Again, a busy week and a bit. Time is running out now, this Friday Julia and I leave for Norway and the races begin. Planning travel times, places, dates and all the rest has been pretty time consuming. Julia has helped a lot which is nice and has taken some of the load off. Other than planning the trip I have been working as usual, saving baby birds and skating.

On Saturday Julia left for Yoga and found a baby bird sitting by the gate of our apartments. He had feathers and was hopping about trying to fly but the wind was pretty cold and being so low it must have made it a bit harder for him. We took him across the road to a lawn and I tried to put him under a bush but he took a liking to me pretty quickly. He took a liking to my arm and kept opening his mouth and trying to eat my finger. We hung out for a while before we noticed his mum sitting above us chirping way. I put him on the ground and he took a short, quick flight into a brick wall and then stumbled into a tree. He didn't hit the wall to hard and mum found him in the bushes so I think he was Ok which is nice. I have a pretty bad track record with birds. I saved a few at Seal Bay when I worked there, usually ones that had flown into the windows. My first bird was a magpie name Malcolm when I was maybe 14. I found him one morning dead in the toilet bowl. He must have been thirsty and jumped in but couldn't get out. I was crushed. Before I moved over to Finland I found another one with Julia on the streets. A fat baby Blackbird. He rode around town on the dash of my car enjoying the sun for a while but eventually died of cold and my mum trying to ram food down his throat. Yesterday I found another at the temple. He was in the middle of the road in the rain. He was dripping wet and really cold. I put him in a box and on a jumper sleeve but the cold was to much. Grim...

I was told yesterday at the temple that I am no longer allowed to wear the work jumper that I have been wearing for the past 2 months. It is a Soilwork jumper (that's a band and yes I chose the jumper because it was ironic). On the back of it is says ''burn your flag figure''. Apparently Mormons are big on flags and don't want to see them burnt. They didn't even ask what kind of flag it was. It could have been a Nazi flag for all they know. So there we have it... Mormons are Nazis. When I bought the jumper I had a choice out of the Soilwork jumper and an ACDC jumper that said ''Highway to Hell on the back. Probably best that I went with the Soilwork one. I have done some research on Mormons and what the faith is all about. I would love to shed more light on it but it is a long subject. I can basically sum it up as ''HAHAHAHAHHAAHHAAHHAAHAHAHA'' though. What I will do though is post this link (HERE). This is a South Park episode which is all about Mormons but, before you dismiss it because ''it's just a silly cartoon'' have a look. It is actually very accurate and is spot onto the story behind the Mormon faith. This is a Finnish website so if you are not in Finland and have a spare 20 minutes to watch, try HERE

We went for another skate at Påminne on Sunday. Another good turn out and a fun session. Julia has improved a lot in the last week and a bit and is really starting to work things out now and grow a lot more confident on the board. We were supposed to go back tonight but we both have a lot to do so decided to skip it. Lots of skating to come in the next few weeks. I had an article in ''The Islander'' this week which is a news paper from back home. You can see that HERE.

Julia has been running her own Yoga classes recently which is going really well. We have a spare basement room underneath our apartment block so Julia has been running classes twice a week with friends and friends of friends. A bit of extra money is good... It means she can buy the beer in Norway.

Yesterday after work we went to Julia's aunties place to use her shed. The weather forecast for Norway is looking a bit damp so I needed to make some water wheels. Maikki and her husband Lennart live in an apartment about 10 minutes away from our place. Maikki apparently reads this blog so I can only say nice things about them both. She is also an English teacher so I am now wishing that Weebly had a spell check system. They both seem like really friendly people.

On Saturday I met more family at Julia's cousins wedding. I had to wear a suit (yes, it was the first time) and we ate and hung about at the Hilton. I felt like a fish out of water. I felt like a fish on Mars actually. It was a nice enough reception held on the Hilton lawn next to a lake. The cousin Patrik and his wife Änisa are members of the Baha'i religion so there were some prayer stuff that I didn't understand but it was still nice. After the reception we were all shuffled inside for a 3 course meal in a big, posh, snobby dining room. I was sat next to a girl who was just like the red head from the first American Pie movie. She was perfectly nice but that was the problem. One of these people that are so nice and always talking. She spoke in a way that every word would get higher and higher in pitch as if she were building up to the greatest punch line ever. Instead though you got a dead ending that prompted no response from anyone except for Gustavo (an Argentinian sitting across from her) who would let out this forced laugh so she wouldn't feel so bad. Gustavo was a funny guy and so was everyone else at our table. I could have put up with the girl next to me to until she started complaining that people were using their fingers to pick up the sugar cubes for the coffee. She had taken a hygiene class at school apparently and new all about germs. I told her that I had sneezed on them already so it didn't matter. She gave me a nasty look (as nasty as one of those ''I love everything and everyone'' people can get) and that was the last time we spoke. I met Julia's other Auntie Helena and her Husband Mike who both live in England. They were a riot. Helena was the photographer so she was running around taking photos of everyone and then commenting on how nasty their outfits were. Mike was grinning away and dancing up a storm. Both seemed like truly genuine people which is hard to find today. We stuck around for all of it and then when the dancing started and all the Baha'i's were intoxicated on their water and juice we said our goodbyes and left.

Well, the next post I do will be from somewhere far far away. I wont have a computer with me so I will drop into any net cafe's and libraries I find along the way and make some updates. I will be taking lots of photos of course and footage, though I wont be editing video's until I get back. Keep checking in and wish me luck.

A new video is up on the video page featuring.... Sweden. Unfortunately I had a real lack of footage so it is short and sweet. Enjoy.

The last time I posted was the night before the Green Day gig I think. The gig was pretty good. We missed the opening bands as it wasn't anything that we were overly interested in seeing. When we arrived me met up Knutti and his friend Ville who were ''at the bar in front of the pole dancers''. Part way through Green Day's gig they brought a girl on stage from the audience to sing a song. The girl struggled part way through the first verse before the singer realised that she had no idea of the words and she certainly couldn't sing. She just wanted to be on stage with Green Day and hug all of the band members. They kicked her off stage quick smart and picked another girl to sing. This girl couldn't sing either but she knew the words and was really energetic and fun to watch so she sang the whole song. After the song was over the lead singer asked the girl what her name was and where she was from. She was from Australia! Keep in mind that the last time Green Day played in Finland was 15 years ago The last time they played in Oz was last year. The one chance the Finns had to jump around on stage with Green Day and it was stolen by an Aussie. Awesome!

Not much has been happening really. Working of course and skating. The weekend was really wet and so incredibly windy. Lots of trees were blown over and all sorts. I went for a skate yesterday though with Janne, Paulli and Julia after work at Stadium.  It was a good few hours with lot's of learning from everyone. After we finished at Stadium we headed to a park near our house and tagged onto the end of a girls session. Their are a lot of girls getting into longboarding here in Helsinki which is great to see. It is such a rarity but Helsinki has 7 or so female riders already.

The weekend was occupied by planning my Euro travels and shopping for camping gear. Less than two weeks now and I will be in Norway! The time is flying by and I still have so much stuff to organise. It's good though, it makes the time move by faster and keeps me busy.

Well, that is it. Realy, nothing has happened. Sorry, I will try to create an amusing situation this week.

A video from my birthday weekend is now up. You will find the link on my video page as per usual. Enjoy.

I have also added the photos from Sweden (Finally) to the photo links page and hopefully will have a video coming soon.

Recently, Jackson Shapiera, Ben Hay, Luca Coleman and Cameron Kite from Sydney all headed down to Adelaide for a week of racing and skating through the Adelaide hills. A couple of videos came out of the week and I thought I would add them to my video page for all to see. Jackson's video is a three part series which is great for those who don't know much about downhill skating. Luca's is a short little clip made up of some awesome footage and some great editing. Watch one, watch them all. Enjoy!!!

It's been a big week and a bit. More maybe? Lots of skating has been done. Julia and I have also been using the slack line a lot which is a great way to work on leg strength and balance, both of which I am going to need a lot of in the coming months. Only a few weeks now and we are off to Norway for my first race of the season. I am incredibly excited for this trip, I can't wait.

Last Monday I had work as per usual. After work a quick dash home to grab some gear before heading off to the docks with Pirkko and Julia for our Swedish adventure. We caught the Viking ferry which is a huge cruise ship. The trip is an overnight voyage, leaving Helsinki at 5:30 and arriving in Stockholm at 9am. The boat has a myriad of bars and restaurants as well as a duty free shop, Karaoke bar, gaming area with internet and Nintendo Wii, a pool and Sauna and of course a whole lot of viewing areas on 11 decks. The journey is a nice one. All the way from Helsinki to Sweden the water is filled with tiny Islands covered in summer cottages. You can tell when you begin to get closer to Sweden as the cottages get closer and closer together. The Finns seem to enjoy their privacy a bit more where as the Swedes seem quite happy to have neighbors. The Swedes also love hanging their flag anywhere it can be hung. Once we started getting a bit chilly on the deck and I had taken hundreds of photos of each island we passed, we headed inside to watch the Karaoke. Karaoke is great, it always puts a smile on my face. I never participate because I know I'm crap but it amuses me watching people who don't seem to realise it. After Karaoke we ate at one of the restaurants where I ordered a strange skewer dish where the skewer hung on a metal hook over the plate. Unfortunately the waitress was a bit heavy handed and all the food fell off onto my plate so I had to eat like a normal person but with a swinging metal skewer in my face.

We arrived at 9am as promised and made our way towards old town. We stopped off at a few churches on the way which were fantastic. I have taken quite a liking to churches recently. I am not really interested in buildings or architecture but churches I quite like. We also dropped off at the Kahalani shop. Kahalani is a very famous precision truck designed for high speed skating. They are widely known in the downhill scene and sponsor some of the worlds best riders so I was pretty stoked to visit the Kaha headquarters. It also gave me the opportunity to buy some bushings, bearings and a hell of a lot of grip tape. We eventually made it into old town which was fantastic. Everything I ever expected from Europe was in old town. Narrow, cobble streets built to fit a fella on his horse and nothing else. Old, stylish buildings built from stone and super narrow alley ways popping up every so often. We also visited a royal palace of some sort. The building is full of museums and what not but seeing as we only had a day we decided to trek on so that is really all I can tell you of the building. On the outside it had some old cannons from way back when guarded by some very still blokes holding huge semi automatics with even bigger bayonets attached to the barrels. We also saw a couple of soldiers marching together with the same weapons of reasonably large destruction. The one thing that ruined old town was that it was absolutely crawling with tourists (most seemed to be American) which of course meant it was impossible to buy anything that wasn't made in china. Tacky shops took a lot of the charm out of what was otherwise a great area. It was also impossible to see any Swedes in the area since none of them wanted any of the tourist crap for obvious reasons.

After old town we made our way to the shopping district (where you have to go to meet Swedes) which was just as any city shopping district is. Crap. Stale, cold, crowded yet lifeless. The same bright lights, loud music and irritating people you would meet in any other city. Julia had planned to buy a pair of jeans whilst in Sweden so while she tried pants on I sat outside and people watched. I have never been one to follow or even know what the fashion at the time is but 10 minutes watching people in Sweden and I was on top of it all. I saw groups of up to 4 girls all waring the EXACT same outfits with the EXACT same hair style's. It was on several occasions the clone groups would wander past and each time I thought ''they should really call each other before they go out to make sure this situation doesn't occur again''. After a while I was spotted by a drunk fella named Patrick (a very Swedish name). He found it very amusing that I had moved away from the drunk Aussies to Finland where people are drunk all the time. I had then gone to Sweden to have a break from the drunk Finns and bumped into a very drunk Swede. Although the story wasn't 100% true I found it funny to. He was harmless enough, we spoke about traveling and he had a sob about his recent break up with a Greek broad he had been seeing. Eventually Julia came back from the shop with her fancy new jeans and we said our goodbyes to Patrick and were on our way back to the ferry.

A very complicated, noisy, crowded, pushy subway. A struggle to get on the train but most importantly off the train. A long walk in circles to find a the exit to the station and finally a failure to catch the final bus headed to the ferry meant that we were now running for 2 Kilometers to make our boat. We arrived at the boat with about 2 minutes to spare and copped a lecture from the two captains who were just climbing aboard and can kiss my ass since I pay them the same wages regardless of weather they are on time or not or even if I am on the boat or not. The trip back was roughly the same. Me taking photos and filming of everything green or watery (I am becoming everything I hate) followed by Karaoke viewing and laughing. Pirkko was being harassed by a quiet old man who in the beginning seemed quite charming until he was egged on by a fat, loud, younger fella who thought sun rays were emitting from his rectum. Together the pair became louder and more obnoxious as the night went on, both having numerous goes at the Microphone and stinking the place up something fierce! I swapped seats with Pirkko putting some distance between her and the fat oaf and managed to act friendly enough, for long enough for him to buy me a beer. I drank it and we left.

Back in Helsinki the following day and it was home to drop off my bags and then to work. I was put at a house who's garden backed onto a lake and had a an old rotting cabin out the back. It was a fantastic spot. I was working with Mia and Kukka and although I knew them I hadn't actually worked with them before. The work was simple enough, raking and weeding was really it. The garden was being jazzed up as the daughter of the family had just finished school and was having a party to celebrate the following weekend. She was tanning her self in her bikini on the deck above where I was working. That was ok, I have seen chicks in bikinis before. Then her friend turned up, then her friend, then her friend... It just kept going, it was like an episode of the OC and before I knew it I was working below a very large group (Julia loves this story) of European woman all rubbing sun screen onto each others backs and cooking themselves in the sun. It was a difficult day.

For the rest of the week I was posted at a summer cottage which is right on the coast of Lake Bodom. One of Finland's most famous bands (internationally) is The Children of Bodom. The name comes from 4 teenagers who were camping by the lake in the 60's. 3 of them were fatally stabbed through the walls of their tents while they slept whilst the 4th got away. The killer was never caught. Anywho, the bands music is about as grim as that story but quite a few of my friends back home are big fans of the band so I was pretty excited to be at the lake, let or lone working on the banks of it. It was then when I found an old bloody, half buried knife..... No, I lie.

The weekend was long but a good one. Skating on Friday nigh at the new ''Pommies ass'' spot. Slack lining on Saturday at Koff park followed by some relaxing at home. Skating and slack lining all day on Sunday at Stadium and I even tried my hand at some slalom skating which was (as my old man would say) a bit of a hoot. Back to work today and all back to normal. Julia bought me a Green Day ticket for my Birthday so we are off to see them play tomorrow night which should be good and I have another meeting with Suomen Luonnonsuojeluliitto on Thursday morning to discuss the new sponsorship deal and talk about all sorts of fishy things. Fishy... get it?

So a little while ago I went to meet with the people of suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto (Finnish Association for Nature Conservation) and said that I may have some exciting news but I didn't want to count my chickens before they hatched. Well all of them have just hatched and I am proud to be sponsored and riding for suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto in the 2010 racing season. I am very excited to merge my two passions together and help SLL spread the word of Saimaannorppa's critical condition throughout Europe.

Thanks to Kaarina and Pirjo at SLL for giving me the time of day from the beginning and helping all this happen.

For more information check them out HERE.