Vanhojen Tanssit!

So, last week was busy. Everyday was spent preparing for the 'Oldie's Dance', a Finnish tradition that celebrates the third-graders of the high school graduating and the second-graders becoming the oldest in the school. :) And because of the name, it's traditional to dress up in old-style formal wear- they used to wear those white wig things George Washington did to the dance.

I took the dance lesson last period. I didn't really catch on until the last week, heh. But, I'm proud to announce that I didn't fall at all :D Though, during the tango I came a little close.

There's not many pictures of me actually dancing, because they were all so blurry, but my host sister taped the whole thing, and I'm going to see if there's a way I can get that up on here :)

My dress was made by my host mom :)

My hair was too. I woke up at 7 on Friday morning with rollers in my hair, and we had to start right away to get everything finished.

First, we all went to my school and danced. After that, we went to San Milano, a local pizza place to eat. This is me and Ilona :)

After eating, we went right to Tervahalli, where the dance was. First we had to practice, and the band had to practice too. In this picture, I'm looking over at the band, hoping that they're going to play better for the dance. My partner, Jan, is hoping that Satu won't be taking pictures of him the whole time. Haha.

Me asking Jan I'm right on the steps of the Wiener Waltz, still during practice.

The grand entrance. We all messed it up the first time, but its okay, haha.

After the grand entrance. Everyone is looking at each other to see who's fault it was. Haha.

Dancing :)

After the dance, me and Veera, my host sister.

My head hurt from the pins. There were so man.

Veera, me and Satu

The whole thing was a lot of fun :) I danced a lot better than I expected. After the dance, I went to the after party for everyone that danced, and for some of the 3rd-graders that decided to sneak in. That was a lot of fun too, and we danced some more, haha. Unfortunately, all that running around in a dress in -25C weather, then staying out late, earned me a cold. But, this weekend was a lot of fun, and I'm really disappointed its all over.

I have plenty of pictures and a video to remember it by though :)

Lumi

Well, not much to update on right now. It's test week this week, which means life is pretty easy for me :P I've been busy with Finnish lessons, and preparing for the dance (though I'm not sure if my dance skills are getting any better, haha).

There's been a ton of snow (or 'lumi' in Finnish) recently, so I thought I show what a Finnish winter looks like :D Not too different from Minnesota, haha.

Here's a few pictures from around town to hold everyone over until the Oldie's dance on the 19th. Hope you like them!

That's the town library in the background :)

There's two of these pillars at the entrance of where the snow castle is built. It just opened last weekend, so I haven't been there yet, but I will! If you look closely at it, you can see 'Lumilinna' carved in it, which means Snowcastle, which is carved right below it.

Just a branch near the harbor, which is frozen I guess, because people are skiing on the sea. Haha.