t’s all about the Grand Final here in Australia right now and especially here in Melbourne. Since I didn’t have a clue what people were talking about before I’ll thought I would explain to you what’s all about.

The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions. (This year the game is between St Kilda and Geelong)

The game has become significant to Australian culture, spawning a number of traditions and surrounding activities which have grown in popularity since the VFL/AFL went national in the 1980s. In 2006, the Sweeney Sports Report concluded that the AFL Grand Final became Australia’s most important sporting event, with the largest attendance, metropolitan television audience and overall interest of any annual Australian sporting event.

With an official attendance of 100,012 at the 2008 AFL Grand Final, it’s currently the best attended domestic club championship event in the world. Read more

Another eventful weekend has past this one spent in Adelaide visiting Simon’s family. Since the flights were so expensive we decided to drive there which in real life means 8 hours in the car covering a distance of about 730 km. We had Friday off so we left straight after work on Thursday, stocked up on lollies and drinks and arrived tired in Adelaide around 1.30 am.

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First of all an update on the bank situation: after a lot of head scratching, grief and a couple of tears the whole situation resolved itself on Thursday night. My mum’s bank man (and also my bank man when it comes to my loans), who works at a local bank office independent from Swedbank but still within the same business group, contacted my Swedbank office and got them to approve that my bank accounts in their bank gets connected to a bank device issued by the local bank. Complicated I know but he basically certified that I was I and then handed my mum a new device. So I will get access to my money after all. Puh! What does everything around me has to be so complicated?!

Sydney Opera House

But enough about that, let’s talk about the great weekend I had in Sydney instead. After receiving the good news about the money issue on the way to the airport a big weight was lifted off my shoulders and I could relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Read more

I have big problems right now regarding my Swedish bank. The bank security device used to give me a code that I need to log in to my internet banking went flat (without any warning). Change the batteries would have been an easy solution but unfortunately that doesn’t work on my device (I tried it with the result being the device being reset.) You have to go into the bank office and change the whole device.

I used to have phone banking as well so I tried calling that and tried to enter what I thought was my pin code just to find out it had expired. Apparently the codes have been changed from 4 digits to 5 digits lately and if you didn’t use the service during a transition period and changed your code the old one was expired (this has probably been taking place while I’ve been here). Give me a break!! Read more