Language Camp

Language camp is very awesome. I will say that. So I got here back on Sunday night and it is like wednesday now, or at least it was when I am typing this, I have no idea when I am going to be able to finish this and put it online. Everyday usually starts the same. We get up at like 7:30 and we all shower and get ready, then we walk down the hill from our dorm to the main building where we have all our lectures, lessons, meals and where the internet is so in the lobby whenever there is free time in the couch area there are tons of people crowded around on their laptops on the internet, and lots of people sykpe at night. So once in our main building everybody heads down to the cafeteria, some of the smart people go on the internet when everybody goes to breakfast, that way less people are on their computers and the internet is faster, but this happens more for lunch and dinner instead of breakfast because everyone is hungry in the morning.

The Main Sign 

The Main Building 

The "Internet Cafe"

Everybody worked on their computers! 

 So breakfast usually exists of open sandwiches and either cereal and oatmeal. Then we go and sit with people. I sit with different people everyday it seems like, with people from Canada, USA, France, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Taiwan and an assortment of other countries. It is always fun to try and cross the language barrier, unfortunately when I came here I forgot all of my french so that isn’t so good, and my spanish is not polished since I have barely ever used it with people who speak it. So then after breakfast we go to the hall and get our morning information and hyvää huomenta. Then we either go to lessons or have a lecture. Lectures are very fun, so far we have had three. The first one was on the finnish school system, which was very helpful because I needed to be told how school works from an actual finn, not just random websites on the internet. We had another one that was on the finnish way of life, which I didn’t enjoy as much as the school system one, but I liked the lady who gave the lectures a lot, she was a very fun person. Then we had another one that was about a year in Finland. It was pretty good, it was done by a different person, but I didn’t like her any less than the first lady. All the lectures were pretty good, the only problem was that it was sitting in a room for an hour and a half and let lag usually would kick in, though jet lag kicked in more when I am in lessons. 

One of our lectures 

In the main hall where we have our lectures 

Lessons are pretty good, but I feel like I know a lot of the stuff that they have taught me. Though it is nice to be taught this in a class. Then we usually have lunch which usually is soup and open sandwiches, and meat and it has always been a different variety of food. As I am half norwegian, I am quite used to the kinds of foods that they have here, but I am not used to only this kind of food, and I really like it. It is very healthy. 

Yum, Finnish Foods 

So then after lunch we have more lessons/ lectures and then eventually we have dinner. Which is usually the same type of food as lunch. They also always have this drink called kotikalja which is like a non alcoholic beer, and I tried it once, and it was quite interesting.....had a lot of yeast in it, so it is not for me. :( After dinner we usually have free time the rest of the night when we go to Sauna, and swimming, and hang out in the internet area. I really like this time. It is a good time to talk to people and stuff. 

Then we also have evening snack, the best one we had was down by the lake and we had some sort of finnish crepe, and it was possibly the best thing that I have had the entire trip! Then eventually we make our way to bed at 10:30. Overall every day is good. I have made lots of friends from both the US and from countries all over the world, which is always fun. I will have more on Language Camp soon and some on my trip to Tampere, and how I practiced finnish with finns! 

The Evening snack by the lake that we had one evening, this crepe-type thing is possibly the best food in the world! Haha, maybe not, but it was pretty delicious! 

Anyways! Sorry that it took me several days, but the internet at the language camp sucks because so many people were using it!