Fall has left

Terribly sorry I am bad writing for this! It is now almost three months I have been here! This last week I have had Loren, a fellow exchanger from Indiana, staying with me. I have been showing off my little town of Jurva and all that jazz; it has been awesome having her here! She leaves today which is lame. Besides that I have had my fall break, In-bound camp, a trip to Turku, several trips to Vaasa, and visits to other exchange students. The fall break was nice for catching up on sleep and I did some shopping, now I'm poor. I got to see Turku and I really liked it. My host family treated me to Les Miserables, in Swedish. I loved the play but it was odd listening to some of the songs that I could recognize but in SWEDISH! Did you know that Turku was the mother of Hesburger? Oh! and I went to Turku castle, it was really awesome. It is so weird to something so old. I  think the castle was built in the 1300's... insane! I love how things are so old here, in the US we go back to 1800's, 1700's if we're lucky. We often forget how young of a country we are. Me and Loren were discussing what we would do for some Taco Bell, not pretty. When I went to visit Nicole, and oldie from Australia, I was able to buy a whole bunch of American food! Her host dad has this business where he buys car parts and other things from the US and sells them here. He has Cheetos!  and Root Beer, Pop Tarts, Coffee Mate Creamer, other such things. It was pure heaven, let me tell you!

Time seems to be going crazy fast, the Lapland tour is coming up quick! The language is coming along, learn new stuff all the time. It is rather discouraging just because it is so hard that I feel I'm not really learning anything. No matter. I'm still not really home sick, but I do miss the midgets! Can't wait for Lapland, and Happy Halloween! (Friday the 13th is the worst movie ever.)

Time flies by!

Well it is insane, but I have been here for about a month and a half! That feels so so so weird, but good. I have been putting a lot of effort into learning finnish. It's coming along. This Tuesday marks the beginning of the next... period I guess you should call it. New classes, and hopefully I will meet even more students. It shouldn't be hard to say I have at least talked to every kid at the school by the end of the year. This period I am taking English, with the third year and first year students this time; sports, art, spanish, and a finnish course. The finnish will be mostly me reading some finnish books (in english) and also taking lessons. I will be taking two finnish lessons this period. I have a lot of early days this period which is lame, but oh well.

This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, I went on a backpacking trip up near Oulu, about 30 km away. We left Jurva at 6 in the morning. I was there right at 6 =D and forgot my camera and my jacket (takki). Luckily my host parents were on top of things and they chased the bus down and got me my jacket. It was awesome, I fit the "American" persona to the T. Nice. We drove for about five hours, making two stops, and got to the starting point at around 12 I think. We started out the hike and I was dying about ten minutes after we started.   My pack weighed a lot, not sure exactly how much, but a lot. I think about 12 kilos or 25-ish pounds. After many breaks and lots of sweat and two huge blisters on my heels we arrived at the camp. I felt like I was about to pass out BUT I made it. Luckily I was with my little host sister Sophia, who new what she was doing, because I didn't. With her guidance, we set up the tent, got dinner cooked, and I promptly zonked out after. I got a good 11 hours of sleep, well not good, but I didn't get out of my sleeping bag for 11 hours. I had about five layers of cloths on=D Sunday morning we woke up about 7:30, ate breakfast broke down camp and headed out. This time I lasted a whole five minutes before I was ready to pass out, literally. I don't think I have ever been so tired or in so much pain ever and it was awesome, because I made it. 10 kilometers later we got back to our destination, which was a spa conveniently enough. We took showers and had sauna and recovered. All in all we hiked about 20 kilometers (12 miles, sounds much more impressive in kilometers) , I am very proud of myself. And lucky for me I don't have any school today so I am being lazy and doing a whole lot of nothing! hmmmm so here are some words in finnish: tree-puu, white-valkoinen, nice-kiva, tent-teltta. and I know more but can't think of them off the top of my head.

My birthday is in a few days which I am excited about! 18! Feels weird, but good. As of now I am being lazy, listening to the soundtrack from "Miss Potter", which is awesome by the way, and relaxing. One month gone and many more to look forward to!

Time to settle down

So! I am almost done with my second week of school! Things were a bit less "new" this week, but still pretty overwhelming. I spent last weekend in Helsinki and it was amazing! I loved the city, and can't wait to go back. I think I could see myself living there. Although I'm not so sure about this whole it being freezing thing. Most of this week has been chilly and wet... and it's still August. Que va. I still understand about as much Finnish as I did last week, which is to say little to none. I had another Finnish lesson today though, so I can now tell time in Finnish! Getting farther than that... well... we shall see. Did you know they even conjugate numbers in Finnish! What's a silly American to do?
I have been getting to know my fellow students better, although still not very well. All in good time. I am still convinced that Finnish people are pretty darn amazing, although a tad quiet. I got to go to Vaasa the other day, and I liked it just as much as Helsinki, although it is much smaller. I had my first Finnish McDonalds! The salads are bigger, and they offer hot chocolate. Other than that it's your basic McD's. I have started to make some plans with friends, which is really nice and I am very excited for that! Oh! and I just read Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins and I loved it! Can't wait to get a hold of the last book. And speaking of books I got a Library card! The librarian didn't seem to enthused, but perhaps she was just being reserved. I have also been  riding a bike more often. Considering I haven't ridden a bike in, well, years, I haven't been very enthusiastic about doing any bike riding. But! I will conquer this fear.
Last night and today after I got home from school I watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. I loved it! and it inspired me to go and watch the movie version, so I did. I am now listening to the soundtrack, which I am equally in love with. I'm pretty sure I was born in the wrong era.=]

Host Sister and I at Sibelius monument

Until I am once again inspired to write!

Lets start at the very beginning

Well, I have been in Finland for a little over two weeks now. So far it has been pretty amazing, really crazy, and very new. Aside from being bombarded by finnish at all turns, I have been learning, slowly but surely. I started school on Monday and that has been pretty insane so far. I don't really have an actually schedule yet, but I am working on getting one. It's hard because all the classes are in finnish. So obviously classes like history and psychology make no sense to me because it is all talking, in finnish. Sitting through a class where it is all lecture, and lecture in a different language you don't understand at that, is not very easy. My hope is that by submersing myself in finnish so constantly I will be able to start understanding some. Given that today is only my third day, it is still all very new. Most of my fellow students have been awesome and so helpful. I have seen a lot of new faces and heard tons of new names, so remembering them is something that will come with time. The school itself is very nice, and I should have it all figured out in a few weeks. At this point everything is new and overwhelming and I am getting impatient for things to start making more sense... que va. Oh! and speaking of Spanish I am going to start taking spanish as well. It seems trying to learn finnish has kicked my language learning gears into action and I have been spouting random spanish, so I thought I might as well take a class. I may perhaps start getting on more often so there will be more constant updates. As for now, I would love to skype! It will probably be early morning or late night. Hei hei for now and I hope we skype soon!

Before I even leave!

Well it is currently midnight o'thirty and I have to wake up in about four and a half hours to get ready to head to the airport! I have said most of my hard goodbyes with just a few left. I am not sure how I feel except extremely excited! In a few days I will have more to say, but for now!
      "May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again May God hold you in the palm of his hand."
See you in Finland