Usually at the beginning of a new year we tend to look back what happened to us the previous year and how good or bad it was. Or, at least I do.. I'd have to admit that at least for me 2011 was quite an eventful year. It started waking up back in Finland from my friends sofa after a New Year's party, havin a hangover, obviously.. It seems that quite often our 1st of January usually starts with a hangover or even being more or less drunk still after a big nite.. In this post I'm doin a quick and brief look at what was my year 2011 like.
Pretty soon after New Year I found myself again behind the wheel of a truck, doin a few week stint drivin bulk powders around Scandinavia. Basically it was the same kind of job like had been doin the previous summer and autumn for Van Den Bosch Transport, a Dutch company. When February arrived, my Scottish friend that I met while workin at VDB visited Finland for a week. I'd remember it started as a joke but here he was, first time ever in Scandinavia. And he was lucky, it was a warm week.. Few nites out at my home town, saw an ice hockey game and even took a ferry cruise to Stockholm and had a chance to see the city for few hours while ferry was on shore. All in all, it was a nice week.
Like you might guess, soon after that I was truckin again, this time for a small, local company, drivin re-frigerated goods, mainly grocery deliveries. Quite a few weeks passed by and it was time get myself prepared for 'the big trip' to Down Under. For the week before I had flight to Australia I decided to take a mini-trip to Baltic and that's when I started this blog. Riga was a great experience and especially a KHL playoff game between Dynamo and Magnitogorsk was a thing to remember. The following weekend after my trip I had a wee farewell party and then it was time to embark for another journey, this time to the other side of the world.
I had a long stopovers at London and Abu Dhabi but both of those we're planned. My first few days in Australia started with another unforgettable experience, seeing Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix live, what an amazing event. Few more weeks at Melbourne, including a great Easter week as a volunteer at farm in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Then it was finally time to start my first road trip that I had been planning for so long. 4 of us, campervan and thousands of kilometres of Australian highways ahead of us. What an amazing journey that was, drivin thru the Red Centre. I'll never forget those moments in glorious Australian Outback.
Finally, after 30days on the road, our journey ended in Cairns and it was time to look for work. Two weeks of hunting and I was on my way to Walkamin. My time at Walkamin didn't start so well but in the end I made it thru. And, I was truckin in Australia for the first time. Not properly, but still. That spell lasted for about 3,5months before it was time to move ahead again. My time in Walkamin was an experience but I wouldn't say that it was good nor bad, I'd say it was just a necessity to be able to move along. But, I did meet lots of new people in there, few of them I've seen afterwards here in Brisbane and hope to see them in the future as well.
After Walkamin, it was time to head down south and this time I had booked a campervan alone. That was somethin I had wanted to do, travel by myself to see which way I'd prefer, company or solo. Cairns to Brisbane took me 2 weeks. All in all, it was nice experience and I did saw few places where you couldn't get with public transport but I'm not sure, even to this date, was it worth the money that it took.. But, that's life and traveling. Another few weeks of job hunting and this time I landed a proper truckin job.
Like I mentioned, my year 2011 was quite an eventful year. Counting back, I've been in 7 different countries that year - Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, UK, UAE and Australia. I had plans to visit SE Asia in August but it never turned out nor did not plan to spend New Year in Thailand. But hey, that's life. My last few months here in Brisbane have been a bit mixed but I won't argue that I haven't enjoyed it. All in all, 2011 has been one of the most remarkable years - if not the most - in my life. All the things and places I've seen and visited, all the people that I have met along the way.. ..there's so much happened to me last year.. Maybe you wouldn't be able to write a whole book out of this year but at least a few chapters. How this all is to continue, that's still un-clear to me, I do have few options and wishes but only time will tell what 2012 is gonna be like.
