My Finnish Summer

The day after the Eurotour I went to my family’s kesä mökki (summer cottage) at a place called Kuivaniemi in Lapland. Here we celebrated Juhannus (Midsummer celebration).The weather wasn’t the best thing ever but it was still very pretty (An awful amount of mosquitoes though!). I had the most natural sauna ever since arriving in Finland (No running water? Bath in the lake) and ate yummy food and had a quick but warm bonfire by the lake. A Midsummer tradition is picking 7 different kinds of flowers before going to bed and sleeping with them under your pillow. During the night you’re meant to dream of the person you are going to marry! I didn’t dream though, or at least I don’t remember dreaming, so I’ve just decided to accept the fact that I’m never going to get married (Dad should be happy).

 

My first and only host family move.

When I returned from my Juhannus weekend with the Niinikivi’s, I moved in to my second host family’s house! It was a day full of mixed emotions and  even though I was sad to be leaving, I was excited to start in a new family. Packing away all my things was definitely exhausting… I didn’t think I had collected so much stuff (5 bags worth) in such a short amount of time! I was with Timo, Laura, Iida (19) and Anna (13) Niinikivi for around 5 months and they were an amazing family! They were really warm and welcoming when I was first settling into their house, school and just Finland in general and I’m really grateful that they were as amazing as I was hoping they would be since before the start of my exchange year, kiitos!

I am now living with Marko, Annette, Veera (18) and Saara (17) Ruti. They are my second and last host family and are just as warm and welcoming as the Niinikivi’s. Veera returned from her exchange year in Sydney, Australia, in July and we’re now going to the same school, Lohjan Yhteislyseon Lukio. Saara, I think, is a super duper girl. She’s a really good swimmer and attends a sporty boarding type of school in Vuokatti, Lapland. So, techinically she’s an exchange student every year! The school gives students a small apartment and roommate and they live there for the school year. She comes to Lohja occasionally on weekends and during most holidays so it’s always really nice to see her. My mum, Annette is a teacher at the same school my last mum, Laura, works at, and my Dad, Marko, works at a sport institute called Kisakallio. Pretty cool!

As you can probably tell by the small description of my family, they’re super sporty people. We actually recently ran in something called the Helsinki Midnight Run (it didn’t actually start at midnight though… around 9:30). We ran 10km in 1h10min and there was 5 of us. Myself, my dad, Veera, Saara and Saara’s friend Emma. I really enjoyed it even though it was fairly cold! There was 10,000 people who competed from about 50 countries.

Family selfie before the Helsinki Midnight Run

Before the run!

Me, Veera and Saara

After the Midnight Run in Helsinki, just a little, REALLY tired.

During the rest of the summer holidays I went to lot’s of cute antique markets, a really cool jazz festival in a beautiful city/town called Pori (I saw artists like Bob Dylan, Suzanne Vega, Jamie Cullum and James Blunt), a Finnish baseball game (fairly different to American baseball), took a long and entertaining 7h drive north to Vuokatti, was able to visit Lohja’s calcium mine and I was also able to see Finland play Australia in basketball! (Finland won… I’m still not sure if I’m happy or sad about that..)

At an antique market

Laura (my new German sister), Dad and I on a boat

Went to a store that sells really fancy chocolate and coffee!

At the antique markets

 

Sunset at the end of the last day of the jazz festival.

Laura and I.

Jazz Festival!

Saara and I

Entry.

Veera and I.

Pori (the small town/city where the Jazz Festival was that I mentioned earlier) had the closest thing to an Australian beach that i’ve seen this whole year. Even though there weren’t any waves and it was a fairly shallow beach it still reminded me of Australia quite a bit!

The beach in Pori

Camping for the jazz festival!

My first Pesopallo game!

Veera and I

Batting area

Guess who’s winning?

So it begins. Team Tahko (yellow) against team Jyväskylä (blue).

I call this my ”I don’t understand” face

Successful miner!

Just smashing some calcium. y’know how it is.

In the city’s mine’s ferrari, literally!

Lohja’s calcium mine. We drove 400m underground! Cold!

Visited Lohja’s calcium mine. Saara and I.

Mum and I at the game.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Big turn out for the basketball game.

”Woah that is one biiiiiiiiig dude”

I’m pretty sure we were the only people in the whole arena going for Australia…

We even had this really fun crab party! Apparently they’re big things in Finland… We went to where our mökki was everyday for week or so and checked the traps we had set. It was the first time i had ever done anything like that and it was pretty cool!

First batch of crab/yabbie kind of things! Didn’t taste too bad…

COINCIDENCE! 8 months left on my exchange with ”more yesterday’s than tomorrow’s” and Veera had this written on her cider’s bottle top! Kinda of sad… But i’m making a pin out of it for my blazer! ”Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today we shall celebrate!”

Sauna house at the mökki

Boat!

Mökki

Mum lighting the mökki sauna

Koira Makkara (dog sausage) makes good bait!

Dad setting up the crap traps.

At the mökki – Veera and I

At the mökki

Crab party! Big thing in Finland haha

Crab party!

Crab party!

Crab party! We caught these!

Crab party! My dad made a whole heap of games. Here we had to drive the remote controlled car around the track as fast as we could. Adults against children!

Crab party! One was archery haha

Summer in Finland is absolutely beautiful (and surprisingly hot!), I never really expected it to be how it was. Firstly, there are berries EVERYWHERE and they’re amazing! I will definitely miss the Finnish strawberries when I go back to Australia… Another thing i noticed really quickly the closer we got to the middle of summer, was how the sun basically never, ever sets. The latest I experienced it up was about 12-1am and then it set for about 3 hours and started to rise again at about 3. Cool! Definitely crazy! But still cool. I got some pretty amazing photos too!

Rotary District 1420 – The oldies (first row) and the newbies (everyone else)!

Me and my favourite newbie. Haley from Seattle, USA. She’s living in Lohja with me.

Bike tour of Helsinki!

Fun fact: Angry Birds was invented by a Fin! – At Linnanmäki, themepark in Helsinki.

One of Linnanmaki’s haunted houses

I went on that!

Aiku! My new host dog.

I ATTEMPTED water skiing during the summer…. i’m really bad at it haha

 

Euro Tour

On the 1st of June I went on something called Eurotour. On this tour 82 other exchange students and myself spent 19 days travelling Europe! Now, because it was so long ago and I was a bit lazy in writing this, the post will be mostly pictures of the tour, but, everywhere we went was amazing so hopefully the pictures I took are enough to give you an idea as to what I saw.

We started the tour in Turku, Finland. It was here that we also ended the tour, and said extremely sad and teary goodbyes to the people we would not see again (my oldies were all gone within a month of euro tour, some after a few days, and I didn’t get to see them all again before they left)

Over the 19 days we travelled through: Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Monaco, Italy, Austria and Germany, then back through Denmark and Sweden to get back to the wonderful place that is Finland. Everyone was pretty sad about the tour being over but I’m sure we can all agree that we slept happily in our own, comfortable beds. On the tour I got to see quaint little country towns, and big, bustling capital cities, as well as beautiful mountain views in the Italian Alps and an incredibly clear ocean whilst touring Monaco. However, nothing can beat the fact that I got to experience all these amazing views and places with people from all over the world, feeling and seeing the same things as me throughout the 19 days, but also through my whole exchange year, because no matter what happens to you (on the tour or on exchange in general), the other exchange students can relate to it. I made some really amazing friends on the tour and I’m already planning on visiting them ASAP haha.

A big thank you to the 2 Rotarians and 4 Rotex that dealt with our repetitive and annoying questions and for trying to get us to certain places to see awesome things ON TIME! They definitely made the tour run as smoothly as it possibly could even though it involved 83 exchange students.

(I’ll try and give the photos a small caption so you know where it was taken)

We drove straight through Sweden, stopping to see a lolly store and for lunch. The Swedish ‘country’ is really beautiful!

Sweden – Aussie photo

Sweden – amazing sunset while driving

We were in Denmark for one night, we went to a themepark and a tour of Coppenhagen on the second day.

Denmark – The Ariel statue

Denmark – Aussie photo

Denmark – guards switch over at the palace, a really fancy thing

Denmark – home of Princess Mary

Denmark – Outisde the place where Princess Mary lives. We were told not to get to close to the guards or they’d get angry, this one found it hilarious how quick we were trying to take photos so we wouldn’t annoy him.

Denmark – From my room’s window i could see a ride at Tivoli.

Denmark – The houses were cute!

Denmark – Peacocks at Tivoli

Denmark – Went to the themepark called Tivoli the night we stayed in Denmark.

Denmark – Train station

The Netherlands/Holland

 

Amsterdam – We were able to visit the Anne Frank House/Museum, it was really interesting for me! I didn’t know much about her before that.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam – The first (i think) curved house

Amsterdam – On the boat tour

Amsterdam – Really pretty city!

The Netherlands

The Netherlands – Lunch with Chelsea and the creepy prawn at the cheese place.

The Netherlands – Lunch at the cheese place (Sam, Bernadette, Chelsea, Clara)

The Netherlands – We went to a cheese factory kind of thing, it was actually really cool! We got to taste quite a few kinds of cheeses and then we could buy some if we wanted to

The Netherlands – A massive road/bridge thing on water…

The Netherlands – Andy!

I don’t have many photos of Belgium anymore because i had a small mishap with my camera the other day, but here are a few 🙂 We had a small tour of Brussels and had lunch at a nice restaurant then began driving the same day to France, we didn’t stay the night in Belgium.

Belgium – I don’t have many photos of belgium… had a small mishap with my photos

Belgium

Belgium

Belgium – Cathedral

Belgium

We spent 5 days travelling through France and I have a LOT of photos, so here a few. One of the days we were in Paris was a free day and we got to walk around and check our the tourist places ourselves, it was really fun!

France – Versailles

France – Versailles (Delaney, Helen, Keiran)

France – Versailles

France – Versailles, Clara.

France – Versailles, gold everywhere!

France – Arc de triomphe

France – Notre Dam

France

France – Louvre

France – 669 steps to the top!

Southern France

Southern France

Southern France – perfume factory

France, Paris – Another Aussie photo (Sam, Andy, Sophie, me, Jazz, Milly, Vienna)

We drove through Monaco, didn’t stay the night there. It was really nice to see everything there though, it was beautiful.

Monaco – A church

Monaco

Monaco – The water was amazingly clear! We could see the rocks under the water from where we were standing.

Monaco – on the other side of the round pillar type things in the middle of the picture is France.

Monaco – The flag was up at the palace/home of the prince(?) and that meant that he was in Monaco

Monaco – changing of the guard.

Italy was really cool! The weather was so hot the whole time we were there. We got to go on a gondola ride in Venice, a free day in one of the cities we stayed in, and we went for a really amazing hike in the Italian Alps (probably my favourite day, it was really beautiful)

Italy – The Romeo and Juliet balcony

Italy – Juliet statue

Italy, Venice – canal

Italy, Venice – We went on gondole’s with Gondole Daniel(?), was cool!

Italy, Venice – Haraldo

Italy, Venice

Italy, Venice – Lunch group (Leah, Haraldo, Milly)

Italy, Venice – Lunch group (Mak, Pedro)

Venice, Italy – Apparently the bridge i was standing on for this picture is really famous(?)

Italy – Saw my first nuns! 😮

Italy – A cute, little town we passed through

Italian Alps – Hiking day!

Italian Alps – Hiking day! The water was so clear!

Italian Alps – Hiking day! The rotex!

Italian Alps – Hiking day! (Kimmy, Emily)

Italian Alps – Hiking day! Another small Aussie photo (Me, Milly, Andy, Hannah)

Austria

 

Austria – A few exchange students went on a horse and carriage when we got a short amount of free time while passing through Austria. I didn’t go but i think it would have been cool 🙂

Austria – Fancy

Austria

Austria

Austria

Austria (All the buildings in Europe are really colourful)

Austria – The few from where we ate lunch that day.

Austria

Austria – Fancy

 

We went through Germany twice. Once at the beginning of the tour between Denmark and The Netherlands and a second time at the end. We stayed two or three nights in total in Germany, it’s a pretty nice country. We were in Berlin when Germany won an important soccer game and WOW the whole city went CRAZY! Really cool to see though!

 

Berlin, Germany – Part of the War museum

Germany, Berlin – Part of the war museum

Berlin, Germany – Mak had his 18th birthday while we were in Berlin so we blind folded him and walked him around Berlin for a little while, then took him to a park where two friends and myself had set up some cakes and stuff 🙂 was good!

Germany – THE ‘YOU CAN WALK NOW’ MEN LOOK LIKE GONDOLA PEOPLE :’)

Berlin, Germany – Vienna, me, Helen (Rotex), Sophie

Berlin, Germany

Berlin, Germany – The Berlin wall

Berlin, Germany – The Berlin wall

 

The Tour was absolutely amazing! I’m glad this year that i’ve had the opportunity to see so many new and incredible places and i’ll definitely, hopefully go back to see them again sometime soon.

Russian around Russia – St Petersburg

SORRY! I actually started to write this a really long time ago but forgot about it! 😮 

Being a part of a Rotary Youth Exchange means I get the opportunity to go on trips led by Rotarians with other exchange students from around the world who are spending their year in Finland, like me.

The first of these trips was 4 days in the Russian city, Saint Petersburg. Around 90 other students and myself left on the 27th of March in 2 buses, headed for the Russian border. The drive seemed to take forever but we made it through the numerous border gates smoothly and officially drove into Russia 😀 It was pretty cool… The bus ride took majority of the day so when we got to our hotel, Hotel Moscow, we ate dinner and were given free time until 12 (the same time every other night), when we had to be on our own rooms, not necessarily asleep, but in our rooms.

On Friday, we visited Hermitage Museum and were given a loooooong tour. The whole building was beautiful! The more we walked the farther back in time we went. For lunch we walked to “1001 Nights” Restaurant for lunch and from there we went to Peter the Great’s Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. It was pretty cool, but there were a LOT of dead babies and weird creature things in jars which was kinda creepy but awesome at the same time and yeah… 😀 We ate dinner at the hotel and got to go to the Ballet in Mihailovski Teatre. It was the premiere La Fille mal gardée and it was really good! A funny ending.

Saturday was a nice day. It started with sightseeing in buses around the city and then we got free time in Nevski Prospekt (main shopping street of St. Petersburg) where we could buy lunch in a place of our own choice and do some shopping. We then ate an early dinner at the hotel and left straight after to Nikolay’s Palace for some Russian Folklore, it was AWESOME. Basically just people dancing and making cool noises and hgujfghfnda. It was good 🙂

Sunday was our last day and we traveled for most of it. We briefly visited the city Viborg and had a look around a small marketplace where we met some Russian soldier dudes who were really interested in us and wanted to get lots of photos. Not really sure about everyone else, but when i got a photo with them they all had to be touching me! I was slightly creeped out haha.

The trip as a whole was amazing! It was great to meet more exchange students and share the experience together 🙂 I love the buildings architecture and the insides were always beautiful!

PHOTOS WOO

First passport stamp!

Met some Russian soldier people HAHA

Sunrise from the hotel window

Sunset

Had a nice lunch with some oldies!

81m tall! 😮

A special church

Russian Ballet

Nice view from the anthropology museum

Hermitage

Hermitage

Hermitage

Hermitage

Hermitage

aussieaussieaussie

Hermitage!

St Petersburg is also known as a mini venice because it also has heaps of canals and bridges, just not as many as Italy!

Busy As A Bee

Moi!

I apologize for my lack of blog writing these past few weeks but so much has been happening that I haven’t had much time! This post will be mostly photos because I don’t think i’d be able to remember everything that has happened in the last few weeks.

On the 7th, 8th and 9th of February I stayed at my second host families house, the Ruti’s. They have a really nice house! And their dog is really fluffy. They took me ice fishing and I had a great time! Somehow I managed to catch 3 fish even though I’ve never even caught one fishing normally in Australia. We also went to a biathlon competition. In biathlon you ski around a track of a certain length depending on your age, then you shoot at 5 circular targets and repeat it once more. If you miss a target that means you get penalized and have to ski around an extra bit of track before continuing. The person with the fastest time wins.

On the Saturday night we went to their neighbors house for dinner. We had tacos >:) yum. Then Lotta, Lotta’s boyfriend and Joona (the neighbors kids) and I put on these really funny hats and swimmers and sat in this giant wooden bath outside. It’s called palju and the water is heated by a fire. I didn’t get a photo because I forgot to take my camera, but this is essentially what they look like:

We were in it for a while and only got out twice. Once to make snow angels and once to have a really, really, REALLY quick swim in the pool which had a little hole cut out of it. Overall i really enjoyed the weekend! 🙂

 

14th February – Wanhojen Tanssit

Wanhojen Tanssit translates to Old Dance or Old Ball, and it’s a really fitting name! It’s a day where girls can be princesses and boys can be princes, literally. The dresses were amazing and the dances were really cool.

Group Photo

The colours! 😮

Unfortunately I didn’t get to dance 😦 but my host sister Iida did 🙂 She looked really pretty! He partner/boyfriend Heikki danced the last dance with me which was probably funny to watch. I’m probably not the best dancer :’)

 

Heikki, Iida, Me, Anna

After parttyyy

 

15th – 22nd February: A week in Lapland.

We stayed at a place called Ylläs. It took us 13.5 hours to get to the cottage but the scenery was awesome! Everything was so white and beautiful and aaaghghrjfzlk. Absolutely amazing. We were driving on the border so we also took a slight detour to Sweden just for a photo.

I took one step and sunk!

 

We stayed in the cottage on the right. It was really nice!

Laura’s brother, Juha, and his daughter, Juulia, came to stay in Ylläs with us as well.

Juha and Juulia

I got to try out cross country skiing which was pretty cool. I wasn’t expecting the tracks to be so slippery and so I fell over quite a few times at the beginning :’) never the less it was some pretty decent exercise!

And the skiing begins!

I also got to try out snow shoeing 😀 We walked through the forest and saw some fox tracks in the snow. Then we climbed this really steep mountain (YES LAPLAND HAS MOUNTAINS 😮 ) and it was killer on your legs because you were always walking on your toes, but we found the sun! So I deemed it worthy of a selfie.

When we were snow shoeing across the lake we could see the track we walked up 😀

We also went bowling one night and out for dinner another 🙂

 

Grilling Makkara

The stuff that looks like hair on the tree is special. It only grows in Lapland because the air is so clean. It’s called naava in Finnish (not sure about english). I thought it was pretty cool 🙂

 

The green and blue fluffy socks that I mentioned in my first post are really slippery! I managed to fall down the stairs at the cottage in Lapland BUT I didn’t break any bones 😀 I got a rather painful but awesome bruise instead!

My butt was wrapped in a rainbow 😮

 

24th February – Back to school.

The first week back at school was interesting… And it still is! I don’t understand much at all in class but i can eventually figure out what to do if I don’t have anyone to translate for me. I’ve made some friends (i think…) which is pretty cool. They’ve shown me around Lohja (even though there isn’t a whole lot to see) and we went bowling the other day for 2 hours which was pretty intense. I don’t think i need to go for another year!

Bowling is a little different here. You pay by the hour not by the game and it’s pretty cheap. Half-way through bowling heaps of younger kids came to bowl and they were all pro! We found it funny how they were getting 7 strikes in a row and we couldn’t even get 2 :’)

 

28th & 29th February – A double celebration for Anna

Anna turned 13 on the 28th – OFFICIAL TEEN – Timo made a really, REALLY good cesar salad for dinner.

Birthday dinner

I’ve realized that when Finns want to celebrate something, they will REALLY celebrate it. On Saturday we had quite a lot of family over for dinner. SO MUCH FOOD! And it was all really yummy! It was also a really sunny day which was nice 🙂

Timo making pulla

Made them into love hearts :’)

All cooked! :3

So many pretty flowers were brought to the party.

The beautiful birthday girl!

Laura showed some photos from our Lapland trip.

Sofie loved all the attention!

Lots of Pie and Quiche.

Of course Timo and the rest of the men drank Fosters. He thinks that it’s the second best thing from Australia, me being the first of course! 😉

Cakes and Pulla! YUM!
Timo – Caramel cake
Laura – Chocolate and banana cake

Mmmm cake.

 

There’s no more snow 😦 It’s been pretty warm winter here… As long as it snows around Christmas or before I leave then it will be okay 😛

I’m definitely missing Australia’s sun and warmth but we’re getting a little more sun everyday which is nice 🙂

I’m having an awesome exchange!

A Week of Finland

Tuesday 28th Jan – Went to school with Anna and sat in on her History and English classes and told them about Australia. Lunch was better than Monday’s for sure! We had fish sticks which are basically Australia’s fish fingers, they’re just shaped like a triangle. After lunch I went to Annette’s class and WOW they had so many questions for me. IT started with the usual ‘what’s your favourite colour?’, ‘do you have any pets?’ and then moved on to really weird but funny questions about food. I have to say that for 9 or 10 year olds, they’re very good at English.

After we walked home I read for a few hours and then went to my first Rotary meeting.

My host Rotary club – Lohjannummi Rotary – has over 50 members but about 20 – 30 turn up each week. The members used to meet at a Greek restaurant called El Greco but it’s been replaced by a Chinese restaurant. At the meeting I was asked to introduce myself and then the president of Helsinki Rotex gave a presentation.

Wednesday 29th Jan – Wednesday I went to school with Anna again, but this time it was a sports day. Around 1 we went outside and split into two groups. One of the groups (mine) started off figure skating with someone giving us directions and while we were busy trying not to fall flat on our faces the other group played Ringette. Ringette is a two teamed game. Every player has a straight, long stick and the ‘ball’ is a ring (like in that toss game where you have to throw the ring over the standing stick a few meters away). Then the game is played like hockey except you’re on ice and if you have to skate around with your stick in the hole of the ring. The tricky part is when you’re trying to take the ring off another player. Wednesday was a fun day.

Thursday 30th Jan – FIRST FINNISH LESSON! Finnish lessons are every Thursday at 6pm. I’m glad i’m getting them! I can piece a few words together but not well enough that I can have a conversation with someone. The only annoying thing is that every time I get lessons we start with verbs! Frustration at its finest I tell you! Thursday was also the day I got a library card and borrowed a child’s picture book about a rabbit and his feet to help me with my Finnish AND we welcomed a new appliance to the kitchen!

This beauty makes excellent hot chocolates!

Friday 31st Jan – Friday was a pretty busy day however I did get to sleep in 🙂 I Skyped mum and Owen at 10 am (7 pm Australia time) and then Iida and I cleaned the house up a bit. After, we went to her Vanhojentanssit (old ball) practice. Unfortunately I won’t be able to join in because 3 weeks of practice won’t be long enough 😦 they’ve already been dancing for 8. I will get to go watch though, and i’ll make sure I take LOTS of photos of all the girls amazing dresses.

Friday evening Laura and Timo took Anna to basketball practice so Iida invited some friends over. We had TACOS (yum) and watched the movie ‘Now You See Me’.

Saturday 1st Feb – Overnight we got at least 17cm of snow so this morning when I woke up I was VERY excited 😀 We went ice skating on a summer airports airstrip, had an AMAZING lunch, Laura and I did some snow work (cleaned a walkway/the driveway and brushed all the snow off the car – 9cm thick) which ended in me making a snow angel, made an Italian apple pie and then went to dinner at Anne, Reima and Meery’s house where we had a Raclette (swiss cheese grill thing) and watched a funny Finnish comedy show called Putous.

The amazing lunch – chicken salad thing 😛

Apple pie

Cheese Grill

 

This week has been enjoyable! :))

Ensimmäinen Päivä Koulussa.

Monday 28th – First Day of school – Ensimmäinen Päivä Koulussa.

All ready for school :~)

The school I am attending here in Lohja is Lohjan Yhteislyseon Lukio. Iida and I will be in the same year (junior) because she went on a Rotary exchange to the USA 2 years ago. This makes it extremely helpful for me because she can show me where my classes are and even have some of the same ones.

School starts at 8 here in Finland so I had to wake up earlier than desired. Iida drove us both into town and after dodging some traffic we managed to get there on time. We then waited for a lady named Suzanne who helped me sort out a time table. The classes i’m taking are Sport, English (woop! i’ll ace this class), Psychology, double Art and Music. At first she put me down for German, but I thought that because I haven’t even learnt that much Finnish yet it probably wouldn’t be wise to start learning German so I now have double art.

My school here in Finland is definitely different to the schools I went to in Australia. For one, I wore a uniform, now I have to actually find clothes to wear to school EVERY DAY, ahhh the struggle. The school also serves lunch for FREE! Today’s meal was a weird meat sauce and pasta – bleh – tomorrow is fish sticks. Apparently the school meals are pretty good, today was just an exception.

Lunch – Pasta and Meat sauce with some KETCHUP. lol.

Luckily for me I don’t need to go back to school until next week Wednesday! This is because it is exam week here so I didn’t actually even have a proper school day. Finland’s school year is quite different. Here what we call terms, they call periods. Periods are 6 – 7 weeks and at the end of each period there is an exam/test week. This means that there are 5 ‘terms’ in  a year, whereas we have 4 school terms. You can also choose to change some classes at the end of each period. Howzat.

After I sorted out my classes and got a locker Iida showed me around the school. There are 3 levels with many classrooms and even more stairs. She then took me across the road to the public library which has its own little cafe and it makes the whole building smell like cinnamon :3 there I borrowed 4 books (in English of course) and then we walked back to school so she could go to her Swedish class for her listening test. I sat in and read. It turns out her teacher had lived in Sydney a few years ago and worked as a tour guide!

Tonight, after Iida and I walked Sofie and had a sauna, Anna had come home from her basketball practice and Laura and Timo came back from Spinning (cycling), we had these pancake things. You pour the batter into something resembling a large brownie tray and cook it in the oven! We then ate them with raspberry jam, home-whipped cream, maple syrup and finished everything up with caramel, cream, orange and citrus flavored black tea with cute little pink, sugar hearts that dissolved when we added the water!

Delicious tea!

The table nicely set for out pancakes :3

Laura gave me some awesome fluffy socks to wear around the house. In love!

The Beginning

Moi! Hello!

On Saturday the 18th of January a large amount of Australians and myself departed for Finland as part of the Rotary Youth Exchange.  The trip, including layovers and a two hour bus ride, took me 37 boring hours but it was long enough for all of us to get acquainted with each other. For someone who has never been overseas before or even on a plane for more than 4 hours i’m glad that I don’t have to do that for another 12 months!

Some Aussies and I

My first week in Finland was at an orientation camp in Karkku. Karkku is about 222 km north from Helsinki (capital of Finland) and it’s SUPER COLD! Here I experienced my first Finnish meal, first sauna (including rolling in the snow and jumping in a hole of a frozen lake N-A-K-E-D), Finnish lessons (5 awesome tutors – rotex, 1 amazing teacher), a’cozy night’, a visit to Tampere, tobogganing, played soccer and hockeytobogganing in the snow and a WHOLE lot of fun things. While I was at Karkku I made heaps of wonderful friends and i’m glad some of them are in my Rotary district 🙂

The Main Building

Karkku’s frozen Lake

Yesterday (Saturday 25th) my first host family and my host parents in my second family picked me up from the camp and brought me back to Lohja. This is where i will be living for the next 12 months. Timo, Laura, Iida and Anna are my first hosts. I’ve been living with them for less than 24 hours and they’re wonderful! I have my own room and the bed is so fluffy! 😀 I also have a very nice snowy view from my window and my room smells like vanilla :3 They’re dog Sofie is extremely cute!

Sofie!

Today not only did I get to sleep in, but i got to ice skate on the frozen Lohja Lake! I had a the constant fear that the ice would break even though it’s about 20cm thick at a MINIMUM. I had heaps of fun and I didn’t fall over at all! 😀

Because it is Australia day, I am making ANZAC biscuits with Iida and Anna. It was hard to find everything in the big store (Prisma – Finland’s Costco) but they should turn out alright even though some of the ingredients are different.

I’m having a blast here in Finland even though i’ve only been here for a week, and i’m really glad I got this oppotunity 🙂

Stay tuned for next weeks update :))

Moi Moi! Goodbye!