Viikko Neljätoista

maanantai:
3 months Suomessa! It's crazy that a 1/4 of a year had already gone by! SO FAST!!! The snow from last night lasted! Maybe we have about 5 cm... That was fun to ride my bike in! In art class we painted, that was a lot of fun! Then in my study hall I went to the music room where the music teacher told myself, and another student about this one music project course where you work on making music with computers and technology and recording. So that was really cool! When I got home from school, the gas man was there, well so was everyone else... After he got done working Anssi and him had coffee and sandwiches in the kitchen. I didn't get the feeling that they really knew each other, so maybe it's customary here to feed people after they work on your house... I'll have to look into that more!

tiistai:
My finnish lesson was really great, we looked up good websites for me to study with because he is going to be going to France for the whole month of December. My friends taught me the ''Itzy bitzy spider'' song! Their spider is on it's web. Which made me think... why is the English spider in a water spout? What did he think was going to happen... it is a WATER spout! That spider was just asking to be 'washed out', now the poor Finnish spider... he was just minding his own bussiness in his own web, and the rain came! Crazy English spider! The ride home wasn't a cake walk, for the first (and only time so far knock on wood) that I half-way wiped out in the snow. I caught myself so I never hit the ground, but my pride was hurt cause there was a decent amount of people around, a car driving by, and old lady on a rolatteri, and some other kids coming home from school. So I just jumpped back on, giggled, and got out of there fast! Another polka/chour band practice today! It was a lot of fun, and the other French hornist (a different one than last time) looked a lot like Angelina Joe Lee, only pregnant... and a really talented horn player!

keskiviikko:
It snowed last night, so there was even more snow on the way to school, in some places they hadn't snowed the walking/biking paths yet so I had to walk a bit. I also built a tiny snow man! I couldn't resist, the snow was perfect for it! My one friend Piia wasn't there today, she went to the doctors earliy that morning with stomach problems and she was sent to the Tampere hospital to have her appendix removed! Wow, but everything went okay. The whole school day was spent shoeless! I liked it so much, many people just wear their wool socks and take their shoes off as soon as they get in the school cause of the wetness. Anyway, it was a good time! Puhallica was really good, and the second half I woked with the a pianist on some of the things I'm going to play for a church mass in a couple weeks. That went really well! Oh also tonight I got my phone bill... ohhhhhh noooooo for the entire time I've been here.... my phone bill was 8.39€!!! haha big money!

torstai:
Today's like a friday cause there's no school tomorow!!! YEAH!!! The town saves money by ''laying off the teachers'' a couple days a year, so when the teachers are going to be at school, the kids definatly are either! The teacher's werent so happy about this, but the kids weren't complaining! My study hall I spent again in the music room working on the computer/music thing. I didn't say for tanssi kurssi cause I had my lesson. That went really well too! On the walk from Ismo's house to the bus stop it was snowing, and I had plenty of time so I made patterns in the snow, a foot-print trail that zigged and zagged, and loopy looped... That was a good time, and then I pasted a women walking her dog. I just giggled and walked staighter so she didn't think I was on something. Then after a while I couldn't help but looking back and I saw her just standing there looking at the trail I made, then she looked back at me, and I continued on my way...

perjantai:
Long, but great day! No school! But I didn't sleep in too much cause I had things to do! I went to the kirpputorri and found amazing boots! Really warm and only 5€ Juhani, Johanna, and Eija said that I found a treasure! Score! Then I rode to Tokamanni and K Supermarket. And back. That took a while! Then I waited for Juhani, and Johanna to come home because today was our family night, and they were coming in the daytime to start cooking. They came and we started on the gingerbread cookies. Johanna and I cut them into shapes and put them on the baking sheet, while Juhani worked on cutting heads off a couple angel shapes, and amputating some gingerbread men legs, and eatting them like a mad man. haha. Then Johanna took the extra dough left over and rolled some blue cheese in to it. Believe it or not, those tasted really good! Blue cheese here is called 'sininen homejuusto' which translates to 'blue mold-cheese' yumm the Finns tell it like it is! Next Antti came home, then Anssi, then Eija. We ate hamburgers, first hamburger in a long time, first hamburger EVER eatten with a fork and knife! I know they eat pizza with fork and knife but I thought 'No way can the eat burgers that way' but just to be sure, I ate my salad until everyone had started on their hamburger... guess what... fork and knife it was! I said 'wow this is my first hamburger with fork and knife' Johanna explained that sometimes they don't use forks with hamburgers, but since they had a glass of wine, they were keeping it classy (well that's my translation) haha, Then we had dessert, ice cream with a mint chocolate-covered warmed pear, and a liquorice cigar yummy! After dessert we played Trivial Pursuit (with teams cause of the whole language thing) I was on Johanna's team, Anssi and Antti, and Juhani and Eija. Johanna and I started strong, getting the first color triangle thingy, but that what the only one we got : P Antti and Anssi was in the lead the majority of the game. And it was a long game! around 12:30 (Anssi had already been in bed for a while) we started the quick fire round. And out of no where, Eija and Juhani answered maybe 4 questions in a row correctly getting all the colors before Antti could (and he only had one color left) he wasn't too happy about that, but Eija and Juhani were very pleased. Then we all crashed! Hyvää Yotä!

lauantai:
Today was a sleepy day, woke up late and everyone was still kinda tired from last night. Just hanging out. Then I headed off to the concert I was playing in. The concert was awesome! The mens choir did really well, and then a famous (Finnish famous) opera singer that was born in Hämeenkyrö came and sang too! He was amazing! They had intermission and coffee and cake were offered to everyone! It surprised me that one, it was free, and two, everyone got the same drink, coffee, and just one type of cake, glutin free or not. Now that I'm thinking about it, I haven't heard the word, ''decaf'' in a very long time... is there decaf coffee here? I don't know... I haven't seen any orange rings on coffee pots either... hmmm. Well after the second part of the consert was over, many people left. But many stayed because that's when the band I was in played all the dancing songs! It was the greatest thing I've ever seen! Waltz, Tango, Cha-cha, Swing, you name it, we played it, and they danced it! It was so much fun, they danced for a good 2 hours! And by the end there were only a couple of pairs left dancing. One pair that seemed like they were professional dancers, two pairs of older people that may have had too much to drink, just swaying back and forth holding onto eachother tight so they didn't fall, and then the rest of the ten pairs were really cute old couples! It was a great/long night again. I got back home around 10:30.

sunnuntai:
HYVÄÄ ISÄNPÄIVÄ!!! Today is Finnish father's day! After sleepping in (again) and lounging around for the morning, we headed off to Eija's father's house for a family get together. It was a full house! Eija's brother and his long time girl friend. Then Eija's sister, her husband, and their daughter and here husband and new baby, and Eija's sister's son and his new wife (the couple I went to their wedding the first night I met this family) Then Eija's mom and dad, and our whole family! We had food, I got another taste at moose meat! This time it was a cold cut of meat, and again it was really good. It had a simlar taste to roastbeef, but different! Then we had cake, and everyone just talked. Eija's mother told a bunch of really funny stories (in Finnish) but luckily they were translated to me! After many hours there, we headed back to the house, gave presents to Anssi, I made him a card, and then we said our ''So long for now's'' because the kids aren't coming back home next Friday and I'm moving Saturday. Busy weekend! And tomorow is a busy day too!