Jaana and Tero have studied English in Embassy (in Brisbane) for almost six weeks. We have six lessons daily; listening, reading, conversation, grammar, writing, english in use. We have enjoyed our time there. There are a lot of people from South Korea and South America in the Embassy, and only few from Europe. We are the frst students from Finland.

We have learnt of course English, but also so many things from different kind of cultures. Everybody knows that Nokia is from Finland. We have also been surprised that Korean's know that xylitol chewing gum is from Finland. It´s extremely popular in Korea and they have a advertisement on TV about that. They dont´t have xylitol chewing gum here in Australia.

Our sons have a nanny from Finland, Mariella. They have swam a lot and spent time in the playgroundarea in the park allmost daily. Sometimes, usually once in a week, Mariella and boys have had a trip to the artgallery and  museum (here is very nice museum for the kids), Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the Police Museum and the Science Museum.

At weekends we have travelled whole family together, around Brisbane. We have been to the Gold Coast (about 100 km to the south) to MovieWorld and in Surfers Paradise. Where is really nice beaches and a lot of very skillful surfers. We have enjoyed seeing them. Next time we´ll go surfing too. We have also been to the north of Brisbane. There is Sunshine Coast (100 km to the north) with so many beautiful beaches too but it's not so crowded like the Gold Coast. We enjoyed walking along the long beach almost alone and watching some kite-surffers.

We went also to Australia Zoo, where lives one of the oldest animal in the world - Turtle Harriet, 175 years! There is a lot of Australian animals like kangaroos, wombats, koalas, Tasmanian devils, cassowaries, emus and dingoes. It was nice to feed kangaroos and touch the koalas. They are so sweet.

We also have had visitors from Finland; Kaisa and Emilia were here in two wees ago. We got a lot of Finnish newspapers and magazines, Finnish liquorice and an English-Finnish dictionary. We spent a really nice time with them and now we are waiting for my mother-in-law (Teros´s mother) to come here on 21st of February....