To Finland!

Helsinki!

2010-05-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

So, long time no update. I'm sorry! I've been super busy, and I can't believe how fast the time has flew by me. Only 3 weeks left in Finland for me! Then I leave for Eurotour. As excited I am to see everyone back in good ol' Minnesota, I know I'm going to miss it here too.

But, this weekend I'm happy I was able to make it down to Helsinki, Finland's capital.

There was a ton of people, which was a huge change from Kemi. There were tourists from all over. And the weather was amazing there.

This is by the coast, where we got to eat outside(woo!)

Another picture by the coast, with my host mom, Riitta.

The Helsinki train station is in the background.

A huge church :) It was really pretty, and there was an ice cream truck parked right by it.

Me on the steps by the church, eating some ice cream :D

More coming soon!

Loma!

2010-03-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

The ski hill on one of the windy days

Last week I went with my host family to Yllästunturi, a ski resort in northern finland, for the hiihtoloma, or ski holiday (the Finnish version of spring break). It was a lot of fun, and I took plenty of pictures :D And while it was a ski holiday, I spent my time there snowshoeing since my ski skills aren't really up to par. The snow may be starting to melt back in Minnesota, but its still holding on here, and my whole leg sunk into it more than once on my snowshoe adventures in the Finn-forests.

In the top picture, I have my tired face on. Veera, my host sister, was apparently not fazed by skiing though.

The cafe I got my coffee from, after snowshoeing up to the hill.

Satu, my host mom, is the smiling one trying to take my picture in the back.

The Finn-forest!

Another picture of the hill :)

Some Finn-forest scenery.

Hope this holds you all over for a little while :P

I move next weekend to my last host family, which is crazy. I'm going to miss the Valkeinen's a lot, but the Hendricksson's seem pretty cool :) I think it should go well! And there's soo much going on to keep me busy for the short four months I have left, its gone by so fast.

Snow Castle

2010-03-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

So, this weekend I had two fellow American exchangees up to Kemi to stay over. It was a ton of fun, and on top of it, there ended up being a Rotex trip to Kemi's Snow Castle on the same weekend. So, we had plenty to do :D

The map above is the layout of this year's castle. They change it every year, and it take about a month to build.

Entrance hallway :)

The two 'icy bears' guarding the castle, as our tour guide told us.

One of the normal hotel rooms, they cost from 120 - 170 euros a night per person. And they are not very warm, haha.

The honeymoon suite, for the people that get married in the castle's snow chapel. Doesn't it look nice? Haha. Apparently around 30 couples a year get married in the chapel.

The snow chapel.

The snow stage, where they have mostly kid entertainers.

Since we were in Kemi, I got to act as the tour guide once we left the castle and finished our day of wandering the castle and tubing down the hill behind it. I guided everyone to San Milano, Kemi's best pizza place, which was a lot cheaper than the snow castle's restaurant. Yay!

After pizza, the other exchange students went back to their host cities by train, and Anna, Grace, and I all went back home and had a movie marathon while thawing out our feet.

This weekend was a ton of fun, and tomorrow is my birthday (woo) so I'm expecting it to continue for a while :D

Vanhojen Tanssit!

2010-02-20T23:56:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Crayfish Eating, Christmas, and New Year's :D

2010-01-13T06:02:00.002-08:00

So, no update for a while again. Sorry! The holidays were incredibly busy, and I've been doing so much here with friends and my new family that I haven't remembered to blog about it :P

So, I'll have to cover a lot in this post!

About a week before Christmas, my host family introduced me to a Finnish tradition: Crayfish Parties.

Apparently, they're supposed to happen around the end of summer, but my host family does it a little different. Every year around Christmas they pull the crustaceans out of their freezer, thaw them out in a huge bucket, and set them out to eat on a nice platter. I was the one that got to arrange them nicely on the platter (bleh).

A couple of family friends came over to eat them with us, which is not as easy as you might think. I had to be taught a couple different times on the right way to eat them. First, you pull off the claws and crack them, suck the juice out, then take out the meat and put it on buttered bread. Then, you have to crack open the back, suck more juice, and pull it apart just right so you only get the tail and not the nasty stuff. Then, you open the tail, take out the tube that holds the poop (ew) and take the meat and put it on the bread. Rinse and repeat.

The whole process makes you incredibly hungry, and honestly, I was kind of grossed out. But I tried! I was done after filling up a piece of bread though, and luckily, there was steak after. :P

Christmas break came a couple days before Christmas, and me and all of my friends pretty much ran out of school on the last day. I helped get ready for my host family's relatives to come over in the couple of days before, which involved a lot of cooking and cleaning. :P

The relatives arrived the day before Christmas Eve, and we all hit it off pretty fast. They tested my Finnish, but everyone (besides Lumi, the two-year-old, haha) spoke english very well. Laura, one of my host dad's sisters, is even a past exchanger, and she went to Chicago during her 3rd year of high school.

This is a picture of Petteri, my host dad's brother-in-law, struggling to open a can of fish eggs, Riita, his wife and my host dad's oldest sister, and Mummi, my host dad's mom and the master cook of our Christmas.

Here's Mummi, Laura, and Riita, in the kitchen again. I'm not sure what they're making there, haha.

Here's Lumi, Riita and Petteri's daughter, moments before she forced me and Veera, my host sister, to sing Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer.

Christmas Eve is when the Finns celebrate Christmas. They eat, go play in the snow, eat more, relax, eat, open presents, and then eat. The picture above is of balini's(I have no idea how to spell that). They came originally from Russia, but its now traditional to eat them on Christmas Eve, just as it is to eat rice porridge in the morning. They put one almond in the porridge while its cooking, and whoever ends up with the almond in their bowl gets one wish that's supposed to be guaranteed to come true. I got the almond this year :)

The balini's are eaten as an appetizer to the Christmas Eve dinner. They're like a sour pancake, that you spread sour cream, fish eggs, onions, and pepper on. It sounds weird, but its actually pretty good.

That was followed by ham. I think we ate two hams and one turkey over the time everyone was here, and more chocolate than I can measure. It was a lot of food.

My host parents have a lot more pictures of me with everyone, and I'll be sure to put them up once I get them :)

New Year's I spent with my host family and some of their family friends. It wasn't so different from an American New Year's, other than us not watching the ball drop. We went outside at about 11:30 to start lighting off a ton of fireworks, though it was a little too cold to fully enjoy them (who wants to be out in -20C?), and my host parent's champagne froze in their glasses. It was fun nonetheless, and we stayed up until 4:00 playing bored games :)

Thanks for reading!

Independence Day Dance

2009-12-05T05:20:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-01T08:32:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

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 :)

Hailuoto

2009-10-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday night I got back from the district 1380 & 1400 camp :) It was in Hailuoto, an island of the coast from Oulu that is really pretty, despite the cold. Mostly, we just spent our time with each other, getting to know the other exchange students better. It was nice to be with people going through the same things as me, both good and bad. And now I'm more excited than ever for the Lapland Tour :D

There were a lot of windmills on the island, probably because there was plenty of wind. Those buildings are some of the shops the people that live there set up, and the hotel we stayed at is nearby them.

Me and Taria, from New Mexico, on the bus while taking a tour of the island. Unfortunately, the tour guide didn't speak english.

The lighthouse, and the hotel is behind it. We climbed to the top. It wasn't too bad, but the stairwell was really narrow so it was kind of scary :P

Just some scenery :D

This weekend Arja is throwing a Halloween party for me, and the rest of my host families are coming. I'll probably bake some Halloween treats, and I'll be sure to take pictures :P

Lapland is not too far off after that; only a month away! And we're going to have a bowling weekend with Rotex in a couple of weeks too. Lots of stuff to look forward too!

Kemin Lukio!

2009-10-13T03:05:00.000-07:00

Life's been good in Finland :) I have people I know in my new class schedule, and my social life has picked up a lot. I went to a friends last weekend and ate 'tortillas' (they were actually tacos, but to Finns only the crunchy ones are called tacos. And tortilla is pronounced how its spelled

here, haha).

I passed my first Finnish test, which is good, haha. The written exam is on Thursday, but I'm not worried. That's the last day of my classes though, so I'm not sure how I'm going to keep up with learning the

language. Hopefully I'll figure something out :P

But, because my mo

m requested it like a month ago, I took pictures

of my school last night before my art lesson. Its really simple looking, and a lot of Finnish buildings look similar to it. This is the entrance and the front of the building :)

This is the main hallway. Usually, there's a ton of people in it, but because this was at like 6:00 pm, I was one of the only people there. On the left is where we put out coats and everything, because we don't get lockers here.

This is of the 'parking lot', its not actually a marked area, cars just end up parking there. The building in the background is where we eat lunch, which is free :)

And the last one is of the pink church, I took the picture out of a fourth floor window in the school. I just think its funny there's a pink church in town :P

Two Months

2009-10-03T08:26:00.001-07:00

I thought I might as well write a new post, seeing as I haven't in a while.

I realized yesterday that I've been here for two months. It really doesn't feel like it at all. Time has moved so quickly, I can't believe it. Starting Monday is my second period in school, which I'm sure won't be difficult because my schedule is even lighter than last period. I have two Art classes, Math, Movie (apparently a class where you watch historical movies the entire time, haha), and English. I'm looking forward to it though :)

All of last week has been testing week for the average Kemi lukio student, but since my Finnish isn't at the level where I can read test instructions, I didn't have to take them. I sat at home instead mostly and worked on my Finnish book while drinking chocolate tea and watching Grey's Anatomy (yay!).

Yesterday I stayed at Paullina's, a friend of Aino's, and we all watched Youtube videos on 'How to be Gangsta'. They thought it was ridiculous, haha.

Hopefully I'll have more to blog about later this week!

Oulu Sleepover

2009-09-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-17T06:17:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

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

Oulu

2009-08-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

So, Oulu was pretty sweet :) I went shopping, and my feet hurt from the stone streets there. :P But it was really pretty. Unfortunately, it was raining all day, so between shops I had my scarf wrapped around my head to keep my hair from getting all funky. Aino and Mari (Aino's friend) said I looked like a terrorist. Haha.

I took plenty of pictures though :D

These are statues that are supposed to describe Oulu and its history. The beginning has like statues of trappers and fisherman, and it goes to artists and other types of people. Someone decided the little boy was cold I guess. :p

Seriously, all of the streets were like this. It was like it in Tampere too. I think it looks really cool, but its not fun to walk on after a while.

There was two main marketplaces open today, one inside and one outside. There was a ton of different stuff being sold.

Fish.

More fish. Aino said the salmon wraps (on the bottom left) were good. I don't believe her.

The top berries are lingonberries, Dad. Haha.

Aino said this is good too. They call them 'fish roosters'. I thought they meant roaster, because that would make more sense. But they all said it was rooster, as in a male chicken. I just know I'm probably not going to be trying one anytime soon.

Finns like to put stuffed reindeer in marketplaces and supermarkets.

The Lapland stall.

Here's one of the tents in the outdoor market. Most of them looked like this. It was basically all berries and other produce.

Aino didn't know why this statue was there, probably some sort of dedication to the police. I think it looks funny. :P

I couldn't get a closer picture of it, but there's a really old boat behind the front one. It looks like a pirate ship :) I thought it was cool.

And thats all!

Pulla!

2009-08-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been busy with school and everything :P But, I'm having fun :)

Tonight me and my host mom made Finnish 'pulla'. Basically, they were like different varieties of rolls. And really good, haha.

Here's how they turned out!

These were hard to make ): But they're good to eat. Hah

This is an 'ear roll', haha. I'm not sure why. It kind of looks like ears I guess? Arja said it turned out perfect though :D I guess I'm a pulla expert.

Half 'butter eyes' and 'ear rolls'.

These were my favorite, and they put use to the million blueberries in the freezer.

And that's all :) Tomorrow we're going to Oulu. I'm excited :D

More golf

2009-08-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

So the rest of the school week went pretty good. I had to change around a lot of my schedule, so now I have English, Music, Art, Gym, and Math, plus the Counselor lesson that's only on Tuesdays.

Its pretty easy actually :) I just need to get some friends other than Aino and hers :P

Today I went to watch the rest of my host family play golf, because I've decided it definitely isn't my calling. We spent 5 hours on the course. It was long. But, it was super nice out :) And I took pictures! I met Beverly too, an exchange student from South Africa that's living in Tornio. We're going to hang out again soon :3

This is the family, preparing for the next 5 hours. Left to right: Aino, Arto, Antti, and Arja.

The golf course we were at was divided between Finland(Suomi) and Sweden. So there's this post marking the border :)

That owl-head thing is one of Aino's club covers, or whatever you call them. I thought it was cool. I don't like my face in that picture, haha.

First Day of School

2009-08-17T11:47:00.001-07:00

School today was a breeze. I didn't have to go until 11:30, and all it was was a sort of orientation. So that was nice :) Tomorrow I have to actually wake up though ): But that's okay. Besides not understanding anything the teacher was saying, it wasn't that bad. And hopefully I'll learn more Finnish as time passes.

The kids at the school were just like at any other high school, but like everyone said none of them came and introduced themselves to me. But Aino is in my home class and a lot of others, and her and her friends sit with me at lunch, so I think I'm going to be fine. I went to Sweden today! And shopped in a mall that's half Swedish and half Finnish :) It was pretty sweet.

Oh, and here's a picture of part of 35 pounds of blueberries that a friend of my host parents brought over.

School Schedule

2009-08-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

So, I start school tomorrow. I'm kind of really scared. Here's what my schedule looks like.

1 - Counselor Lesson
2 - Math
3 - Gym
4 - English
5 - German
6 - Art
7 - Drama

Wish me luck!

2009-08-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

Went to Arja and Arto's summer cottage last night :) It was fun, and I got to experience a real Finnish sauna. And a swim in the Gulf of Bothnia, which was a little cold. It was so pretty out there, so I took pictures. Yay.

Pics

2009-08-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Now that I have my camera cord, here are some pictures I took in Tampere:

That's a really old church, and the paintings on the inside were really cool, but kind of weird. There's a pink church in Kemi that Arja's family goes to, I'll put up a picture of it later.

And from the cockpit on my first flight. The other Lauren's dad, George, and me.

First Host Family

2009-08-09T06:13:00.001-07:00

So, I made it through the camp. It was pretty sweet, and I met a lot of friends. Kind of a bummer I had to leave them so soon :/ But, I got to meet two of the families I'll be living with yesterday. My second host family drove me all the way from Karkku to Kemi, which took about 10 hours, but the car ride was fun. We talked a lot, and me at my host sister Vilma watched Twilight :P

I'm at my first host family's house now, it's nice. My bed is so comfortable :D And the room is clean, which is a change. Yay :P We went to the supermarket today, Arja (host mom) and Aino (host sister) quizzed me on Finnish food names. I think I have most of the fruit down. The language is definitely not easy though. I found out that in the winter, the only meat they eat is reindeer. So that'll be an experience. The food here so far has been pretty good though, nothing really bad. It's all pretty healthy too. Lots of fruits and veggies :3 Besides the ice cream :P

School starts next monday, I'm sort of nervous about that. Aino is going to be a sort of tutor to me though, so I might actually learn something, instead of just staring at the teachers. I'll most likely be taking easier classes this term, like art and music, so that will be nice. Tonight a member of Rotex is going to be visiting me, she seems really nice.

I'll update again in a couple days :3

I'm here!

2009-08-03T02:47:00.001-07:00

I arrived around 6 (Finland time) yesterday at my language camp. Pretty awesome :) Both my flights went well, and I got to fly first class from Minneapolis to Amsterdam thanks to my friend Lauren's dad!

There are a lot of cool people here, mainly from the U.S. and Canada. So, basically everybody speaks fluent english. No problem communicating :3

I'm learning Swedish (currently) because I'm going to a Swedish speaking school, but I've emailed my host mom to see if Finnish would be better.

Food here is pretty good. Lots of bread and potatoes.

And now its time for my next lesson :P

Leaving soon

2009-07-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

Just one week left at home! And, I've got my visa!

Yay!

I'm so excited. And nervous. But this is going to be the best thing I've ever done.

I had a going away party last night with all of my friends. I'm going to miss them all so much, but I'm happy they're all so supportive. And one of their dad's going to be flying my plane, which is amazing. So, now I'm not as afraid of the 8 hour flight.

So far two of my host families have contacted me. Both of them seem amazing. In each I have a host sister, and I think I'm going to get along great with them :3 And my host parents are so nice. I'm so thankful to them, and so happy they are willing to take me into their home.

Packing is a bit of a headache. I have so many clothes and so little room. I think its a problem. Heh. But, I'm almost finished. Then I'll be ready to go!

Here's to Saturday, August 1st :)

Wish me luck!

The Start of the Future

2009-07-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Finland.

All the Rotary orientations helped to prepare me, so one might think that would be an obvious fact. But it wasn't until there was a possibility that I might not be going that it really began to hit me: I so want to go, and I'm going to soon.

On August 1st, 2009, I'm leaving Faribault, Minnesota and taking a really long plane ride (not so excited about that) to Helsinki. At least, that's what's planned. Right now, my visa is a little behind schedule. But I know I'll get there. I want to so bad, some of my friends think I'm crazy. And I've survived all the other bumps in the road (Faroe Islands - Finland country switch, the battle for Finnsurance) so this visa thing isn't going to prevent me from moving on with my future in Kemi, and with my host parents, Arja and Artu, and my host sister Aino. So excited :D

Is it weird I'm excited for winter? Good thing I didn't pick Brazil :P

Hopefully I don't bore everyone too much with this whole blog thing. I'll be sure to update it as soon as I have more to talk about.

Thanks go out to Linda Hindal for helping with the visa process, and of course to Rotary, for giving me this oppurtunity.