Independence Day Dance

Last night my high school put on a dance to celebrate Finnish Independence Day, which is tomorrow. It was a ton of fun, but totally different than American high school dances. Instead of a lot of hip hop and grinding, there was Elvis and traditional dance. Of course, I still don't know how really, so it didn't work out too well. But it was still fun :D

From left to right: Me, Venla, Milka, Maiju, and Mari, drinking punch before the dance :)

Vipe, Venla's boyfriend, attempting to teach me to dance.

This crazy circle dance thing. You jumped and twirled, and I tripped over my feet a lot.

Santtu, me, and Vipe. Haha.

More pictures on Facebook :D

Lapland, part 2

After the dog sledding, we took a snowmobile ride over to a small hut and some reindeer sleighs. My camera was still dead at that point, but again my friends got pictures, so its all good. We all got a short round, and the reindeer pulling our sleigh was going crazy I'm thinking because it's antlers hadn't shed their velvet yet. They're definitely not like horses though, they are a lot more wild, and spooked really easily. It was a lot of fun though :)

After we went on the sleigh ride, we snowshoed back to the hotel and ate lunch. I grabbed some more batteries. Then we went to a nature center on the outskirts of Muonio.

All of the nature there was amazing. The snow was practically untouched, and it made everything not seem so dark in the Finnish winter. Everything was always a little bluish.

We left the nature center after watching a quick documentary about Lapland, and went next to the reindeer farm.

An old lappish woman gave us a presentation about reindeer herders with the help of a translator. She (on the right) is dressed in traditional Sami (similar to native americans) attire, and Anna (another exchange student) is wearing the 'reindeer princess' clothes. All over the walls in the cabin were tools reindeer herders used.

We went outside after talking with her to feed the reindeer lichen, which they eat the most of. They also eat mushrooms in autumn before winter to fatten up. I really don't know what was appealing about the lichen, it was cold and covered in snow, but the reindeer ate it up like it was chocolate.

There was only about ten reindeer in the pen we were feeding because most are still out in the forest. All reindeer are free range, so we saw a lot of small reindeer groups in the forest while we were on the bus. The herders notch their ears with specific markings to tell which reindeer is whose.

We left after visiting inside an old hotel on the same farm, and said goodbye to our oldies (the Australians, Kiwis, and South Africans that came last January) that are going back home in a couple of weeks. Afterwards we had a dance party (haha), then went to bed.

Today we went to Santa's Village, but I didn't get another picture because I've already been there. Instead I bought a couple more pins for my blazer :3

Well, hopefully that wasn't too boring to read. Another update soon, probably, because I'm moving to my next host family this weekend :D

Oh, and sorry about the quality of the pictures. Right now it gets light around 10 and dark at 4 in Kemi, and Muonio was even darker. I'm pretty sure the reindeer were blinded by the amount of flash going around.

Lapland, part 1

So, long time no update, right? But I have a good one for everyone :D I just got back from my trip to Lapland, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, my battery recharger is another thing that seems to be incompatible with Finnish power, so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. But I did get some still :3

The first day started out with me waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning and going to the bus stop. I decided not to complain though, because I soon found out pretty much every other exchange student had been riding since 6:00 the night before. Heh.

We arrived in Muonio, a town in Lapland of about 2,000, around 11. We ate then went straight to the ski resort.

I didn't ski though, because I didn't pay the money in time. What I did get to do is go sledding, which is better, in my opinion. Less leg-breakage.

Me and the rest of the small sled posse went for about an hour, then got bored, and watched everyone that was skiing fall down. We also attempted to build snowmen.

Awesome, right? I love my host mom's bright red snow suit. Haha.

The next day some people went skiing, but a lot of them stayed behind instead to snow sculpt with the sled posse, because the ski hill wasn't as fun as they thought it would be.

Me and my partner ended up making a snow reindeer, but I don't have a picture of the finished product because my first set of batteries decided to die right beforehand. I did manage to get a picture before we started. :)

The next day was for reindeer and dog sledding :)
My group started at the dog kennels. It was really loud and really cold, but I liked it a lot. Most of the dogs were kept in large kennels with huts, but a few were separated and kept on the outside because the didn't get along with the rest. There weren't any puppies when we went ): But all of the dogs were either Alaskan or Siberian huskies (or hushkies as our guide said).

All of the dogs were trained as sled dogs, and ran an average of 10 km a day. They were used by the resort we stayed at for sled dog safaris through lapland. All of us got to go on a short sled ride, but right before that was when my second set of batteries died. I have some friends that got a picture though, so I'll have it up soon :)