maanantai:
Test week! Today I would have had a math test... but since it was word problems, I hadn't studied, and I didn't feel like it... I stayed at home. But I kept busy by filling out Scholarships for college next year... cause unlike here, in America, you usually get to pay a ton of money for college education. yeah for money!
tiistai:
Another day of working on scholarships, It was really nice outside, you could actually smell spring coming, and in the feilds there were spots that you could see the ground, not just all snow!!! yeah. I also went to Tampere with my band for a concert. It went really well, I got home kinda late though, but no biggy.
keskiviikko:
Another really pretty spring day, the morning started out really foggy, but by after lunch it was sunny and breezy, nice and easy. I decided I would take a walk to the Kirpputori. Now, If I had the right shoes (rubber boots) I could have just walked from the house, to the back yard, right straight over the lake, and it would have been maybe 2ish kilometers walk, but I didn't and even though the other day I saw fisher men out there, in lawn chairs, maybe 50feet from the river area where there was open water, I don't think I would have had the guts to walk across it. So I took the road, double the length plus hills, but it was nice. Chatted with some old folks who were waiting for their taxi to pick them up so they could go grocery shopping, they offered me a ride, but I was almost there and didn't feel like blowing my cover as a Finn. I got a really cool spring jacket, and adorable tank top... now it's nice outside, but not yet tank top weather, But my thought was like in Feild of Dreams, if you buy it, it will come (summer clothes, summer)
torstai:
Today I took the bus to school, I had tons to do! Pick up books for my last period in school, look for gadgets, take care some banking business. So my walk around the whole world (our little town) took the entire morning and luckily I made it back to the school in time for free lunch, cause I was sooooo hungry! Then I hung out until the buses came. Eeva, Simo and I were going into the city, they were getting hair cuts, and I was doing more shopping. I hit up 2 out of the three kirpputoris that I know of in Tampere, we ate at Hesburger, and then got ice cream! yummy! In the mall they were doing auditions for Finnish Top Model TV show or something like that, so there were all these ridiculouly tall girls walking around! If our bus wasn't leaving in 20 minutes, I would have attempted to enter in my jeans and Kristy's Barn tee-shirt, woulda coulda shoulda. We went home, I was sooo tired.
perjantai:
So home day. Simo had a friend over after school and then my host dad brought us to a farmer get-together thing at an Agril Markets shop. They were giving out free bowls of pea soup, and coffee, and cookies and candy. Yummy! When we got home I headed off by bike to my friends house for a movie night. Three movies! crazy, and I left before the last one cause I didn't want to be riding home in the dark and I knew if I started watching it I wouldn't be able to leave in the middle of it! It was so much fun. Then I had to go to bed kinda early because there was a Rotary confrence in Turku this weekend and the Rotary men where picking me up at 6:15 the next morning. Yeah!
lauantai:
Up and out, practically sleeping the whole way, we did stop for coffee, I got a donut, So after that I was a bit more awake. It was definatly spring in Turku. The grass even was greenish! Then I got to hang out with all the exchangers!!! We had to give a small presentation to the Rotary men before lunch. We had split up and made small plays showing some odd/interesting things of Finland. My group did a reanactment of the first day at school as an exchange student. Then there was how excited Finns get about the sun, coffee, and potates. We then just hung out with the exchangers which is always the best. We finally sorta went to bed at 5:00am, just laying down where-ever, even though we all had rooms and beds, pretty much none of them were used. So basically I was up almost an entire 24 hours! Worth it!
sunnuntai:
We didn't get much sleep, up at 8ish, not by force, but by hunger, the camp place we were staying had awesome food so we couldn't wait any longer... oh man I want some of that food now! Eatting eatting till the ship is... sinking still works. Back to our Rotary people by 12, saying goodbye, and then I was sound asleep the entire ride home. I woke up a half an hour away from town and was shocked to see that spring must have followed us back from Turku! There sooo much less snow!!! I'd say 1/4 of a field had snow on it! wow!!! I just putted around the rest of the day, made pizza! But just putted, sleep, school would start again... Yeah... but it will be cool, a new classes!!!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
taking a break
hang in there, I'll update soon, i guess I just totally forgot about this! weird, it must be the crazy amount of sun light I have been getting, days last from way before I get up around 7:00, till around 9:30, and beautiful sunsets almost every night! a full report update is on it's way!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Viikko Kolmekymmentänelja
maanantai:
Today in school there was a political thinggy... There were six candidates that were debating and telling their oppinions on topics such as, nuecular energy, getting involved with NATO and the Lybia conflict, homosexual marrage, ect. I tried to pay as much attention because that information would be interesting to know, but I think the candidates were using special and difficult words to sound smarter, so I really couldn't understand much and just ended up respectfully falling asleep... Later that day I went with my host mom and her friend, to the gym where we took a 30 minute, curves type, weight lifting class... I felt like such a wimp cause some of the other women in the class were like 65 and they were working way harder than I and didn't even look half as tired... wha...? But I lived, sorta, and really felt it on for the next couple of days.
tiistai:
Trying to get out of bed wasnt as hard as I thought it would be today (turns out muscles wait a day before trying to kill you) And that was sorta a good thing because today was our schools 'movement day' we all got bundled up and went to the near-by mountain to go skiing, snowboarding, and sleading. I worked on mastering my snowboarding... down the first run and I did an awesome face plant... ouch, but that scared the skill into me because for the rest of the day I didn't do that much falling, only like a couple more times, and most of them on my butt, which dosn't hurt as much as falling on your face dose. It was a pretty epic day I must say.
keskiviikko:
In school today Sanni brought her collection of german chocolate, which very quickly disappeared, not exactly sure how : P but... Gym class today! We played bad mitten, ping pong, and tried the rock wall a bit. After gym I went for a walk to Kyröskoski to wait for band to start. I got a popsicle from the store... yeah there's still snow on the ground, but when a girl wants a popsicle... it was layered, orange and strawberry with a picture of a bee on it, so you can't really go wrong with that! Tero picked me up, and we picked up some pizza on the way home, yeah pizza for dinner!
torstai:
So test week officially started today, which in exchange student world, means vacation! I basically worked on college stuff, found out I have to take placement tests... wooo, and one of them is on language, spanish, french, or german, your pick... what about finnish? I can't remember hardly anything in spanish, and when I try to speak it, it all just comes out finnish... oh well, I'll deal. Today in the local paper it said that tomorow they will be releasing some seals into the lake, suposibly there are 260 seals in Finland's lakes, and they want 400... I can't be sure, but I'm thinking this is an April Fool's joke, I have not heard of any seals anywhere over here, and my host brother had an odd grin on when he was translating some of the artical... well... Then I got a phone call today from these odd people in New York, claming to be my Mom, Dad, and sister... I humored them with an hour long conversation : P Later Eeva, Simo and I went to a play at the local theater! It was a really funny show and I knew some of the actors from school!
perjantai:
English test today! Meaning I did have to get up to go to school today. Usually I don't finnish my English test first, but today I was determinded! And I did! yeah! haha some parts were actually kinda hard, like we had to make odd words plural and then singular, and I had to remember how to say different phrases... and after hearing you native language spoken so much by non-native speakers, you begin to make their mistakes... But I think I passed. Then I went for a walk, KIRPPUTORI time! yeah, it has been sooo long. And I was in the mood for some new clothes. Unfortunatly I didn't find all that much. I'm thinking the one in Ylöjärvi is a better one so maybe I'll head over there sometime soon. Then I headed home. The rest of the day was mostly just little tricks played on each other. Hiding milk, putting things on top of doors so when they open, you get random things falling on you. That kind of stuff, oh and I made a really big snow man in the back yard, Merry April Fools!
lauantai:
Saturday is cleaning day. After cleaning, Simo and I went to a music, band practice, he took a drum lesson, while I practiced with my band. We have a concert coming up soon, fun. Then I had to get ready for the Rotary 30year party! A big event, I got to use my Vanhojen dance dress that I shortened a bit, and threw my Rotary jacket on top of it. Yup the one with all the buttons! I was looking fly. The party was fun, hanging with my Rotary men. There were also some district Rotary men, that I think I did a fairly good job impressing my my Finnish skills, Oh and there was a magic trick act. A boy probably 16ish, and I got practically pushed on the stadge to be in one of the acts. He had the deck of cards, then three empty cards, He told me to think of a number 1-13, then he 'read my mind' and wrote it down on the card then folded it away, asked me my number, it was 9, then he asked me to think of suite (kuvio) but what I heard was (kuvia) picture, I thought that was odd, he's gonna draw a picture... so I just thought of a cat, then he asked me what I thought of... Kissa, I said, 'what?'... kissa... and everyone just laughed, but he just kept going, and the trick ended up working fine. Soon after coffee I left, I had an early day the next day. Home we watched the Simpson's Movie, it's odd because pretty much all Finns love the Simpson's but there are so many jokes in the shows that I will end up laughing alone at because it's the small details about America, like I think one part was, Flanders and Bart ontop of a moutain where you could see the four states that boarder Springfeild, Kentucky, New Mexico, Maine, and Nebraska, or something like that, hehe. We went downstairs and they broke into Mämmi, an easter 'treat' that suposibly nobody likes, but they all eat it anyway, and then warn anyone who hasn't had it before, I was still full for the party so I passed for now, I'll try some tomorow... Google it, it's like this brown pudding like, but not, thing and you eat it with heavy cream and sugar...
sunnuntai:
Early morning, back to the band camp thingy. A full day of practice endding around 2, blah... It wasn't so bad though. The rest of the day was for chilling. My host mom had left early that morning for a meeting in Brysels, Tero soon left for a sport competition thing in Sweden, and we just hung out watching movies and dreading school tomorow... Oh wait, I don't have school LOVE TEST WEEK!
Today in school there was a political thinggy... There were six candidates that were debating and telling their oppinions on topics such as, nuecular energy, getting involved with NATO and the Lybia conflict, homosexual marrage, ect. I tried to pay as much attention because that information would be interesting to know, but I think the candidates were using special and difficult words to sound smarter, so I really couldn't understand much and just ended up respectfully falling asleep... Later that day I went with my host mom and her friend, to the gym where we took a 30 minute, curves type, weight lifting class... I felt like such a wimp cause some of the other women in the class were like 65 and they were working way harder than I and didn't even look half as tired... wha...? But I lived, sorta, and really felt it on for the next couple of days.
tiistai:
Trying to get out of bed wasnt as hard as I thought it would be today (turns out muscles wait a day before trying to kill you) And that was sorta a good thing because today was our schools 'movement day' we all got bundled up and went to the near-by mountain to go skiing, snowboarding, and sleading. I worked on mastering my snowboarding... down the first run and I did an awesome face plant... ouch, but that scared the skill into me because for the rest of the day I didn't do that much falling, only like a couple more times, and most of them on my butt, which dosn't hurt as much as falling on your face dose. It was a pretty epic day I must say.
keskiviikko:
In school today Sanni brought her collection of german chocolate, which very quickly disappeared, not exactly sure how : P but... Gym class today! We played bad mitten, ping pong, and tried the rock wall a bit. After gym I went for a walk to Kyröskoski to wait for band to start. I got a popsicle from the store... yeah there's still snow on the ground, but when a girl wants a popsicle... it was layered, orange and strawberry with a picture of a bee on it, so you can't really go wrong with that! Tero picked me up, and we picked up some pizza on the way home, yeah pizza for dinner!
torstai:
So test week officially started today, which in exchange student world, means vacation! I basically worked on college stuff, found out I have to take placement tests... wooo, and one of them is on language, spanish, french, or german, your pick... what about finnish? I can't remember hardly anything in spanish, and when I try to speak it, it all just comes out finnish... oh well, I'll deal. Today in the local paper it said that tomorow they will be releasing some seals into the lake, suposibly there are 260 seals in Finland's lakes, and they want 400... I can't be sure, but I'm thinking this is an April Fool's joke, I have not heard of any seals anywhere over here, and my host brother had an odd grin on when he was translating some of the artical... well... Then I got a phone call today from these odd people in New York, claming to be my Mom, Dad, and sister... I humored them with an hour long conversation : P Later Eeva, Simo and I went to a play at the local theater! It was a really funny show and I knew some of the actors from school!
perjantai:
English test today! Meaning I did have to get up to go to school today. Usually I don't finnish my English test first, but today I was determinded! And I did! yeah! haha some parts were actually kinda hard, like we had to make odd words plural and then singular, and I had to remember how to say different phrases... and after hearing you native language spoken so much by non-native speakers, you begin to make their mistakes... But I think I passed. Then I went for a walk, KIRPPUTORI time! yeah, it has been sooo long. And I was in the mood for some new clothes. Unfortunatly I didn't find all that much. I'm thinking the one in Ylöjärvi is a better one so maybe I'll head over there sometime soon. Then I headed home. The rest of the day was mostly just little tricks played on each other. Hiding milk, putting things on top of doors so when they open, you get random things falling on you. That kind of stuff, oh and I made a really big snow man in the back yard, Merry April Fools!
lauantai:
Saturday is cleaning day. After cleaning, Simo and I went to a music, band practice, he took a drum lesson, while I practiced with my band. We have a concert coming up soon, fun. Then I had to get ready for the Rotary 30year party! A big event, I got to use my Vanhojen dance dress that I shortened a bit, and threw my Rotary jacket on top of it. Yup the one with all the buttons! I was looking fly. The party was fun, hanging with my Rotary men. There were also some district Rotary men, that I think I did a fairly good job impressing my my Finnish skills, Oh and there was a magic trick act. A boy probably 16ish, and I got practically pushed on the stadge to be in one of the acts. He had the deck of cards, then three empty cards, He told me to think of a number 1-13, then he 'read my mind' and wrote it down on the card then folded it away, asked me my number, it was 9, then he asked me to think of suite (kuvio) but what I heard was (kuvia) picture, I thought that was odd, he's gonna draw a picture... so I just thought of a cat, then he asked me what I thought of... Kissa, I said, 'what?'... kissa... and everyone just laughed, but he just kept going, and the trick ended up working fine. Soon after coffee I left, I had an early day the next day. Home we watched the Simpson's Movie, it's odd because pretty much all Finns love the Simpson's but there are so many jokes in the shows that I will end up laughing alone at because it's the small details about America, like I think one part was, Flanders and Bart ontop of a moutain where you could see the four states that boarder Springfeild, Kentucky, New Mexico, Maine, and Nebraska, or something like that, hehe. We went downstairs and they broke into Mämmi, an easter 'treat' that suposibly nobody likes, but they all eat it anyway, and then warn anyone who hasn't had it before, I was still full for the party so I passed for now, I'll try some tomorow... Google it, it's like this brown pudding like, but not, thing and you eat it with heavy cream and sugar...
sunnuntai:
Early morning, back to the band camp thingy. A full day of practice endding around 2, blah... It wasn't so bad though. The rest of the day was for chilling. My host mom had left early that morning for a meeting in Brysels, Tero soon left for a sport competition thing in Sweden, and we just hung out watching movies and dreading school tomorow... Oh wait, I don't have school LOVE TEST WEEK!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Viikko Kolmekymmentäkolme
maanatai:
New family, new house, new week, new bus stop... Or lack of bus stop, I headed up to look for my new bus stop, I remember now that over breakfast, they were telling me that there was now bus stop sign, you just had to flag the bus down, but that didn't set in until the bus had already passed by. Luckily my host brother Tero, had a class in the morning too, so I went to school with him. School was pretty much exactly the same, except a lot of people missing, victoms of sickness, and the Germany trip. But I got through it, and got the right bus home, and stopped it at the right place. I got in the house, and there was a bunch of professinal camera equipment... that's odd I thought... then I remembered that today in tomorow, they said that a Finnish tv serise would be filming here... Pirunpelto, on of the characters is a farmer, and a couple times before they used this house to shoot too, cool! So us kids hung around, asking random questions, what dose that do, why are you doing that, those kind of things. It was a big production, lots of people, equipment, and coffee (of course coffee, it's Finland) So that was an exciting day, I told lots of creeper photos, and even creeper videos of the whole ordeal, cause how often do you get a Finnish TV show being taped in your living room? I'm gonna say not that often.
tiistai:
I made the bus today! My host mom walked me to the bus stop place and waited with me, it felt like the first day of kindergarten again! awww, oh and infront of the bus stop a few hundred feet, is a lake and today, there were a bunch of swans. Finland's bird, and the sign of fall and spring, is seeing them around. In the fall, I didn't see so many, and they were gray, but now there are a lot of them and they are all white! Pretty! School... nope, not really anything was happening, still a lot of people missing. When I got home the TV shooting was happening outside now, by the side of one of the barns. Simo dropped his bags and ran out there. They taping was done by four I think, I never went out there because I couldn't tell which direction they were taping, and didn't want to accidently get in the back of the shot, that would have been cool if they didn't notice, and just ended up putting me in the show, but judging by how good they were yesterday at picking up on the tiniest things, i'm gonna say they would have noticed.
keskiviikko:
School, makkara for lunch! yeah! We were supposed to have gym outside today, but they canceled it because the ground is all ice, it melted yesterday, and froze, pretty much everywhere is just a thick sheet of ice. Home, then soon headed out for band. Band was good. Leaving band was fun because it had snowed like penguins and polar bears while I was in, so everything was covered in snow, and I'm still trying to learn the new cars of this family, so I just waited a bit until most of the cars were gone, then picked one and hoped for the best... lucky me I choose right!
torstai:
Again school... it's getting kinda old : P last study hall Laura and I explored Tokmanni, I found this Aloe Verra juice stuff, that as on sale, two bottles for 1€, it reminded me of so juice stuff that Karah and I would always get at one of the dollar stores at the mall until they stopped selling it. So heck yeah I got it. And if i'm remembering that juice right, it was pretty much the same, yeah score! Home it was just Simo and I, everyone else had meetings and other stuff... not really sure. Simo showed me around the barn and all the favorite cows, I hung out with the babies, made friends with the all white baby who was born on the same day I moved to this house, cause I think we are alike enough, and we should be buddies. Night, dinner, coffee at grandma's, and bed.
perjantai:
Yeah! Friday!!! So school was regular, yah know, an eventful day at home though, a cow fell in the barn, so that was a big deal. Then Simo and I went to a floor ball pick up game. We ended up playing handball too, just a lot of random people, young and old, and lots of fun. I had never played floor ball either, like hockey without the ice, and a ball not a puck. It was fun. Then our older host brother picked us up and we got a pizza to take home. It was a really good pizza too! My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on TV tonight, so we all stayed up late to watch it.
lauantai:
Eeva came back from Germany at like 4 in the morning, but I wasn't sleeping well anyway so it didn't bother me. I was worried about my Finnish language test that I would be taking for 5 hours today... yup, lots of fun. It's not like I didn't want to do it, well maybe I didn't want to do it, but I want to know how much I know, and this is really the only way to find out... soooo... Markku picked me up, the drive was about an hour, I kept falling asleep because that's what I do best in long car rides. Markku left me at the place with my other exchange student friends, he went to visit his mother who lived close by. There were four of us. All taking basic level Finnish, all Rotary exchange students, all freaking out! The first part we did was reading and writing. That wasn't too bad... because there you have time to read over and over again. 3 sections, 50 minutes each. Just endurance. Then a bit of a break, we were suposed to eat, but with my nerves I really couldn't, I knew listening would be the hardest for me, and it was, I was hoping not so hard, like maybe they would talk slowly and about cats or something. But they were talking soooo fast, way faster than a normal Finn talks, and I didn't really know what they were talking about. I found out later that they were talking about robbers in a shop stealing beer... okay... Whatever that part was over. Then was speaking, I wasn't too worried, and I got to go first so I just got it over with. It was like an interview with a really nice lady. First part was about yourself, the norm, then about food, I ended up talking about tacos for some reason and now I'm not even sure if the word for tacos in finnish is tako... oh man, hope so! Then the last part was about work... she asked what I want to do when I'm older... oh come on! Even if you asked me that in English I wouldn't be able to answer... Oh well, what's done is done. I didn't realize how tiring test taking was until I was home and couldn't really function properly. Luckily almost everyone else was pertty much drained so we all went to bed super early! yeah for bed!
sunnuntai:
Got up at 8, well with daylight savings time I guess it was 9, then rolled around all morning. My host dad had come back from his trip to Scotland, so that was exciting! We made Waffles, and ate them with Maple syrup from New York, yum! Simo and I did some work in the barn, and played with the new baby cow that came yesterday when I was at the stupid test : ( next baby I'm gonna be around for! Then some cosins came over so we hit them with snow balls, then had coffee at Grandmas'. And ended the weekend with Wipe Out UK, and Funniest Home Videos with a Finnish host, but still the mostly American videos... cause in America when you get it on tape you could get it in cash, plus get 15 minutes of fame! uh oh... school tomorow...
New family, new house, new week, new bus stop... Or lack of bus stop, I headed up to look for my new bus stop, I remember now that over breakfast, they were telling me that there was now bus stop sign, you just had to flag the bus down, but that didn't set in until the bus had already passed by. Luckily my host brother Tero, had a class in the morning too, so I went to school with him. School was pretty much exactly the same, except a lot of people missing, victoms of sickness, and the Germany trip. But I got through it, and got the right bus home, and stopped it at the right place. I got in the house, and there was a bunch of professinal camera equipment... that's odd I thought... then I remembered that today in tomorow, they said that a Finnish tv serise would be filming here... Pirunpelto, on of the characters is a farmer, and a couple times before they used this house to shoot too, cool! So us kids hung around, asking random questions, what dose that do, why are you doing that, those kind of things. It was a big production, lots of people, equipment, and coffee (of course coffee, it's Finland) So that was an exciting day, I told lots of creeper photos, and even creeper videos of the whole ordeal, cause how often do you get a Finnish TV show being taped in your living room? I'm gonna say not that often.
tiistai:
I made the bus today! My host mom walked me to the bus stop place and waited with me, it felt like the first day of kindergarten again! awww, oh and infront of the bus stop a few hundred feet, is a lake and today, there were a bunch of swans. Finland's bird, and the sign of fall and spring, is seeing them around. In the fall, I didn't see so many, and they were gray, but now there are a lot of them and they are all white! Pretty! School... nope, not really anything was happening, still a lot of people missing. When I got home the TV shooting was happening outside now, by the side of one of the barns. Simo dropped his bags and ran out there. They taping was done by four I think, I never went out there because I couldn't tell which direction they were taping, and didn't want to accidently get in the back of the shot, that would have been cool if they didn't notice, and just ended up putting me in the show, but judging by how good they were yesterday at picking up on the tiniest things, i'm gonna say they would have noticed.
keskiviikko:
School, makkara for lunch! yeah! We were supposed to have gym outside today, but they canceled it because the ground is all ice, it melted yesterday, and froze, pretty much everywhere is just a thick sheet of ice. Home, then soon headed out for band. Band was good. Leaving band was fun because it had snowed like penguins and polar bears while I was in, so everything was covered in snow, and I'm still trying to learn the new cars of this family, so I just waited a bit until most of the cars were gone, then picked one and hoped for the best... lucky me I choose right!
torstai:
Again school... it's getting kinda old : P last study hall Laura and I explored Tokmanni, I found this Aloe Verra juice stuff, that as on sale, two bottles for 1€, it reminded me of so juice stuff that Karah and I would always get at one of the dollar stores at the mall until they stopped selling it. So heck yeah I got it. And if i'm remembering that juice right, it was pretty much the same, yeah score! Home it was just Simo and I, everyone else had meetings and other stuff... not really sure. Simo showed me around the barn and all the favorite cows, I hung out with the babies, made friends with the all white baby who was born on the same day I moved to this house, cause I think we are alike enough, and we should be buddies. Night, dinner, coffee at grandma's, and bed.
perjantai:
Yeah! Friday!!! So school was regular, yah know, an eventful day at home though, a cow fell in the barn, so that was a big deal. Then Simo and I went to a floor ball pick up game. We ended up playing handball too, just a lot of random people, young and old, and lots of fun. I had never played floor ball either, like hockey without the ice, and a ball not a puck. It was fun. Then our older host brother picked us up and we got a pizza to take home. It was a really good pizza too! My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on TV tonight, so we all stayed up late to watch it.
lauantai:
Eeva came back from Germany at like 4 in the morning, but I wasn't sleeping well anyway so it didn't bother me. I was worried about my Finnish language test that I would be taking for 5 hours today... yup, lots of fun. It's not like I didn't want to do it, well maybe I didn't want to do it, but I want to know how much I know, and this is really the only way to find out... soooo... Markku picked me up, the drive was about an hour, I kept falling asleep because that's what I do best in long car rides. Markku left me at the place with my other exchange student friends, he went to visit his mother who lived close by. There were four of us. All taking basic level Finnish, all Rotary exchange students, all freaking out! The first part we did was reading and writing. That wasn't too bad... because there you have time to read over and over again. 3 sections, 50 minutes each. Just endurance. Then a bit of a break, we were suposed to eat, but with my nerves I really couldn't, I knew listening would be the hardest for me, and it was, I was hoping not so hard, like maybe they would talk slowly and about cats or something. But they were talking soooo fast, way faster than a normal Finn talks, and I didn't really know what they were talking about. I found out later that they were talking about robbers in a shop stealing beer... okay... Whatever that part was over. Then was speaking, I wasn't too worried, and I got to go first so I just got it over with. It was like an interview with a really nice lady. First part was about yourself, the norm, then about food, I ended up talking about tacos for some reason and now I'm not even sure if the word for tacos in finnish is tako... oh man, hope so! Then the last part was about work... she asked what I want to do when I'm older... oh come on! Even if you asked me that in English I wouldn't be able to answer... Oh well, what's done is done. I didn't realize how tiring test taking was until I was home and couldn't really function properly. Luckily almost everyone else was pertty much drained so we all went to bed super early! yeah for bed!
sunnuntai:
Got up at 8, well with daylight savings time I guess it was 9, then rolled around all morning. My host dad had come back from his trip to Scotland, so that was exciting! We made Waffles, and ate them with Maple syrup from New York, yum! Simo and I did some work in the barn, and played with the new baby cow that came yesterday when I was at the stupid test : ( next baby I'm gonna be around for! Then some cosins came over so we hit them with snow balls, then had coffee at Grandmas'. And ended the weekend with Wipe Out UK, and Funniest Home Videos with a Finnish host, but still the mostly American videos... cause in America when you get it on tape you could get it in cash, plus get 15 minutes of fame! uh oh... school tomorow...
Friday, March 18, 2011
Viikko Kolmekymmentäkaksi
maanantai:
School once again... but what can you do? But after school I took my trip to my Horn lesson, and what was really great was that I could actually notice all the diferences that an exact month made. The last month I was walking to my lesson in dusk and from my lesson to the bus stop in complete darkness. But one month later I was walking to my lesson (5-5:30ish) in day, and walking from my lesson (7:00) when it was starting to get dusky. So weird! But a good weird because now I know that spring is actually coming, it's not just a myth.
tiistai:
School was odd today. I got spring fever and didn't want to be inside anymore so I spent the second half of English class outside in the sun shine. SOOOO NICE!!! Then after school Markku picked me up to get more trips onto my bus card. Later that day I went to a Rotary meeting where I also noticed how light it is outside. Usually I can't see into the corner of the room across the room, but now I could because there happens to be a window in that corner that I never knew existed! Funny!
keskiviikko:
I got sick today : ( Felt funny on tuesday night, was okay in the morning but felt something odd. Got overly excited that we were having sausage for lunch and ate too much. Went home before gym. : ( and we were going ice skating too : ( Oh well, It was kinda nice to just be and get better. And by the end of the night I really was feeling much better!
torstai:
I started knitting socks today!!! Yeah they are orange and going to have a couple gray stripes... but now I'm thinking I should have gone with orange and a light blue... Oh well I've already started, and who knows I could be making many more if these go well. They way they are knitted is using five needles, with no back on them. I'm going to find a picture, because that will be easyer to see...
So you kinda knit it in a square, and use the last needle... to knit onto so the needles are always exchanging places. It's sorta hard, keeping track of all the needles. And getting back into the groove of knitting was hard too, I ended up starting over maybe 5 times... But know I'm on a role and I've even switched colors a couple times, Now I'm really wishing I had gone with light blue...
perjantai:
It's a Friday!!! And you could feel in school that everyone just wanted out, even the teachers! I think it has to do with the way that spring feels like it's on it's way. Don't get me wrong, it still is cold, and there is penty of snow left on the ground, but the light of the sun dose wonders in making people cheerful. Last night at my second host family, full of The Dudesons, Packing, and CAKE!!!
lauantai:
Cake for breakfast, yummy! Then the finishings of packing, my new host dad and sister picked me up around 10, we shoved all my stuff, I really don't understand how I accumulated sooooo much stuff. But luckily It all fit and we only had to make one trip. Oh and remember how I kept saying that spring was coming... Well I jynxed it cause today I woke up and it was like a blizzard outside... oh well. That snow came in handy later when we had a snow ball fight! Yeah! My new host family is great! We live on a dairy farm of around 50 head, drink the good milk! I am sooo excited about that! I have a host sister, and three host brothers, and host grandparents living right next door! So great day, great move, and even though there is fresh snow on the ground, it's still almost spring.
sunnuntai:
Yeah for weekend! Today so Russians visited the farm, friends of friends, actually not quite sure, but they were given a tour of the farm and then they heard about an american girl living here to, so big photo opp... uhhh well, story to tell the grandkids maybe. Then we went cross country skiing, Simo, my new little brother and I didn't make it as far as my host sister Eeva and host mom, so we headed back and built snow balls to attack them with... like good children. The rest of the day was hanging out, dreading school's start again, last minute homework, and packing. Monday Eeva gose on a school trip to Germany for a week and my host dad will go to Scotland... or somewhere, not exactly sure why or for how long. I'll find out. Well school again.
School once again... but what can you do? But after school I took my trip to my Horn lesson, and what was really great was that I could actually notice all the diferences that an exact month made. The last month I was walking to my lesson in dusk and from my lesson to the bus stop in complete darkness. But one month later I was walking to my lesson (5-5:30ish) in day, and walking from my lesson (7:00) when it was starting to get dusky. So weird! But a good weird because now I know that spring is actually coming, it's not just a myth.
tiistai:
School was odd today. I got spring fever and didn't want to be inside anymore so I spent the second half of English class outside in the sun shine. SOOOO NICE!!! Then after school Markku picked me up to get more trips onto my bus card. Later that day I went to a Rotary meeting where I also noticed how light it is outside. Usually I can't see into the corner of the room across the room, but now I could because there happens to be a window in that corner that I never knew existed! Funny!
keskiviikko:
I got sick today : ( Felt funny on tuesday night, was okay in the morning but felt something odd. Got overly excited that we were having sausage for lunch and ate too much. Went home before gym. : ( and we were going ice skating too : ( Oh well, It was kinda nice to just be and get better. And by the end of the night I really was feeling much better!
torstai:
I started knitting socks today!!! Yeah they are orange and going to have a couple gray stripes... but now I'm thinking I should have gone with orange and a light blue... Oh well I've already started, and who knows I could be making many more if these go well. They way they are knitted is using five needles, with no back on them. I'm going to find a picture, because that will be easyer to see...
So you kinda knit it in a square, and use the last needle... to knit onto so the needles are always exchanging places. It's sorta hard, keeping track of all the needles. And getting back into the groove of knitting was hard too, I ended up starting over maybe 5 times... But know I'm on a role and I've even switched colors a couple times, Now I'm really wishing I had gone with light blue...
perjantai:
It's a Friday!!! And you could feel in school that everyone just wanted out, even the teachers! I think it has to do with the way that spring feels like it's on it's way. Don't get me wrong, it still is cold, and there is penty of snow left on the ground, but the light of the sun dose wonders in making people cheerful. Last night at my second host family, full of The Dudesons, Packing, and CAKE!!!
lauantai:
Cake for breakfast, yummy! Then the finishings of packing, my new host dad and sister picked me up around 10, we shoved all my stuff, I really don't understand how I accumulated sooooo much stuff. But luckily It all fit and we only had to make one trip. Oh and remember how I kept saying that spring was coming... Well I jynxed it cause today I woke up and it was like a blizzard outside... oh well. That snow came in handy later when we had a snow ball fight! Yeah! My new host family is great! We live on a dairy farm of around 50 head, drink the good milk! I am sooo excited about that! I have a host sister, and three host brothers, and host grandparents living right next door! So great day, great move, and even though there is fresh snow on the ground, it's still almost spring.
sunnuntai:
Yeah for weekend! Today so Russians visited the farm, friends of friends, actually not quite sure, but they were given a tour of the farm and then they heard about an american girl living here to, so big photo opp... uhhh well, story to tell the grandkids maybe. Then we went cross country skiing, Simo, my new little brother and I didn't make it as far as my host sister Eeva and host mom, so we headed back and built snow balls to attack them with... like good children. The rest of the day was hanging out, dreading school's start again, last minute homework, and packing. Monday Eeva gose on a school trip to Germany for a week and my host dad will go to Scotland... or somewhere, not exactly sure why or for how long. I'll find out. Well school again.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Viikko Kolmekymmentäyksi
maanantai:
School again : P It was sooooo terrible trying to get up today! BLAH!!! But it was really great to see everyone again! My one friend was still sorta on vacation, coming home from some island near Portugal JELIOUSE!!! In a study hall we went to the library. I found a book call 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' ... hmmm so I will someday figure out what all that is about... Then pretty much a chill day the rest of the day.
tiistai:
Today I watched a bunch of really cute cat videos on the internet, which made me miss my cats even more! But the internet cats are so adorable! I can tell spring is starting to come our way. It says light outside soooo much later, I think we are up to around 6:30ish the sun gose down. I'm excited for grass, and unfrozen lakes that you can swim in for more than 10 seconds at a time. I mean I live right next to a lake, and my next family I will live next to a lake too so EXCITED FOR SPRING!!!
keskiviikko:
My friend, Piia, who went to that island somewhere in by Portugal came back to school today! She brought post cards and candy! YEAH! Someday I will eat candy from every country! A thing on my bucket list! After school we had gym, and for some reason only us 2nd grade girls showed up, so we played basketball. It was epic, my team didn't win, but we were sorta half-way close. But it was a lot of fun. Then I headed to band. Stopping at some stores on the way looking for an outfit that I could wear to the school party on Friday, I didn't find anything, but I have something in mind. Band was a lot of fun. A new girl around my age showed up to play the clarinet. It turns out she is going to Argentina on exchange next year, not with Rotary, but some other organization I can't remember, But it's still pretty cool. So I told her I could get her in touch with the girl here in Finland on exchange from Argentina. Yeah helpping!
torstai:
My friend Laura missed the bus today, and forgot her key to her house so she got to wait outside all day until her dad came home from work... That's not cool, but luckily spring is on it's way and it was a lot warmer than it could have been, It was hovering around freezing, so not too bad! In school I was suposed to have a study hall while everyone else had their 'mother tounge' class aka Finnish. But SOMEHOW I got dragged into the class, against my will. They said I had to sit in Laura's seat so the teacher wouldn't count Laura absent. But the teacher noticed it anyway, go figure. Anyway I choose my next periods' classes. I'll be taking: Tourism (the class that takes a trip to Riga, Latvia!!!) Swedish, German, and Russian... Game on! Then after school was our sewing class. I shortened my Vanhojen Tanssi dress to right above where I got a stain on it. Now it's a cute party dress for any occation. I still have a ton of that fabric left... Not really sure what I'll be able to do with it but we'll see. Then it was clean the house time when I got home. Sparkly!
perjantai:
Good morning FRIDAY!!! Not only is this the day that starts an amazing weekend of adventures, but... I didn't think that through, this is the day that starts an amazing weekend of adventures... what could be better than that. Only need to get thourgh the 6ish hours of school, which wasn't hard considering I had 2 study halls in the morning. So first off, I returned my bottle colection for 3.80€, nice! Then I tried to crack the code of a friends locker, she told me I couldn't figure it out by the end of the year, so I'm on it, It's a 4 number code, possiblity of 0-9 for each number, so Game on! Worked on my music project, Then classes, math and swedish, there was a 'ord test' (vocab quiz) but considering I didn't even realize that there was gonna be a quiz, I decided not to waste the paper to epicly fail. I know now that there is a quiz next friday, so I'll probably study for that one and we'll see what happens then. School's out! Sanni and Laura came to my place to chill before the Party. We youtube surffed, Then the anouncment about the earthquake in Japan showed up on the screen. So scary! I have exchange student friends here that are from Japan! I have no idea what I would do if something like that ever happened to me, I just hope everything is alright with them and all their families and friends! Scary... Then we got ready and hit the road to the party. It was great because pretty much all my friends decided to show up. We went for a snack at Final 1, a pizza/kebab place, we got french fries so I still have to go back there sometime to compaire their kebab's to the others that are around here. Then we just danced the night away, and crashed at Sanni's house. Awesome night!!!
lauantai:
Early morning! Sanni and her family were going to visit their grandma in Tampere today so we got up earliy, considering it was a non-school day after a late night, but it wasn't that hard to get up! I was excited about the adventure today. Exchange student get together in Tampere. I got a ride with Sanni the the city which was really nice of them. Then wondered around the city until the others would come. I found out that on Saturdays they do all their advertising, and giving samples out. I got free cookies for walking into a grocery store, then two packets of margrine for walking past these guys giving margrine out. And a lot of newspapers, 'Jesus is coming soon' paper handerouttters, (yes that is a word in MY vocabulary) cool stuff. Then Sonja snuck up on me, she is from Illinois, we had some time to kill before the others would get there, so we headed to a kirpputorri! Yeah it had lots of good stuff. And surprisingly a lot of the really ugly stuff was also really expesive. We just didn't under stand it, but that's what you get sometimes. Then the other's popped out of nowhere. Josh from Flordia, Adam from Canada, and Clemence from France. We checked out a Salvation Army, tried on fur coats, sequine jackets, and unbrella swoards. Then headed to Wok Wok, for lunch it was stir fry type of meal, atempting to eat with only chop sticks took forever, but then again there's always a ton to talk about when you're with fellow exchange students! Soon we all had buses to catch, host families to catch up with, life, and so on. But on the bus ride home I saw a moose in the woods near the highway! At first I thought it was a big brown cow, but then was like... MOOSE!!! American hamburgers for dinner, yummy!
sunnuntai:
We went on a walk today. A traditional thing to do in Tampere, every year on a winter sunday hundreds of people walk on the lake, a kilometer ish out, to this light house where there was a ship wreck and around 150 people drowned. The walk has a name, I just can't find it on the internet yet, but I'm looking...okay the lighthouse is called Siilinkari, and it is in the lake called, Näsijärvi, I couldn't find the name of the event. Anyway, There were people skiing out there, biking, babies in sleads, babys on steaks, but really, everyone who has a baby, or small child, puts a fuzzy mat/rug in the slead, bundels the kid up, and tugs then around, not just on this walk thing, I've seen it many times before, just today there were so many of them! And some of them weren't even pulling the slead themselves, they hooked the slead to their dog, had their dog on a leash, and off they went! Crazy! We bought cold makara from some guy and found free spaces next to one of the many fire grills, and made our lunch. I also saw Adam from Canada hanging with his family. They had pretty much the exact same dogs my family has, two smallish white puffy puppies! ha Then we headed back home. And I cleaned and got rid of stuff I wouldn't need, exchange students a an awesome ability to collect the most random, unusable things! We discused this yesterday at Wok Wok, random napkins from random resturants, ours, and other compleatly random stuff to! Roosa studied for her history test by bundleing herself in my bed, eatting all my chocolate (I had way too much if there is a thing so I told her that she needed to eat it all), and telling me about Hitler. I also did laundry but after it was already half done I found like a pair of dirty socks... Hate that! Then we had waffles! yum! Awesome week! except the weekend went way too fast, I woke up on Monday thinking it was Sunday... nope : P
School again : P It was sooooo terrible trying to get up today! BLAH!!! But it was really great to see everyone again! My one friend was still sorta on vacation, coming home from some island near Portugal JELIOUSE!!! In a study hall we went to the library. I found a book call 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' ... hmmm so I will someday figure out what all that is about... Then pretty much a chill day the rest of the day.
tiistai:
Today I watched a bunch of really cute cat videos on the internet, which made me miss my cats even more! But the internet cats are so adorable! I can tell spring is starting to come our way. It says light outside soooo much later, I think we are up to around 6:30ish the sun gose down. I'm excited for grass, and unfrozen lakes that you can swim in for more than 10 seconds at a time. I mean I live right next to a lake, and my next family I will live next to a lake too so EXCITED FOR SPRING!!!
keskiviikko:
My friend, Piia, who went to that island somewhere in by Portugal came back to school today! She brought post cards and candy! YEAH! Someday I will eat candy from every country! A thing on my bucket list! After school we had gym, and for some reason only us 2nd grade girls showed up, so we played basketball. It was epic, my team didn't win, but we were sorta half-way close. But it was a lot of fun. Then I headed to band. Stopping at some stores on the way looking for an outfit that I could wear to the school party on Friday, I didn't find anything, but I have something in mind. Band was a lot of fun. A new girl around my age showed up to play the clarinet. It turns out she is going to Argentina on exchange next year, not with Rotary, but some other organization I can't remember, But it's still pretty cool. So I told her I could get her in touch with the girl here in Finland on exchange from Argentina. Yeah helpping!
torstai:
My friend Laura missed the bus today, and forgot her key to her house so she got to wait outside all day until her dad came home from work... That's not cool, but luckily spring is on it's way and it was a lot warmer than it could have been, It was hovering around freezing, so not too bad! In school I was suposed to have a study hall while everyone else had their 'mother tounge' class aka Finnish. But SOMEHOW I got dragged into the class, against my will. They said I had to sit in Laura's seat so the teacher wouldn't count Laura absent. But the teacher noticed it anyway, go figure. Anyway I choose my next periods' classes. I'll be taking: Tourism (the class that takes a trip to Riga, Latvia!!!) Swedish, German, and Russian... Game on! Then after school was our sewing class. I shortened my Vanhojen Tanssi dress to right above where I got a stain on it. Now it's a cute party dress for any occation. I still have a ton of that fabric left... Not really sure what I'll be able to do with it but we'll see. Then it was clean the house time when I got home. Sparkly!
perjantai:
Good morning FRIDAY!!! Not only is this the day that starts an amazing weekend of adventures, but... I didn't think that through, this is the day that starts an amazing weekend of adventures... what could be better than that. Only need to get thourgh the 6ish hours of school, which wasn't hard considering I had 2 study halls in the morning. So first off, I returned my bottle colection for 3.80€, nice! Then I tried to crack the code of a friends locker, she told me I couldn't figure it out by the end of the year, so I'm on it, It's a 4 number code, possiblity of 0-9 for each number, so Game on! Worked on my music project, Then classes, math and swedish, there was a 'ord test' (vocab quiz) but considering I didn't even realize that there was gonna be a quiz, I decided not to waste the paper to epicly fail. I know now that there is a quiz next friday, so I'll probably study for that one and we'll see what happens then. School's out! Sanni and Laura came to my place to chill before the Party. We youtube surffed, Then the anouncment about the earthquake in Japan showed up on the screen. So scary! I have exchange student friends here that are from Japan! I have no idea what I would do if something like that ever happened to me, I just hope everything is alright with them and all their families and friends! Scary... Then we got ready and hit the road to the party. It was great because pretty much all my friends decided to show up. We went for a snack at Final 1, a pizza/kebab place, we got french fries so I still have to go back there sometime to compaire their kebab's to the others that are around here. Then we just danced the night away, and crashed at Sanni's house. Awesome night!!!
lauantai:
Early morning! Sanni and her family were going to visit their grandma in Tampere today so we got up earliy, considering it was a non-school day after a late night, but it wasn't that hard to get up! I was excited about the adventure today. Exchange student get together in Tampere. I got a ride with Sanni the the city which was really nice of them. Then wondered around the city until the others would come. I found out that on Saturdays they do all their advertising, and giving samples out. I got free cookies for walking into a grocery store, then two packets of margrine for walking past these guys giving margrine out. And a lot of newspapers, 'Jesus is coming soon' paper handerouttters, (yes that is a word in MY vocabulary) cool stuff. Then Sonja snuck up on me, she is from Illinois, we had some time to kill before the others would get there, so we headed to a kirpputorri! Yeah it had lots of good stuff. And surprisingly a lot of the really ugly stuff was also really expesive. We just didn't under stand it, but that's what you get sometimes. Then the other's popped out of nowhere. Josh from Flordia, Adam from Canada, and Clemence from France. We checked out a Salvation Army, tried on fur coats, sequine jackets, and unbrella swoards. Then headed to Wok Wok, for lunch it was stir fry type of meal, atempting to eat with only chop sticks took forever, but then again there's always a ton to talk about when you're with fellow exchange students! Soon we all had buses to catch, host families to catch up with, life, and so on. But on the bus ride home I saw a moose in the woods near the highway! At first I thought it was a big brown cow, but then was like... MOOSE!!! American hamburgers for dinner, yummy!
sunnuntai:
We went on a walk today. A traditional thing to do in Tampere, every year on a winter sunday hundreds of people walk on the lake, a kilometer ish out, to this light house where there was a ship wreck and around 150 people drowned. The walk has a name, I just can't find it on the internet yet, but I'm looking...okay the lighthouse is called Siilinkari, and it is in the lake called, Näsijärvi, I couldn't find the name of the event. Anyway, There were people skiing out there, biking, babies in sleads, babys on steaks, but really, everyone who has a baby, or small child, puts a fuzzy mat/rug in the slead, bundels the kid up, and tugs then around, not just on this walk thing, I've seen it many times before, just today there were so many of them! And some of them weren't even pulling the slead themselves, they hooked the slead to their dog, had their dog on a leash, and off they went! Crazy! We bought cold makara from some guy and found free spaces next to one of the many fire grills, and made our lunch. I also saw Adam from Canada hanging with his family. They had pretty much the exact same dogs my family has, two smallish white puffy puppies! ha Then we headed back home. And I cleaned and got rid of stuff I wouldn't need, exchange students a an awesome ability to collect the most random, unusable things! We discused this yesterday at Wok Wok, random napkins from random resturants, ours, and other compleatly random stuff to! Roosa studied for her history test by bundleing herself in my bed, eatting all my chocolate (I had way too much if there is a thing so I told her that she needed to eat it all), and telling me about Hitler. I also did laundry but after it was already half done I found like a pair of dirty socks... Hate that! Then we had waffles! yum! Awesome week! except the weekend went way too fast, I woke up on Monday thinking it was Sunday... nope : P
Monday, March 7, 2011
Viikko Kolmekymmentä
maanantai:
So today was a really early day, woke up and to the airport around 5:30, funny cause today is the first day of our week long winter break, and I got up 2 hours earlier than I would have for school. Check in and security at the Helsinki airport went really fast so soon my parents and lil'brother were out of site, headed back home. I hung around the airport until it got light outside. Sitting on a bench, people watching, trying to guess if they were going off to vacation, or going home from vacation, and what land they were from. Not easy but I guessed about everyone right : P Headed to the center. Hung around there for an hour, then got a train ticket for 11, had an hour more to wait so I stuck around the station cause I was tired. There were some interesting folks who spend time in the train station... real interesting. I got to Tampere and planned on checking when the bus would head back, then spend some time shopping in the city, but once I got to the bus station, there was a bus there waiting, and I didn't feel like walking around anymore, so I just got on and headed home. Chilled for the rest of the day, I've been in 'go' mode for the past couple weeks, and it's not over yet!
tiistai:
Today Laura, Sanni, and I went to little Sweden (aka Ikea) A giant store full of anything to do with home decor... huge, we got lost many times and took many pictures. Found icecream for 50 cents! nice! Went we were done with Ikea, we went to the other mall, poked around, found my friend Niina in the grocery store and creeped on her for a while, popping out at her from behind the yoga matts, lots of fun. Then back home and chilling, catching up on Chelsea Lately online (almost the best show ever)
keskiviikko:
Early day again today. The fam headed out for a 5 hour drive North-ish to a place called Tahko vuori, A ski/holiday resort. The parking lot was on the lake... like literally all the cars were parked on the ice of the frosen lake. I know crazy huh! And on another part of the lake was a race track, you could pay 150€ to partake in a race, using one of their race cars, I didn't get to see a race happen, but for 150 it better be a pretty awesome race! Roosa and I went skiing. The mountain was much bigger than the mountain we went to on the Lapland tour. I think 24 routes down the mountain, and bunch of toe lifts and two chair lifts, so it was really neat! We skiied the entire rest of the day, and had tacos for lunch, which is now funny to me, cause the place is called tahko (pronouced pretty much like taco)
torstai:
Woke up, and headed out skiing again. Break for lunch was at a fire pit area at the bottom of the mountain were Susanna and Juha (along with many other people) were cooking sausages on a grate over a fire. Everyone kept an eye on their sausages, making sure they stayed in line, in their area. It was neat, and yummy! A few more hours of skiing and then we decided to switch to snow boarding! Some trips down the baby hill (or should I say falls) and we got on the lift to the medium babyish hill. I fell half way up the lift so started from there, Roosa made it the full way up. I actually think I got the semi hand of boarding, just don't fall. After snowboarding we headed in and went swimming. There was a cool slide, and an outdoor pool. We threw snowballs at eachother while trying to stay in the semi heated water for warmth. Pizza for dinner! Yum and we all were just so tired that we pretty much went right to sleep.
perjantai:
Breakfast and eatting leftovers from the fridge because we were heading back. Another 5 hour car ride. This time I wasn't so tired so I couldn't fall asleep, so I played the alphabet car game, which was hard here because they don't even use a lot of the letters so I had to keep an eye on the car's license plates which were all dirty because It was a bit above freezing, so the road sludge was crazy and the plates sometimes were unreadable. But I got through the alphabet in the 5 hours, except for the Åå, which I don't know if I count cause that's swedish and I'm in Finland, and a non-Swedish speaking part of Finland too... So we got home and I was dead tired after the ride and two days of skiing! SLEEP!
lauantai:
Daddy's Birthday today! I skyped with them a bit, then just hung around most of the day... Cut my hair... the usual haha. At night I watched The Miss Suomi (Miss Finland) contest, It was interesting, there was one of the contestant's final 10 who lives in Nokia, like half hour from my house! It was funny to see that in the contestaint's photos, they were smiling with teeth. But I've noticed that non-contestant Finns don't smile with teeth when taking a picture... Intersting... What do they find beautiful then, a toothy grin or a non toothy grin... yet another thing to figure out about these Finns.
sunnuntai:
Early day today, It's Rotary's winter day at a local ski mountain about 30mins from where I live. I'll be trying my hand at snow boarding again so... We got there, and I got to see all my rotary friends again! Awesome!!! We hit the slopes, most of them had never skiied or snow boarded before Finland, but the ones who have been here all winter (we call oldies, all the kids who came to Finland in August like me) Then the newbies are from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina, This was one of the newbies first times going down a snow covered mountain, but they all caught on really fast! We had more sausages at a grill ontop of the moutain, I think sausages are like their picknic food. Then just hung out. Soon the day was over and everyone left, lots of hugs all around. And I went home and realized school started again on Monday... I hadn't done any homework, not even sure what homework I had because the week before winter holiday I hadn't really gone to school because my parents and brother were visiting... woops, oh well.
So today was a really early day, woke up and to the airport around 5:30, funny cause today is the first day of our week long winter break, and I got up 2 hours earlier than I would have for school. Check in and security at the Helsinki airport went really fast so soon my parents and lil'brother were out of site, headed back home. I hung around the airport until it got light outside. Sitting on a bench, people watching, trying to guess if they were going off to vacation, or going home from vacation, and what land they were from. Not easy but I guessed about everyone right : P Headed to the center. Hung around there for an hour, then got a train ticket for 11, had an hour more to wait so I stuck around the station cause I was tired. There were some interesting folks who spend time in the train station... real interesting. I got to Tampere and planned on checking when the bus would head back, then spend some time shopping in the city, but once I got to the bus station, there was a bus there waiting, and I didn't feel like walking around anymore, so I just got on and headed home. Chilled for the rest of the day, I've been in 'go' mode for the past couple weeks, and it's not over yet!
tiistai:
Today Laura, Sanni, and I went to little Sweden (aka Ikea) A giant store full of anything to do with home decor... huge, we got lost many times and took many pictures. Found icecream for 50 cents! nice! Went we were done with Ikea, we went to the other mall, poked around, found my friend Niina in the grocery store and creeped on her for a while, popping out at her from behind the yoga matts, lots of fun. Then back home and chilling, catching up on Chelsea Lately online (almost the best show ever)
keskiviikko:
Early day again today. The fam headed out for a 5 hour drive North-ish to a place called Tahko vuori, A ski/holiday resort. The parking lot was on the lake... like literally all the cars were parked on the ice of the frosen lake. I know crazy huh! And on another part of the lake was a race track, you could pay 150€ to partake in a race, using one of their race cars, I didn't get to see a race happen, but for 150 it better be a pretty awesome race! Roosa and I went skiing. The mountain was much bigger than the mountain we went to on the Lapland tour. I think 24 routes down the mountain, and bunch of toe lifts and two chair lifts, so it was really neat! We skiied the entire rest of the day, and had tacos for lunch, which is now funny to me, cause the place is called tahko (pronouced pretty much like taco)
torstai:
Woke up, and headed out skiing again. Break for lunch was at a fire pit area at the bottom of the mountain were Susanna and Juha (along with many other people) were cooking sausages on a grate over a fire. Everyone kept an eye on their sausages, making sure they stayed in line, in their area. It was neat, and yummy! A few more hours of skiing and then we decided to switch to snow boarding! Some trips down the baby hill (or should I say falls) and we got on the lift to the medium babyish hill. I fell half way up the lift so started from there, Roosa made it the full way up. I actually think I got the semi hand of boarding, just don't fall. After snowboarding we headed in and went swimming. There was a cool slide, and an outdoor pool. We threw snowballs at eachother while trying to stay in the semi heated water for warmth. Pizza for dinner! Yum and we all were just so tired that we pretty much went right to sleep.
perjantai:
Breakfast and eatting leftovers from the fridge because we were heading back. Another 5 hour car ride. This time I wasn't so tired so I couldn't fall asleep, so I played the alphabet car game, which was hard here because they don't even use a lot of the letters so I had to keep an eye on the car's license plates which were all dirty because It was a bit above freezing, so the road sludge was crazy and the plates sometimes were unreadable. But I got through the alphabet in the 5 hours, except for the Åå, which I don't know if I count cause that's swedish and I'm in Finland, and a non-Swedish speaking part of Finland too... So we got home and I was dead tired after the ride and two days of skiing! SLEEP!
lauantai:
Daddy's Birthday today! I skyped with them a bit, then just hung around most of the day... Cut my hair... the usual haha. At night I watched The Miss Suomi (Miss Finland) contest, It was interesting, there was one of the contestant's final 10 who lives in Nokia, like half hour from my house! It was funny to see that in the contestaint's photos, they were smiling with teeth. But I've noticed that non-contestant Finns don't smile with teeth when taking a picture... Intersting... What do they find beautiful then, a toothy grin or a non toothy grin... yet another thing to figure out about these Finns.
sunnuntai:
Early day today, It's Rotary's winter day at a local ski mountain about 30mins from where I live. I'll be trying my hand at snow boarding again so... We got there, and I got to see all my rotary friends again! Awesome!!! We hit the slopes, most of them had never skiied or snow boarded before Finland, but the ones who have been here all winter (we call oldies, all the kids who came to Finland in August like me) Then the newbies are from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina, This was one of the newbies first times going down a snow covered mountain, but they all caught on really fast! We had more sausages at a grill ontop of the moutain, I think sausages are like their picknic food. Then just hung out. Soon the day was over and everyone left, lots of hugs all around. And I went home and realized school started again on Monday... I hadn't done any homework, not even sure what homework I had because the week before winter holiday I hadn't really gone to school because my parents and brother were visiting... woops, oh well.
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