Good times!

A great weekend, just under 10 more days of farmwork left, expectation of the small roadtrip on Great Ocean Road towards Melbourne, uncertainty of what is yet to come. COOL!

Last Friday the Adelaide Estonian House hosted another pub night, this time around OctoberEST. It was a great night actually, especially because I met Liis and Jackson, a nice couple of similar age as me. She’s Estonian, he’s native Aussie (who is actually a native Aussie?). We had a good laugh and good talk, plenty of Saku Kuld beers accompanied by shots of Vana Tallinn and Viru Valge. J And Matt, another fellow at the bar that night could not really believe himself speaking German with me. Thrat required another shot of Vana Tallinn. I knew I was going to have a weary Saturday with a solid hangover, and it was all worth it! Even considering the morning after. Slept pretty much untill 2pm before I decided to go out and enjoy a sunny day at downtown Adelaide. Later that night I met up with Liis and Jackson again for a dinner at a chinese restaurant. I was a good fun, partly because they had their friends Adam and Dani along. As it turned out, Adam was on exchange in Sweden in 04/05 with YFU, so he was officially the first person here who I’ve met with a relation to YFU.

Sunday was a busy day heading back to Nildottie with the hope of getting my new car stereo and speakers installed. Decided to buy the whole package because what I previously had in there, we’ll let’s just say there was a box which produced some sounds. Nevertheless, it all started off nice before I understood I needed some washers to fasten the speakers. Despite my accurate measuring I had made a small mistake. Happens. The quick trip to work ended up having a good 6pack of beers, first at work as some colleagues had just finished off a hard days work and had a good beer and lateron at Ben’s house, our big manager who just invited the whole bunch over for a good arvo (read: afternoon) beer. Eventually I finished off my small DIY (Do It Yourself) project on Monday evening, successfully! Everything works and it’s good to have your own music coming from the speakers (thanks to a USB connection the stereo has). It all summed up to 268aud, which is far less than I was almost ready to spend.

Today is Tuesday, which means I have only 9 more days here before I head back to Adelaide. This time I really do plan not to come back here again. J Instead I’ll have the wine course on 5.Nov and 12.Nov and after that it’s a good road trip towards Victoria, Melbourne!

it's been a while...

... 3 weeks to be precise. The reason is I’ve been busy and lazy and not too much has happened within one week to write about. So it took me 3 to write again. J

This much has changed – I’ve got a housemate, Stephen, 25 from Ireland. To be honest he arrived just a couple of hours after I posted my last story. He’s alright, we get along well and most importantly it’s the fact of having some company.

A week after his arrival came a new change. We got a notice we need to move the house. Frankly that story about moving to a new place was around already long before I got to Nildottie in the first place, but as I’ve said, things to take (a lot of) time around here. The new place is about halfway from work, just some 500m away from Nildottie centre (read: store and hall) and 5min drive to work, instead of previous 10min drive. Outside it looked like another house which has not been used for a long while, but apparently it’s the way things actually do look here. The bright side is that it was all cleaned up and there is not too much to complain about. Except we still do not have a decent tv reception and the watertaps (except shower) are separate for hot and cold (which is precisely what you get – HOT and COLD).

truckdriver

At work I’ve had fairly busy days, last week we started planting potatoes again, which means 5am starts and about 12-14 hour days. The same will go on for a while so nice hours and good money is on it’s way. Meanwhile I have also registered myself on a winecourse in Adelaide taking place on Nov.5 and Nov.12. Therefore the last day of work here stays also firm – Nov.4 which means just 4 more weeks to go. After that, as I already said last time, it’s quite probable I will head towards Melbourne, have a look at the Great Ocean Road (http://www.visitvictoria.com/Regions/Great-Ocean-Road.aspx & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ocean_Road) and probably spend about a week doing that. Whatever happens thereafter, well, we’ll see.

Also I will probably go to Adelaide in 2 weeks and attend another Esto Pub Night in Adelaide Estonian House. This time’s theme is OctoberEST.

Added some photos to picasa, so feel free to have a look. J

Never say never

As I left Nildottie some 1,5 months ago I stopped at a sign and made a photo of it – Farewell to Nildottie. Meanwhile thinking I was glad to put that part of my life behind me, yet not saying I will never come back. True that, because here I am once again. :)

Last time I mentioned about an interview I had lined up for Monday. It went well, but as everything here takes time, they also could not tell me if and when could they actually employ me. And as it was a public sector employer, well things might take even longer. So to keep myself busy I, among others, also called the recruitment agency who found me the farm work last time, and asked them if they had knowledge of any possible emploment opportunity near Adelaide or Melbourne area. Well they did – back here in Nildottie. To be honest I am not entirely happy about it but on the other hand, work is work and as long as it pays, I cannot complain. Moreover as the work itself is already familiar then now I am actually getting paid a bit more – farm hand level 2. It’s not much of a difference, but still something.

Other than that, nothing too much to say about, except... Within the first 2 days at work I already had 3 small issues – on Friday I somehow lost the dieseltank cork on the tractor I was working with, on Saturday I hit my head and got a small bleeding (nothing to worry about!) and later I managed to get a flat tyre. But as trouble always come in threes, then it should be enough for me. :)

What I have decided however, is that if anything else does not come along, I will be working here max up untill 4.Nov. After that I will take a wine course in Adelaide and spend another week there just enjoying the beach and hopefully surfing and thereafter I will try to move on towards Melbourne. But, as everything changes here with a short notice, then I will not promise anything either. :)

As it we are steadilyheading towards summer here then the temperatures have also changed a fair bit. Friday morning as I headed to work it was already nice and warm at 6.45AM. During the day we actually had 26 degrees. Satruday was even better - 33 degrees but a heavy wind made it just impossible to enjoy. Nevertheless, as I have been told, temperatures over 40 degrees are not incommon either. So let's wait and see what this place has to offer.

Catch you later and all the best!

show must go on

it's been about 2 months since the last post and i eventually felt like writing something again.

the last time i wrote was when i had just 2 more weeks to work. the last days were pretty agonizing just because of the anxiety of what was yet to come. but it felt good as one part of my life here was about to come to an end. my last day of work was pretty enjoyable and easy aswell, just spent a couple of hours ploughing and then headed off to the other farm. as the tractor is was using was needed elsewhere then my last job was to take it there - one last roadtrip. one my way back i had a nice chat with the manager of all 3 farms. an interesting fellow, has worked in farming since forever, has spent some 5 years working in farms in thailand, points out that current year was not that good in terms of export - just some 150 containers (40'' reefers) were sent to asia instead of 300+ containers last season! to me these numbers were a bit unbelievable - it's just ONE farm!

the last few days in adelaide before i departed towards estonia were fairly relaxing. managed to do some shopping, some further sightseeing and of course visited some more wineries! no wonder i have become to love this industry - every winetasting experience has been simply great! the visit to K1 (http://www.k1.com.au/) was just an undescribable experence to me. among many i got to taste a wine which was roughly a 200aud a bottle, which was an experiment gone great totalling a production of just 10 dozen bottles. how wonderful is that! :)

some wondered why i went home for a vacation and not to asia where i could have spent much less money and travelled a lot longer. well i don't know and frankly it doesn't matter either. i had a great time at home! it was the perfect way of spending a holiday! the time itself passed very quickly, it was full of various events, a weeks trip to germany and quality time with family and friends. but the aussie experience must go on and here i am, back in adelaide, once again looking for work, for things to do and people to get to know. once again it's a beginning of all new and farewell to all familiar and known. however i think and feel that this is what makes life worth living.

p.s. cross your fingers as i have a job interview coming up on monday ;)

2 more weeks of farmwork

Today in 2 weeks time I’ll be in Adelaide, probably enjoying a nice morning coffee and curing a small hangover. J And in 3 weeks time I’ll already be back home among the beloved ones, having had a long waited sauna with a couple of beers. J Untill that time I still have 11 more days to work here. In 7 weeks time again back Down Under, being free as the wind and seeing where it takes me.

Meanwhile it has been the usual business here – work, all kinds of jobs, all kinds of weather. Except for one small highlight. Last weekend in Adelaide. The previous time I visited Kent and Tiina, they suggested that I’d come back to Adelaide on July 8th because that’s when Esto Pub Night #18 will take place in Eesti Maja. And I obviously could not miss that. Friday was a short day at work, had to finish early enough to get to Murray Bridge first to sort out the registration of my car. Unfortunately I still have to make another trip Murray Bridge now on Monday as I failed to present a proof of residential address where I stayed. As it turns out Service SA (similar to our ARK, but you do all kinds of registrations and governmental things there) needs to have a written document showing my residential address here in state South Australia. Lucky me, Tiina works in a bank and they have a certain form just for that, so now on Monday I’ll be able to finally state that this car belongs to me.

The current house of Eesti Maja has belonged to the Estonian community since 1958. Upon entering the house and especially the main hall, you find yourself in a building as if it was a older town hall in a small town or borough – varnished wooden walls, arms of (Estonian) cities, counties and families, posters in Estonian about events and parties, old maps in wooden frames. And the upper shelves at the bar counter filled with all types of Estonian liqueur (all empty of course), funny and familiar posters, signs. It felt like being back home. Except for the one small difference. Most of the people spoke in English. Apart from the oldest members of the community who in fact still, after living most of their life in Australia, speak excellent fluent Estonian. That was a suprise to me! It was a great time there, meeting interesting people, both with Estonian origin and elsewhere. For example Clint who is of asian origin, lived in Võru for 3 years together with an Estonian girl, but broke up with her because he would not have made it there working on his occupation – tradie (read: a specialist in building, tiling, plumming etc) and she did not want to move over to Aussie. He was introduced as: „It’s Clint, he lived in Estonia, but his girlfriend ran off with his washing machine“. J To make the long story short, the evening consisted of pleasant conversations, a typical estonian peasoup, plenty of drinks, incl. Viru Valge, unfortunately no Estonian beer which was still stuck in customs in Melbourne (wrong choice of logistics provider I’d say), useful new contacts and most important of all – a great time out! J Have a look at the gallery of the event. To finish the night appropriately, Richard, one of the key figures in the Estonian community these days, suggested to have a couple of more drinks at his place. Without knowing it yet, we headed to one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Adelaide. A great wine in a great looking study of an expensive, just about 3,5mln dollar house seemed like a fair plan. J Getting there was easy – just call a dialer driver and soon a car with a spare driver stopped in front of Eesti Maja and off we went. I think dialer driver is a wonderful service – you never know when going out how the evening will turn out, but when going with your car there’s always the dilemma of either leaving the car in town and struggling to get it home the next day or not enjoying a nice evening with good company and a couple of drinks.

As Saturday morning was a bit hangoverish, what would be better idea to get rid of it than going out to Glenelg (established in 1836, it is the oldest European settlement on mainland South Australia), the popular seaside suburb of Adelaide for a couple of dozen of oysters! This is my new best hangover treatment. J If only it was summertime and and one of those many-million-dollar-boats was about to take out on the sea...

On my way back to Nildottie I decided to have a quick stop in Hahndorf – the first and oldest surviving German settlement in Australia dating back to 1839. As it is the most popular town in Adelaide Hills, I thought to go and have a look and why not enjoy a good cup of coffee with a piece of cake. Haven’t had a cake since I moved to SA. Although it’s winter and it was Sunday, there were plenty of tourists around which the locals described as a really quiet day. J However, I was somehow expecting a bit more from it. Maybe a nice 1L jug of genuine Warsteiner beer would have helped.

P.S. Lodging a tax declaration here is a pain in the buttocks, despite the fact that e-tax has made it a LOT easier according to the locals.

Improvements

The past week has brought a fair bit of change to my life here. On Monday I mentioned Richie that I would appreciate if I could get some more hours at work, doing 9 hours a day 5 days a week does not really satisfy me. And it’s not that I am a workaholic, but there nothing else to do here really. J And money is what I’m here for. So, after a bit of thinking and 24hours later I was on my way to Peebinga Park, the third farm we did not go to do the seeding. This time was not going to be working there, but just taking a ca 150km trip there and ca 150km back to pick up the scraper – a piece of machinery to level the fields. It was a nice day on Tuesday, so I could not care less that I took the trip on me beloved 7830 John Deere. J The following weekdays were filled with working on field 34 which due to winds has become really rough. According to Richie it’ll take at least a couple of weeks to get it into a condition that matches his idea of it. And to start with, he just gave me a brief presentation of what to do and what NOT to do. So all I have to do now is find a way to get myself to work and back at times most suitable for me. For that ofcourse I need a car!

On Friday it turned out Pete was heading to Adelaide on Saturday noon as he had a week of vacation coming and had decided to spend it in Melbourne. Good for me I thought, at least I could get to Adelaide with him. I spent the whole evening looking for cars worth having a look at, but due to a very limited budget of up to 2000aud, there was not too much to consider. Finally came across a 1991 Mitsubishi Lancer, 1690aud, having ca 285000km on speedometer but otherwise looked nice and tidy, no rust or problems reported by dealership. I the evening however I was not quite sure I was going to Adelaide. At one point I decided to give a call to an Estonian lady whose contacts I got from home. Tiina is an Aussie born Estonian who unfortunately was not home, but her husband promised to leave a note so she would call me back Saturday morning. All ends loose...

9am Saturday morning I got a call from the car dealer saying the car is available, mechanically checked and in good condition and that they are open till 4pm. Good! 1,5h later received a call from Tiina and we agreed that if I will make it to Adelaide later that day, we’d meet some time during the afternoon. All I had to do was to get Pete come and pick me up. All ends not so loose anymore...

2pm Saturday afternoon and the carpark gate opened in Adelaide airport – I was in Adelaide finally, in the airport and on my way to take a taxi to the other end of Adelaide city to have a look and hopefully buy the Mitsubishi. J To cut the long story short – I got it! To make it a bit fancy – I paid in cash! And to celebrate – I headed to the city, found a nice italian restaurant and enjoyed a great Calzone pizza with a good glass of riesling wine!

I met with Tiina and her husband Kent and younger son James in their home up in the Adelaide Hills. Lucky to have a gps on the phone, because finding your way around in the Hills the first time around is hard to say the least! Tiina’s parents moved to Australia during the second world war, she has only been to Estonia a few times, but I was quite suprised about her still good Estonian. Kent is a native Aussie who had an Estonian friend in the school. The two guys were, at least what I was told, inseparable, except on Saturdays. That was the day all Adelaide Estonians had Estonian school, folkdance and other national activities. A young aussie guy could not understand how on earth an guy could choose folkdance lessons over aussie rules (the local footy (football)). Untill the day he was asked to come along and see for himself! And the rest is history. J We had a nice long chat with a couple of bottles of wine, I got to know them a bit and they got to know me a bit. What an enjoyable evening compared to those back in Nildottie with no-one in the house but me.

But the best was yet to come... After a nice brunch on Sunday I headed to a wineyard with Tiina, she decided to show the one their family likes to most. Shaw+Smith is a small estate that started off when citizens Shaw and Smith decided to realize their old dream of making wine. Having a taste of 4 very good wines, 2 red - pinot noir and shiraz and 2 white - chardonnay and savignon blanc, consider the sunny day and the beautiful surroundings aswell and you’ll have a perfect recipe for great Sunday! After that a quick sightseeing in the Adelaide Hills, went to the Mt Lofty lookout. Also as one of Tiina's friends was located just nearby and she thought it'd would be a good idea to take me there and show a home-made zoo, we dropped by Kathy's place. Home-made zoo is a correct word for it, because there were very many parrots, very colorful, loud and beautiful, a seriouslooking eagle, an emu and some kangaroos. Photos in the album. To sum it up, it was time and money well spent, it was great to be out from Nildottie for a while and especially good to meet some people and have a nice chat.

What is more, I'll be back in Adelaide on July 8 when there's an event at the Adelaide Estonian House. Good on ya mate :)

Mixed emotions

What if I found my way back to the civilization? What if I finished working here at the farm and headed to Adelaide for a month? What if I actually bought a car? How much to spend on it? How much to save for travelling? What if I would not think of those things? What if? And what is going through my mind? The answers to those and other questions cannot be found. Or can?!

The busy days are over, apparently and also confirmed by head of staff, Richie. It’s a good thing on one hand but it is not really why I’m here. I have nothing against starting late and finishing early but unfortunately that around here does not mean a lot of money, yet it means too much free time and nothing to do with it. Also as the irish lads are now off, took them to Adelaide airport this morning, there is noone else in the house which makes it all pretty empty. Moreover as they sold their car to Andy and I do not have any myself, then I need to find a solution to get to work and back. Ok, doable, I’ll find my way around. But to shop?! I need to get there aswell from time to time. Again doable, I’ll find some solution. But for what actually?! I mean if the days will be as long as they have been for the past 2 days – 9,5h of work then it does not make too much sense to just sit around. Or am I being too grumpy and impatient?

So that’s why there are some questions in my mind. A wise idea would be to figure out what I, me and myself actually want and the rest is just a consequence of the pieces of thoughts that go through the mind day in and day out.

Taking the trip to Adelaide this morning was interesting. First time on public roads with more traffic, driving the Mitsubishi ute, right hand side wheel with manual gearbox, taking it through Adelaide. No big deal to be honest. J And did not get lost either. But that’s not important. What is more important to me is the feeling of being in a city, after a long while. And today Adelaide felt different. Maybe it was because of the nice sunny weather, maybe because I was driving, maybe because it was a city with all the nice things you can find there. Don’t know, but it felt good! And I understood right when I crossed the last intersection with trafficlights that I miss it. The city, the livelyness, socializing, people. I am not saying I am that homesick, though it will be indeed splendid to come home for a while, but I am saying that it might be time to move on. Let’s see... J

Oh, I almost forgot. I had a birthday a couple of days ago. It's now 27 years in the making and still not satisfied with the result. J Thank you mom and dad and Mattias and Merje for the package! And thank you all for all the good words! And thank whatever I did not have one of those 16-19 hour days! J However to be honest, this time around the day did not have it’s glance. It was indeed overwhelming to receive all those best wishes and to see how many people are or might be thinking of me that day, but there was something missing – the joy! Don’t worry because I am not, it’s called life and I chose to take it by the horns. J

But that evening gave me a nice shot!