. One spot was some kind of park but not in the usual sense. It was a huge pine forest which sat right on the edge of the biggest lake I have ever seen. At first glance I thought it was the ocean before I realised that Tampere isn't actally anywhere near the ocean. Not a lot of skating like I said but I found plenty of potential spots and will be back when it has dried out a bit more. That night we watched a couple of movies and ate 1kilo of candy between the three of us.

I feel I should mention that in every sink in maria's house seemed to be a bag of raw pig feet. She had been given the feet to feed to the dogs but she had been given a garbage bag full of them. The saucepan was only big enough to cook a couple of them at a time and the dogs actually weren't all that impressed by them anyway. When the kitchen sink was needed the feet were put in the bathroom sink and when that sink was needed they would return back to the kitchen. Everywhere I went I was followed by the smell and sight of severed pigs feet. Actually they didn't smell all that bad but the concept of constantly discovering bags of feet did weird me out a little.

The next day we did the Tampere tourist trip! We went to the amusement park which was actually closed as far as rides were concerned because of the winter weather but there were still plenty of indoor things to do. First on the agenda was a dolphin show. 6 dolphins jumping around and doing all sorts of incredible things like big airs, back flips and playing basketball. It is always such a conflict of belief for me when I see shows like these. On the one hand I would love to see them swimming one day at seal bay, free and independent like all the others. On the other hand I understand that some rescued animals will never be capable in the wild again and must be kept in captivity. But then I could argue that being wild animals the injured and the sick are supposed to die, not survive and this is the natural balance of all species. But what of the two that were born in captivity? They could not be released into the wild and they do not upset the natural balance. But must they perform tricks for the public in this manner and should we really be breeding species in captivity that are not under any sort of threat from extinction? They have to do some sort of training though because animals like dolphins have high energy and intelligence levels and training is really just a form of stimulation for them that they would otherwise get in the wild from hunting, mating, communicating etc. It is also important to educate people on the issues marine mammals and other animals face in the ocean due to our own carelessness... I end up in a never ending argument with myself because I make some damn good points but at the same time... I also make some damn good points. Luckily the show ended before I was able to reduce myself to tears and punch myself in the face.

We then visited the planetarium (I spelt that correctly first time :D) which always makes me think of the story mum told me about one of her and dads first dates. Dad fell asleep laying  in a reclining chair in a darkened room which seems perfectly reasonable to me. Mum was furious because it was such an expensive thing to do and when she tried to wake him up and hurl abuse at him he gave the answer that he always gave when he had been caught sleeping in a place he wasn't supposed to be such as at work, the playground, driving or a planetarium... ''I was just resting my eyes''. Space stuff is always wasted on me I think. We went through  half hour movie on the roof which was truly fascinating. So much incredible information and discoveries of things that are and always will be far beyond my understanding. Then when the show is over and the lights turn back on you feel like saying, ''well, who gives a shit?'' You suddenly snap back to reality and realise that none of it has any effect on anybody at all and it is all just useless information. Incredibly cool, but useless.

Next stop was up the Tampere tower which is 120 meters tall and has some incredible views. On the very top is a revolving restaurant but it was incredibly over priced and we even got dirty looks when we snuck in to see how much better the view was from the free room below it. Suffice to say, we headed back to the normal viewing room and walked around the tower like the commoners we are.

Nachos for lunch and then to the museum to see the H.R Giger exhibition. Giger is the fella who created the alien from the ''Alien'' movies. Not only that but many other things I know nothing about. I am no artist, (I think I have said that before) but I know what I like and I do like Gigers work. He is an incredible sketch artist and makes some truly fascinating if not bizzare sculptures. The exhibition was not as good as I had hoped and lacked a lot of real work. Plenty of drawings, articles and write ups but I would have liked to see more of the sculptures. Downstairs was another exhibition of self portraits. The artists were asked to take three photos that were to be lined up on the wall. The middle one would be a photo describing who they were, usually just a normal family photo. The one to the left was to be something they wish to become and the one on the right would be something they do not wish to become. Some were utter shite that had no effort put in what so ever but the large majority were great and really well thought out but like I said, I don't know squat about art. That night we watched another movie and ate another kilo of candy plus Easter eggs.

Luckily for Julia and I someone had a baby on the Sunday which made Maria a Godmother for the third time. She decided to drive to Helsinki to meet the grommit which saved us, but more importantly me paying the 30€ train ticket back. We ended up driving in a fog so thick you could barely see 5 meters in front of the car which was an exciting way to end the weekend. We also got to stop for Munkki ja Kahvi on the way which made the trip for me!  Sauna at 8pm and then bed.

On Monday we had lunch with Julia's mum Perttu followed by an Easter egg hunt organised by Julia (She is 25 years old!!!) We then watched two ''new'' episodes of House which aired roughly 3 years ago in Australia and then headed home. I managed to get in a couple of hours of skating in the afternoon which made me very happy.

VPK tomorrow night.