Mom <3

So as many of you would know by now, my mom decided to make a surprise trip to Australia to make my 22nd birthday so ever speciall! So I had the priviledge of hosting my very special, loved mum for a whole week here! What more could a girl wish for..? I LOVE my mom!

The whole week was filled with walking around, and at the end of the day our feet would be sore but we'd wear bright smiles on our faces because of the beautiful, warm weather that lasted exactly the duration of my mom's trip! It had been so rainy before mum came, but was totally blessed with sunshine and blue skies! After mum left it's been still pretty but FREEZING – I reckon God organized the best just for her. :)

My flatmates absolutely loved having my mum around – mom brought a pair of oven mittens and a moomin mug for everyone, and you wouldn't quess that now no one drinks out of any other cup! :D Jill loved the oven mittens so much that she cooks them on.. finally she doesn't have to be afraid of the boiling hot sprinkles of oil! They also thought my mom was the sweetest thing (which she sure is!) and were amazed by the closeness of our relationship. They got to keep company to mom at times when I was al school, and also challanged her English through the continuos practise! I must say Im so proud of her and to where she's come to with her language skills.. My mom's the bomb!

So we had two days to take a full day trip when I was off from school and ministry responsibilities – so right away on Monday we took off to the Blue Mountains to explore the nature and get away from the hectic city. We catched the train and once we arrived to Katoomba, our sweet red english double decker was waiting for us to explore the sights around!

Since it had been raining so much before mum arrived, the waterfalls were amazing! It took my breath away (and the high we were standing from the ground took mom's.. :D)!! A bummer was thought that we couldn't see much of the majestic landscapes as it was CRAZY FOGGY – I felt like walking in the cloud for the most of the time!! I quess mom was just glad she didn't have to stare at the steep drop to the ground all the time :)

Mom's eye of course caugh the most random things like an orange little mushroon that looked just like the ones we spend our autumn days picking up in Finland! :D Random, I know :)

We walked a few tracks and enjoyed the peace and quiet – also hear some pretty random birds singing and tried to avoid the flooding steps in our non-waterproof sneakers... It was heaps of fun! :) Even though locals were wearing full winter gear me and mom got going in a thin long sleevers!

We also hiked to take a look at a ”garden” marked on the sights map, only to discover a dead end path in the midst of the burnt forrest.. anyhow, we did find something beautiful outside the ”gardens”.. the stunning colours of autumn!

Some of the best things we did with mom was just to grab a cup of coffee and sit outside, in the harbour or walk around the city. Not to even mention OUR SWEET AFTERNOON NAPS!! I must admit that was the absolute highligh of mum's visit and I took full advantage of it as much as I could! :) Im glad we both consider it as a mother-daughter-quality time! :)

Of course the pressure was on since it was no longer my mom's first visit here and I had been carefully considering all possibilities to entertain mommy.. But I loved the fact she just wanted to relax and of course we saw a lot of stuf, but she was happy just taking a walk in the morning, reading a book in the park and baking a lot of yummy stuff for us whilst I was at school! You can imagine how much my roomies love my mom after all that cooking.. !

One of my favourite past times was when we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Harbour. I've never really got the eye for contemporary art, but we found a few very interesting pieces of art, out of which my absolute favourite was this circles of letters companied with a video where a funny old man was reading the nonsense circles fast and moving from cirle to another.. I know my words won't quite give it it righteous honour, but just ask my mom – she would tell you how HILARIOUS it was!! :D

We ate like kings and queens for the whole week - eating out, eating in, baking and cooking.. :)

And of course, it was my 22nd birthday too whilst my mom was here – the best birthday I've had ever! My flatmates had attached a huge congratulations poster on our wall so it was the first thing I saw when I woke up.. They had a pink cupcake with two candles for me and also a silly indian hairband that I was to wear for the whole day at school (and if you know me well enough you would have already guessed that that was exactly what I did!:)) and they sang happy birthday as the first thing! They gave me a beautiful black and white picnic basket and a jacket I really really like as a gift :)

My mom crawled next to me and I had a bunch of gifts from friends back home – it was the best!! Apparently I had communicated well enough that Australia doesn't quite have the selection of sweets and lollies I desire.. so my massive picnic basket soon filled up with all sorts of Finnish lollies, chocolate and xylitol gum! :) I think I might be ale to survive to the end of the year with these!!!

So for my birthday we designed a Bday cake in the shape of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House for my tutorial group! We had a lot of fun designing and constructing the whole thing and it certainly did receive all the praise from my tutorial!! :)

First we checked the original model.. :)

...and then we got to work!!

It was a true masterpice, even though I say it myself...!

Our second daytrip on Saturday was to the capital of the nation, Canberra! It was about the time for my mom to see another city – obviously not one of the busiest ones :D:D:D But however, they do have a respectable amount of culture and history down there (plus obviously the operating governmental organs too!)

We took the Countrylink train down on Friday night and slept in hotel for the night to be fresh and ready in the morning for the big day of exploring around :) We WALKED around the WHOLE DAY, it must have added up around 20kilometers in total! We visited the stunning World War Memorial and explored the AMAZING National Museum of Australia, for free of charge!! The technolgy & multimedia of the museum still blows my mind and I cant wrap my mind around the fact that all of that wonder and awe is available for free of charge!!

We also bumbed into a scene I have not yet discovered in the midst of the city – a dead kangaroo on the footpath! Poor little thing, it scared my mom so...

Once we were finished with the Museum, we really wanted to visit the Parliament House but we had to walk around this big lake to get accross to the right side of the connecting bridge, and then we could not simply find the footpath to the top of the hill!! So we jumped around accross the car lanes and finally ended up climbing over a small barrier to reah the Parliament House, which we both found exhausting yet quite hilarious!!

Once we had found our way up we soon realized we had ran out of time and now we didn't have enough time to actually visit the building itself, but had to be satisfied in only admiring the infrastructure from the outside, get a few pictures with the remarkable landmark and the rush on to the trainstation to catch our 4hour ride back home!Oh boy were we exhausted from all the walking and fresh air by the time we got to sit down and have some dinner in the train.. Im pretty sure we we both slept like babies that night!! :D

On the last day we slept in a little bit and went to relax at the Fox Studio Markets close by my place. It was a nice sunny day and we found many cute little things for mum to bring back home for kids, and I got a really pretty souvenier bracelet too! :)

We also took the Essential tour inside the famous Opera House – a quided tour through the most famous venues inside this piece of art! It was truly amazing to see inside the sails and discover the variety of stages they had for different performances! My absolute favourite was the Great Concert Hall which has been built to facilitate Symphony Orchestra, and together we both agreed that for mum's next visit we'd have to come to listen to a Symphony there!

It was so interesting to also learn the history of this breathtaking building – I never knew it took a whole 16 years to finnish the building!! As we discovered the secret of the shapes of the sails which had been built by thousands of individual iron ”ribs” I found myself wondering how far to the future a human mind had flewn to find this answer to the impossible problem at the time.

Mom cooked a farewell meal for my flat – of course something typically Finnish would be mom's meatballs and potatoes! Jill, Rachelle and Lisette got all excited about it since I've once made them before, and I think at that time they first fell in love with the Finnish food! :) (Maybe I should try some mämmi next time? ;D)

We all had a great time having my mom around and even though it felt strange to see her go again, I am just so glad she came and we got to spend time together! I don't feel homesick like I thought I might after she left, but I rather feel refueled for the next 6 months ahead, and that's the whole point of having people visit you in the end!! :)

I LOVE MY MOM.