Hyvästi ja hei

As crazy as it seems I only have a few days left in Finland. Nine, to be exact, but who's counting? I am really sad to be leaving, but of course excited to see my family and friends at home. But, however nice it will be to be home I am still ridiculously sad to be leaving my family here. I truly wish I could stay a few more months. The stress of knowing I only have a short time left is rather tough though. It makes me feel like I should be out everyday doing stuff and securing the friendships I have made.


My last months have been fun. It seemed like summer was never going to arrive, but, after waiting forever, it did. Finland is truly beautiful in summer. Everything is green; look out the window and you will see nothing but different shades of green. Both the winter and summer seasons are beautiful, but winter is beautiful for is stark harshness. I find I like the summer much more. School ended at the beginning of June. At the end of April I switched to my last family. I have loved all of my families, but I really love this family. I get along great with them all, plus I am now closer to the center. In May I got to go to Stockholm, Sweden, with a group from school. That was an awesome trip and it was awesome to visit another country in Europe. After school got out, it seems I have been constantly on the move. I have taken a road trip to Jyväskylä, Savonlinna, and Helsinki with my friends Kati and Laura. After being home for one day I went to a rock festival for the weekend in SEINÄJOKI with my friend Jenni. Later the following week I went to my host family's summer cottage for the weekend. The day after we returned my host mom, Katja, my host sister, Sofia, and I left for a trip to Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki. The day after we got back from the trip I went to a theme park in Tampere with my friend Piia. All of these trips were amazingly fun. I couldn't have hoped for more. With so much to do my last months have passed in whirl. Over the last few days I have been able to catch up on sleep and start packing.


The road trip was great in that I got to see parts of Finland I haven't seen yet and spend time with two really awesome friends. The trip was mainly for Kati because she was taking entrance exams at universities in the the different cities. But over all it was awesome to be invited. The rock festival, Provinssirock, was awesome. I have been looking forward to this festival for months. Jenni and I have been planning for ever. I got to see some awesome bands, System of a Down, Avenged Sevenfold, Wolfmother, Pendulum and many others. It was an experience to say the least. I met a bunch of finnish people, and saw them in their natural habitat of rock festival=D It was a three day festival. It was awesome, but needless to say it was nice to get home and take a shower. It was my second time going to the summer cottage and it was a fun weekend. It was the Juhannus celebration, and even though it was too cloudy to see, it was the midnight sun weekend. We got home from the cottage on Sunday night and left for Helsinki on Monday afternoon. We took a train from Seinajoki to Helsinki, had some time to walk around Helsinki, then left by ship to Tallinn. We spent the night on the ship and then got off in Tallinn at 7 a.m. the next morning. We spent Tuesday wandering around Tallinn's Old Town. It was a beautiful part of the city. We ate delicious food at a few really nice restaurants. Wednesday we did some more sight seeing and then took the boat home the evening. Thursday we spent in Helsinki and then took the train home that evening. The next day, Friday, I went to Tampere with Piia to Särkänniemi. It was a really fun day, and it was really nice to spend the day with a really good friend. 


This next week I plan on spending as much time as possible with friends and doing what I can in my time left. Friday I have my goodbye party with friends, and then Saturday I will have my goodbye dinner with family. I will probably spend Sunday moping and finishing up my packing. Monday my host family has been awesome enough to offer to drive to Helsinki to drop me off. Early early Tuesday morning I...fly...home....sigh. 


It is so hard to come to terms with the fact the my year, my exchange, this amazing, hard, crazy experience, will be over. I feel like I'm going back to reality, leaving this alternate life I have created. I am excited and sad in turns. Listening to songs that make me think of the year make me sad, thoughts of seeing my sisters and parents and nieces and nephews and grandparents and so on make me happy. It is an undeniably weird state of emotions, and I'm not sure I like it. But then again the thought that this will be over soon because I will be home is equally unpalatable. I feel like the embodiment of bitter-sweet. 


I may post one more rant after this, but I may not. I am not good at being faithful to my ranting here, so I don't know if I will feel that I have more to write. But for now, farewell!

New Beginnings

Almost two months since I have updated and lots has happened. November was a good month, lots of snow and very cold. That of course is something that November has in common with December, and January, and Febuary for that matter. The best part of November was the Thanksgiving dinner I cooked for my host family. It was my first undertaking of such a huge menu, not to mention my first turkey. I got up around 9:30 to get the turkey ready and into the over by 10. I spent pretty much the rest of the day up to 18.00, when we ate, cooking. I cooked turkey, candied sweet potatoes, gravy, lingonberry sauce, mashed potatoes my host dad did, sauced asparagus, and... other stuff. I can't remember what all it was, but that is the main gist of it. It was a lot of work, but it was all ready to eat on time and none of it was raw or burned! I have to say I am still pretty proud of it. It was a really nice dinner, and I think my host family enjoyed the American tradition. After that I ended up going to a dance club with some friends which was another experience all on its own.

Christmas and the whole season was a fantastic way to get to know the Finnish and their traditions even better. First off, because it is SO DARK, and I really mean this, what with the sun setting around 2:30, people kept assuring me that with the Christmas lights and deocrations things wouldn't seem so dark. So I was expecting the stellar light show we get each year in the States with houses becoming little lightbulbs. I was extremely surprised to find that my defenition of Christmas lights and the finnish defenition are a bit different. They employ a moderate method of one string of lights on the roof, maybe, and some festive candles. The candles are beautiful so nothing wrong there. But for me it still seemed a little dark and less festive than I anticipated. Most houses don't get the Christmas tree until relatively close to Christmas. Decorations are very nice inside, although once again a bit less extravagent than what I am used to. Christmas Eve is the big day in Finland and we celebrated then. My host family prepared a large dinner, delicious, including ham and mashed potatoes and salads and so on. It was very yummy. After dinner Joulupukki visited and dropped off his presents. And I mean this literally, I have the picture with him to prove it! We opened all our presents on Christmas Eve and I was wonderfully surprised with some amazing gifts. Christmas day my host family and I went to a church service at 8 in the morning... it was... cold. My host family was telling me that in recent years it has become more popular to attend the Christmas Eve service than the Christmas morning. That seems natural to me but I guess in years past the church was usually full up bright and early Christmas morning.

A few days after Christmas I switched to my second host family. It was sad to say goodbye to my first family but exciting to meet a new one. I had already met my host sister in school and I had been introduced to my host mom and brother a time or two. My new family lives about 10 km out of town. Their house is the cutest thing, I love it. More than loving the house though I am loving this family. It is good to have siblings again and nice to have some change. I have been with this family a few weeks now and it has been going great. My only complaint is that I have to ride a bike, in the snow and ice. I hate riding bikes, add that to negative degree weather, snow, ice, and early mornings and you have one unhappy Dana. But alas, it is just another experience and it will be a good story to tell when I am old... super exciting. I have not fallen off the bike though so kudos to me.

My finnish is coming along. I think I have really been improving these last few weeks and hopfully with the increase of lessons and speaking with my family I will get that much better. All in good time. From now it looks like I am going to be leaving on July 13 or 14. I told Nancy that the first things I want when I get back are a Dutch bros coffee and an Oregon Burrito from Muchas Gracias, and a side order of beans and rice from them as well. I am craving Taco Bell and Burger King and all those unhealthy fast foods. Voi ei!

Well I promise to not procrastinate this long before I write again, but until then!

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