I'm back (but off again soon)

Four weeks in Finland came and went a lot quicker than I had hoped. I got back last Friday. Jet lag wasn't too bad this time around. I slept the whole day on Friday (and most of Saturday) and I was pretty much back to normal after that.

Nathan and I are heading to the airport again tomorrow. My youngest sister is getting married so we are going to Canberra. It's going to be a chilly weekend in the Capital. I'm bringing a good winter coat!

European update

I've been busy doing fieldwork here in Finland. It's been nice getting out of the office and working outdoors in the fresh air. I love the smell of the birch and pine forests here. I've been spending quite a bit of time out on the water as we need to take a boat almost everyday out to an island where we are doing our experiments.

I took a break a few days ago and went to Berlin to visit my retired gallerist friend. After several weeks of healthy eating in Finland, everything went out the window during my visit to Germany. I had schnitzel and sausage and meat balls and pickled pork knuckle. I basically pigged out on pig.

No, no, no, no, no

I was sitting in a cafe and a man walked past. The first thing I noticed was his very smart blazer. But then I saw a belly button. Yes, the man was wearing a crop top under his blazer. I hope it's not a new nordic trend.

Northern lights

I arrived in Finland a couple of days ago. The flights over were fine. Of course, I had grand plans to work on the plane but that never happened. Instead, I watched a few movies and even managed to get some sleep.

The flight from Hong Kong to Helsinki was on an A350. It was the first time I had flown on one of those but I had read quite a bit about the plane's features, including lower cabin pressure, reduced noise levels etc. The only thing that stuck out for me though was the fancy overhead lighting, which Finnair was quite keen to show off with a northern lights 'simulation' as we were approaching Helsinki airport.

The normally super time efficient passage through the Helsinki-Vantaa airport was less efficient on this occasion thanks to a slow moving queue at passport control caused by a lady travelling on her own with seven unruly kids. I can't even imagine travelling with one child, let alone seven.

The airport now has a train connection to the city but old habits die hard and I ended up taking the bus.

Then it was off to meet my colleague at a nearby cafe for a smoked salmon breakfast.

European adventure

I'm heading to Finland next Monday. I will be gone for a month. It will be a work trip.

I got travel clearance from the cardiologist several weeks ago (and I'm hoping I will still be ok to go, despite the persistent heart issues).

I reckon the trip will actually be good for my health. I'll be out of the office, working on the shores of the Baltic Sea away from the frenetic pace of city life.

 Let's see.

Small change

I went to the chemist this afternoon to get some prescriptions filled and was standing in line to pay.

There was quite a bit of commotion with the elderly European couple already at the cash register. The gentleman was getting quite worked up and was shouting at the cashier. Meanwhile, the queue was getting longer. The dispute was over 95 cents (for haemorrhoid cream), which the man was refusing to pay.

I was just about to pull out a dollar coin when the guy's wife intervened and made her husband hand over the money. I guess she's the boss.

Meanwhile, Nathan was across the street getting a hair cut, which I later found out cost $85.

Don't order the kimchi

I went out for dinner with some friends the other night. It was one of those swanky Asian places targeted at Westerners. You know the type: trendy, fancy, and expensive.

We asked the waiter if she had any recommendations.

She rattled off the obvious dishes that had already caught my eye (pork belly, beef ribs).

Then, after going through the list of her favourite dishes, the waitress dished out a stern warning.

"Don't order the kimchi", she said. "It's SHIT."

I was rather taken back by her directness....and we heeded her advice.

PS. Both the pork belly and beef ribs were great.

Siamese twins

As a native English speaker, I take many things for granted that can be a source of puzzlement and frustration for my non-native English-speaking friends and colleagues. 

This week, a conversation I was having with a colleague got me looking into something that I subsequently found out is known in linguistics as an "irreversible binomial", or "Siamese twin." 

These are word pairings that appear in an irreversible fixed order. Examples include "salt and pepper", "ladies and gentleman", and "rock and roll". Flipping the order of these nouns would just be weird. The problem was I couldn't quite explain why we order them they way we do. Something just are the way they are, and I promptly directed my colleague to the wikipedia page on the topic. 

Heart update

The specialist says my heart should really be settling about now. Unfortunately, it is not. I'll be seeing him in a few weeks time so will figure out where to from here. It's quite possible I may need to repeat the heart procedure (ablation). Encouragingly, the success rate is much higher after a repeat ablation.

I'm trying to get back to a normal routine. I just need to know my limits. I'm no longer able to run to catch a train or tram for bus and resolve to just waiting for the next one. I've got an overseas work trip planned later this month. I asked my boss to fly me business class (there is always a silver lining).

heart problems

Unfortunately, recovery from the heart operation has not gone as well as I had hoped.

I've been getting really bad arrhythmias (i.e. rapid and irregular heart beats). In fact, I have been feeling worse than what I was feeling prior to the heart procedure.

Evidently, these recurrent episodes do not necessarily mean that the procedure has failed, as it is not uncommon to get arrhythmias while the heart is still recovering.

Nevertheless, the persistent and abnormal heart beats have been extremely unpleasant.  They are also very scary. After 3 days of putting up with my heart racing at 140 beats per minute, I decided to go to hospital, where they performed a cardioversion to basically stop and restart the heart. It worked for a few hours and then the heart started going crazy again.

Looks like I'm going to have to just deal with it and hope that the irregularities will settle down.

Milestone

Nathan and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary today (which is like an eternity in gay years). The day marks our very first date. We had pizza on Lyon Street. The date went for three days.

It's remarkable that we ended up in a relationship at all, as we are very different on so many levels. Nevertheless, these differences have worked out very well for us. And of course, we also share many things in common.

The last couple of years have been tough. Nathan's dad had to go into a nursing home and I've had recurrent health issues, but we have supported each other through of this – and no doubt a whole lot more into the future.

I love him to bits.

After surgery

I had my heart procedure last week. Everything went well and I'm now resting at home. I think the heart and the point where they inserted the catheter in my groin are healing well. Unfortunately my right foot has decided to have gout issues so I'm hobbling around the house, dosed up on endone.

Dogs bar

I caught  up with my gallerist friend at the end of the working week in St Kilda. We went to the Dogs Var. we bumped into my friend's neighbour (the one who cooks with pungent shrimp paste). They were chatting about the shrimp paste when I got back to our table. The neighbour seemed nice and was very apologetic. Oh well, my friend will be off to Germany for 6 months so I guess the neighbour can cook with as much shrimp paste as she wants during that time.

Shrimp paste and fish sauce

My poor gallerist friend. She moved into a nice apartment in St Kilda and has had nothing but trouble. She got permission to hang some of her artwork in the public spaces and two got ripped off the walls and were stolen. Then her storage space got broken into. So much for secure swipe card access into the building.

Her latest gripe has been about her neighbours downstairs. The bloke is British. His wife is Indonesian - and evidently the chef in the household. My friend has been complaining about pungent smells wafting into her apartment. Turns out to be shrimp paste and fish sauce. Even though I don't cook with those ingredients very often, I personally wouldn't have a problem but I'm used to those smells. I find cigarette smoke wafting into my apartment to be more annoying.

Given my friend's German heritage, I suggested she cook sauerkraut to block out the pungent shrimp paste odours in her apartment.

Tentative steps

I took my first tentative steps out into the big wide world today following my medical dramas yesterday.

Even though I am now feeling fine, it was surprising how nervous I was walking out of the apartment. Rather than taking the stairs like I usually do, I decided to take the elevator instead.

And after running my errand, I came straight back home.

Monday morning drama

I ended up in hospital this morning. I was on my way to work and decided to take the stairs up to Collins Street. This is something I do almost every day but today I was in atrial fibrillation.

The actual climb up was fine but when I reached Collins Street and started to make my way towards the train station, I found it increasingly hard to catch my breath and started to black out. I had to lean against a wall to steady myself and it didn't get any better so I had to sit on the sidewalk. I then felt really unwell and ended up calling an ambulance. My shirt was soaked in sweat.

The ambulance arrived but was on the other side of the street so I asked a guy in a suit to help me flag it down. He made a half arsed attempt and then continued on his way. I guess he was eager to get to work. I ended up stopping a lady for help instead and the ambulance eventually found me.

The paramedics were terrific and had a great sense of humour. I was initially reluctant to go to hospital but they talked me into it. It was my first time at the Royal Melbourne. The facilities there seem to be much better than my last visit to Cabrini. A couple of hours later, my heart returned to normal rhythm and I got to go home.

Too much drama for a Monday in my opinion!

Birthday surprise

Nathan and I are in Canberra. We are here celebrating dad's 70th. It was suppose to be a series of surprises but as the weekend approached, more and more of the surprise had to be revealed (e.g. mum let the cat out of the bag that we were coming to Canberra.)

We are heading down to Tilba on the south coast of NSW so it was inevitable that we had to eventually let mum in on the secret and then to tell dad so they can plan the trip (our family doesn't do spontaneous things well).

My sister in Melbourne is also coming with her family. They are driving up and meeting us in Tilba and were suppose to be one of the surprises too but she had to tell mum to mitigate Mum's inevitable stress levels if she suddenly found out there were four extra people to feed (dad's already busy preparing food for Tilba. Yes, it's meant to be his birthday). Dad doesn't know that my Melbourne sis is coming so at least that will remain a source of excitement when we get there.

Blogger catch up

I'm looking forward to catching up with fellow bloggers later this morning. I've met Victor a couple of times previously and really enjoyed our previous catch ups (once in Melbourne and once in Sydney with Nathan in tow). I'll be meeting Andrew for the first time but I've been following his blog for years so it will be fun to finally meet him in person.

Luna Park wedding

Nathan and I went to a wedding last week at Luna Park.

I had no idea that Luna Park did wedding receptions, but I thought it was a really fun venue.

We were perched on the roof of the main cafe for the actual wedding ceremony, right next to the tracks of the big roller coaster. In between the sound of screaming roller coaster riders, the bride and groom managed to get through their vows.

I guess an amusement park is actually quite an appropriate venue for a wedding. It's full of wedding relevant symbolism (emotional roller coaster ride immediately comes to mind).

A morning at the museum

I had to go to the Museum for a work meeting yesterday. I stopped by at a cafe on Gertrude Street called Grumpy and the Dreaded One's Little Cafe of Awesome. True to it's name, the cafe was awesome and there was a lady with dreads behind the counter. And after my companion received his coffee, we realised that the bloke who brought out his drink is, indeed, a grump.