Oulu Sleepover

So, spending the night in Oulu was a lot of fun. It only took an hour to get there by train, and I spent that happily knitting a thicker scarf for winter. It's already in the 40's regularly here.

Though we didn't really get to do a lot of sleeping. We stayed up until 5 am doing typical sleepover things, like movie watching (Finns think the majority of people in the States act like those in Dude, Where's My Car? I guess.), "Never have I Ever" (their "I Never"), and watching the VMA's and wondering why Kanye West has to be so stupid.

I forgot my camera at home though, so I didn't get a chance to take any pictures ): But here are some from the Kemi harbor to hold you over :)

Now I'm preparing myself mentally for the entire dead reindeer that's going to be delivered to our garage here this weekend or the next. Apparently they order them whole from the reindeer farmers, and butcher them themselves. I think I'm going to stay far away from that.

'Til next time :)

Salmiakki

There hasn't been much going on here that's out of the norm. Last weekend we went out to the summer cottage because my host dad chopped down a couple trees and needed help with splitting and cleaning up all the loose branches (guess my Dad's not the only one, haha). School has been pretty fun, and I watched a Finnish movie called Saippuaprinssi (The Prince of Soap) with Venla and Tiina. It was definitely the weirdest movie I've ever seen.

But, I thought I should introduce everyone to a Finnish obsession: Salmiakki. It's a salty licorice candy that they insist is better than chocolate. I think they're crazy. It is starting to grow on me though.

They have small chewy salmiakki, salmiakki shaped like fish, long salmiakki ties, powdered salmiakki, liquid-filled salmiakki, etc. It's kind of ridiculous. And you can't really compare the taste until you've tried it yourself.

I'll be sure to send some home for Christmas :)

I'm going to Oulu this Saturday for a Rotex sleepover, so I'll be sure to update after.

Thanks for reading!

Santa Claus

So, it might not be Christmas yet, but yesterday I went to see Santa :)

And I guess everyone was lied to about him living at the North Pole. He really lives in Rovaniemi.

It was a lot of fun. Its said that because 'Santa' gets so many visitors from around the world, he knows like 10 languages. He switched easily from Finnish to English when he found out me and Julia, a girl from Wisconsin that's staying in Rovaniemi, were American.

Here's some pictures from his village:

Rovaniemi is about 120km north of Kemi, on the Arctic Circle. If you're wondering about my hair, it was windy.

I thought this was kind of cool. I'm a long way from home, haha.

Conan O'Brian visited Santa, haha.

Me and Julia by the Christmas Tree.

These are letters from all over the world. Apparently when you write to Santa, it actually goes somewhere. There was a USA box :)

And here's my 'official photo with Santa'. We couldn't bring in our own cameras, but instead it was 25€ to buy the picture. Its actually kind of cool, but Santa jipped me out of a lot of money. Haha.

Update:

Arja made lingonberry pie!

I haven't tried it yet, but I probably will tonight with some tea. Looks good, so hopefully it tastes good too :P