Waiting for my Hair to Dry...

Since I just dyed my hair the other day, and then tonight decided to take a shower at 10:30 at night, I can't really go to sleep with wet hair without some dye getting on my sheets, so I am waiting for my hair to dry before I go to sleep, and being an environmentalist, I don't really use a hair dryer often, so I am staying up...and that means I have time to kill, instead of doing a whole list of other things that I have to do, I am going to blog! Since I just uploaded a bunch of pictures from my camera anyways.

Having recently lost my camera in the picnics of Vappu, then being depressed about it for a week and then being the happiest exchange student in the world when I found out that someone had turned it in, I now realize that I need to take a lot more pictures, though I think I would have started taking a bunch more pictures lately, even if I hadn't lost my camera for a week, because this is my last full month in Finland, so I need to take pictures of every place that I go, in case it is among the last times that I see said places and things. So here are some pictures from my life lately....

Finnish pride...

Exchange Students

We are spelling out "Finland" I am part of the "N"

Go Finland!

At School

My street...Summer is coming! It looks a lot more green than it did when I arrived!

My computer

My desk..a bit messy...but I finally cleaned it today! But the main thing is that I still have my gift bag from Fazer

In my room, my computer again, an important part of life!

My school, unfortunately ALL of my classes are on the top floor...

During art class

My boyfriend is Karl Fazer...

Trying to journal...but the internet distracts me..

And so does this chocolate....

You know where my priorities are...

Turku Symphony Orchestra building

Finnkino..the only movie theater in Turku

Good news! My hair is dry now! Which means I can go to sleep!

Stay tuned for next post! 

Seuraava posti tulee pian! 

Lately....

Hyvää Päivää!!

It has been forever since I last blogged!!!!! I know! But in my defense, I have been busy, like really busy! But I know I have to blog, so I am just going to go through some things that are going on. 

It is May! Which is awful! Because that means that I only have two and a half months left of exchange, which is a thought that is looming over me like crazy! It sucks that I am leaving soon. I really don’t want to go back, though some times I find myself thinking that it isn’t all that bad, but most of the time I think that going back is bad. School is ending soon, which is terrible! Especially because usually May is one of my favorite months of the year because school is wrapping up, and now I hate it for exactly that reason! But oh well, Eurotour is coming! Which starts exactly the day after school ends, but I will tell you more about that later on! 

This was a actually from a while ago, I haven't imported all my May photos yet, this one is from April sometime

On the first of May it was a holiday in Finland, so people got off of work and school. It is international labor day, and Finland is one of the many countries that celebrates it. But Finland's tradition on May Day is very different from other countries. It is called Vappu in finnish. On the 30 of April, every one goes to the city center, and there were many people there when we went. There was at least 30, 000 people there. They completely covered the square and the hill next to the square, and then at exactly 6:00 in the evening, everyone who has every graduated from High School puts on their graduation hats (it is very traditional to keep your graduation hat here) and the graduation hats are different from american hats. They almost resemble sailor hats. So they are all white. It is really cool to see all those people with white hats in the center, wearing them. And it is tradition for you to wear your graduation hats for the rest of the night on the 30 of April and all of the first of May. So then after everyone puts their hats on in the center, people make their way to parties and party hard for the rest of the night, and late into the night. Many many people get drunk, and everyone always has a glass of champagne at all times. I have come to the conclusion that Vappu in Finland is by far the greatest day in the world's champagne industry. 

So then the next day, people spend the day in the parks, in picnics, and the parks were crowded! I went with some of my finnish friends and one of my exchange friends from a small town outside Turku, who came for the day. After the picnics my exchange friend and I went to the carnival that was in town and that was exciting. 

This doesn't even begin to show how many people were in that park! But my camera disappeared before I could take any more pictures..

Unfortunately I lost my camera in the picnics of Vappu, putting a damper on what would otherwise be a perfect day, but thankfully a week later we checked with the police and someone had turned it in!!! Which was just incredible and I was so thankful! I still find myself staring at it, thinking "is this real? Did I lose my camera there and someone actually turned it in??" Now I am taking a lot of pictures! Though this leads to tons and tons of eye rolls of my finnish friends, and even some of my exchange friends, I understand the most importance of the taking pictures, now that I have been without my camera for a week 

Lately I have been baking Pulla, which is a very finnish bread. I now am baking it every friday, as to prepare myself for when I bake it in the states, and everyone will be at awe of the amazing finnish foods! 

I went to the Karl Fazer chocolate factory the other day. For those of you who aren’t finnish, Karl Fazer is a finnish chocolate, sweets, bread, and other delicious food company. The most famous of all their food is their milk chocolate, which I know I have mentioned in this blog as being something I spend a lot of my money on...and it is safely said the greatest chocolate in the history of the world. Period. No question. So it was amazing to go to the factory and see where the headquarters are. We were able to eat as much chocolate as our stomachs could hold, and that was amazing! Though, I was expecting more of a Willy Wonka thing, I learned that it is indeed just a factory...nothing all that magical about it..though when you taste the chocolate you think otherwise...

Om nom nom..chocolate...and even better, all you can eat chocolate! 

The World championships of Ice Hockey is happening right now, and since Finland won last year, the games are in Finland. Finnish flags are everywhere and there is so much advertising and crazy Finland things around. It is very exciting! And Finland is very good! Hopefully they will win again this year! 

Nähdän mun paras ystävä Coloradosta huomenna. Hän on Monica Weller, sä voit nähdä hänen bloggi täällä. Olen onnelinen että nähdän hän, koska viime aika nähdäin hän oli Tammikuu! Hän on kuin mun sisko! :D Myös Eurotour:lle me olemme ydessä huonessa ja emme nukua koska me puhu niin paljon! 

Pian mul on esitys Rotarylla! On suomeksi....ja mul on pelkää! 

See you all soon!!!!

Nähdään!!!

The Christmas Moon

(For English, scroll down) 

Tämä blogikirjoitus on minun ensimmäinen kerta kiroittaa suomeksi. En ole kirjoittaa paljon, mutta haluan kokeilla...Myös mul on Google Translate, sitten, jos et ymmärrä, tuo on miksi...ja en ole hyvin suomi kanssa...

No, niin, on Joulu tänään. On minun ensimmäinen joulu pois kotista. Ja oli hyvä. Ei on kuin minun normaali Joulu, ja tuo on miksi oli hyvä. Alkaa marraskuussa. Mä kuulen joulu laulut. Ja mä lauluin joulu laulut lapsille ja vanha ihmiset. Oli kiva, mä menein yliopisto vaihto-oppilas kanssa, ja me laulumme paljon erilainen kielissä. Me laulumme Petteri Punakuono japaniksi. Meidän oli vain yksi japanilainen oppilas, niin me olimme oikea huono japani kieli kanssa. 

Myös, menein Joulu puoluet. Ja olivät kiva. Puoluessat me vaihtomme lahjat. Saain teeta, ja suomen elokuva niminsa “Napapiirin Sankarit” En katso ennen, mut kaikki sanoi että on paras elokuva. Olen jännittynyt katsoa se! Myös katsoin joulu elokuvat, paljon on amerikalainen elokuva, mutta katsoin yksi joulu elokuva suomeksi! Ei kanssa englanti sanat! Kastoin elokuva “Rare Exports” on tosi erilainen...en ymmärrä paljon koska paljon oli suomeksi, mutta katsoin se, niin ymmärrän jotain! 

Saaimme joulupuu kaksi päivä sitten, tuo on toinen asia miksi ei näytta silta kuin joulu, koska, USA:ssa, me saamme meidän joulupuu alku joulukuu, ja meidän puu talossa kaikki joulukuu. On ihana, mutta on kiva saada puu nyt myös, mutta se tunte lisää joulu puu kanssa kaikki kuukauta. 

No niin, kun kijoittan suomeksi, saan paljon aika, tämä oli lähellä kaks tuntea....haha mutta olin myös katsoin Leijonakuningas (suomeksi) sitten olin katsoin tuo ja kirjoittaa. Tiedän paljon suomen ystäväni lue tämä, niin nyt tiedät että ymmärrän jotain! Haha! 

Ja nyt...on to english...

Apologies to all those who do not speak finnish, that last part was merely me trying to see if I could do a blog post in finnish...haha, and I hope that it isn’t as bad as I know that it is! Writing in english is sooo much easier!!! Mostly because of a much wider range of vocabulary!!! Even though nowadays I cannot speak english worth crap! Every time I open my mouth I stutter, can’t express myself, and utterly end up looking so incredibly stupid! For my all my readers who have not experienced their native language deteriorating before their eyes, it is like having a “brain fart” every 5 seconds, every single day of your life. It is quite an unpleasant feeling. In my own head I can not express myself, so it starts to get seriously painful sometimes..

But anyways...

This blog post’s name is a reference to the finnish word for December, which literally translates to Christmas Moon. So, as you guessed it, this post is about Christmas, and all the christmas things that I have been doing lately. 

So, in the US, the Christmas season starts after right after thanksgiving, and here it starts at about the same time. Mostly it officially starts the last weekend in November. In The Us, we have thanksgiving, and that is a point that marks when you can start decorating for christmas, and nobody dares decorating before then, but here they don’t have thanksgiving so they don’t really have a point that people can decorate for christmas and still be socially excepted, so you could notice christmas trees springing up mid november, but still nobody really decorates until December. And their “decorating is really nothing is comparison to the american version of decorating. In the US we always go around the neighborhoods looking at different christmas lights that the neighbors have, and then there is always a couple houses that don’t really put out a whole bunch, maybe one bush decorated, well that is probably the average here, many people don’t really have a lot of lights at all, and I haven’t seen anyone who really lights up their yard like an american. 

Another thing that is really different is that here they get their christmas tree really close to Christmas, which I don’t like as much because it is really nice to have the christmas tree in the house much earlier. It really makes Christmas a lot longer. 

Our Christmas Tree

Turku is the Christmas capital of Finland. Though many residents of Turku say that it really isn’t anything special. As much as I love this city,  I must take the side of the many residents. The lights that they do have are really beautiful, but they don’t have very much at all, in my opinion. But they do have this Christmas market that starts in the last weekend in November and then is every weekend of December up until Christmas. I went three times. It is a really nice market, in the old town square right next to the big cathedral. Many people with hand-made crafts come there and sell their stuff. Much of it is not something that I would buy, but it is still nice to go and see. 

The first time I went to the christmas market was in the end of november and I went for the lighting of the town’s christmas tree. Which actually a very huge tree, but they put it right in front of the cathedral, which is the tallest building in Turku, so it looks pretty pathetic. But it is still very nice. When we went we looked around in the market and we saw these people dressed as presents and some tent with a troll/elf head on it, do some weird dance. It was among the weirdest things that I have ever been seen performed.....

Another Christmas tradition that the finns have is to make Joulutortu and drink Glögi. This is a very scandinavian thing, though I have never seen it before, so I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t common in Norway or it is just something that my norwegian family has never had for tradition. 

Joulutortu are flakey pastries shaped like stars with plum jam in the middle. They are very good, but are had to eat without getting flakes everywhere. Glögi is a Christmas drink that you buy in cartons and then heat up on the stove. Then you pour it in cups and some people put almond slices and raisins in, but I think that they are just annoying, particularly the almond slices because they don’t sink so you might accidentally swallow one when you are drinking and that is never good. 

Making JouluTortu

End results 

Something else that I did was go Christmas caroling with some University exchange students and we sang in many different languages. It was really fun, but those languages which I haven’t studied before, so I don’t know how to pronounce anything, like German and Japanese, it was hard to sing in. They were only a couple of us, three exchange students and then a couple finns. We went to a local primary school where we saw the children, who were so cute, and then we went to and Retirement home and sang to them. It was really fun. We sang in English, Finnish, French, Spanish, Swedish, German, Japanese, and one that I don’t know what it was... I think the most weird part of the experience was singing Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer in Japanese...

Christmas Caroling group 

I was expecting to get and love all the christmas carols in finnish, but honestly have found that even though it is nice to hear them in another language, I have grown up with them in english and when it is something from your childhood, you like to be able to sing along and have it the same as it always has been. So it is nice to hear them in finnish, but for me christmas carols will always be best in english. 

I usually always go to church on Christmas eve, and so I thought that I was going to miss that this year. But I did get two chances to go to church. Back in mid december, when it was Santa Lucia day, a swedish holiday that finland has taken up because of it’s Swedish speaking population where girls get voted to be Lucia and then walk through schools,churches, ect. singing. And I went to church last Thursday morning for the school, we all were able to go to our school’s christmas church service, which was in the main cathedral in town. It was nice. It was a classic christmas church service, except it was student’s from the school singing. And many of the people in the church were from the school. 

Santa Lucia day 

The Cathedral after our school's service 

Anyways, In Finland they celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve, so yesterday was all the excitement and today is just a relaxing day. But that is a bit annoying because always when I was little, after opening all my presents, I knew that there was 365 days until the next christmas, and that always made me sad, but celebrating it a day earlier is just a rip off, because now for the first time ever, I have 366 days until the next christmas.... -.-....But later today I will skype with my family, and online a lot of people have been saying that skyping with their family’s on Christmas brings on the tears....great.....

Christmas food was definitely different 

Seniors, Sailing and Swedish

So much happened in the last three days! I have no idea how I am ever going to be able to write about all of it! But I will try!

Friday: I woke up and do what I do every morning....groan! It is wayyyyy too early! But I eventually climbed out of bed and got ready. I knew that it was the celebration of 100 mornings before I got to school, yet I was not sure if I should be dreading this or looking forward to it as a totally new and awesome experience. The celebration of 100 mornings is something that happens in every finnish high school, I know this because some of the other exchange students all across Finland that I know have been talking about this day right around this week. It is the day when the 3 years (or what americans would call seniors) celebrate that they only have 100 more mornings that they have to get up before they leave Lukio. The 3rd years leave school around February and they have a couple months where they have to study for the end of high school exams, which are like day long tests that test everything that you have learned in your three years in Lukio. This does take literally months to study because in three years of finnish school they cover the equivalent of like 7 years in american school because they go through everything so fast and cover so much. And you have to remember everything. My host father keeps saying that they ought to have it in the US, but he is just saying that because it is so demanding and he is teasing me that in the US school is so easy....... But anyways back to the day of 100 mornings...The seniors have the day all for them where they get to completely make over the 5th floor of the school and all of them get to dress up to match the theme.

ABI is the finnish word for seniors 

This year's theme was Hollywood. So everyone dressed up as characters from different movies. There was everything from Legally Blonde, to Darth Vader to Avatar. It was really cool because mostly everybody had very nice costumes. And of course the best part for them was that they all brought lipstick and colored on the 1st and 2nd year's faces.

The lipstick was the best part for them...not for an innocent bystander...like my face. But I was one of the lucky ones. Some third year dressed up like the joker from Batman was going to put some more lipstick but he didn't, he said why in finnish and walked away, and one of my friends said that he said that my face didn't need any more lipstick because I had such a beautiful smile and he didn't want to ruin it. I don't know if this was something that my friend said just to make my day or what the 3rd year actually said, but it still made me smile.

Coming in to Lipstick my face 

Thankfully I didn't have the worst looking face 

I only had two classes one in the morning and then after that I had a free period where I followed some of the 3rd years around when they went from class to class getting people to do embarrassing dances and then coloring their faces It was really fun. I really liked this day. It makes me want a day like this in the US.

Basically just a party day for the 3rd years 

People kept asking me if there is anything like this in the US, and I kept telling them that there kinda is, but it isn't really the entire school that participates, just different sport's teams that do different things, and then I would tell them about kidnapping and how our seniors would come and get us at 2 am in the middle of January. It doesn't really compare to this where the entire school participates and all the teachers let the seniors come in and dance on their desks and color on their kids faces.

The funniest part of today is that there are a bunch of students from Japan visiting for like a week to see why finnish school is so good, and today was their first day observing classes.....that must be very interesting to see what they thought of excellent school systems now....

After the exciting part of the day was over and school was almost over, people started cleaning up and taking down the decorations And I eventually left school, but the fun of the weekend was just beginning, instead of taking the bus, my host mother picked me up and we drove home and got ready for a weekend on a sail boat in the finnish archipelago. I took a shower of course and washed all the lipstick off of my face. Luckily it came off easily. I was talking to the second years at lunch about what they will think that their 100 morning celebration will be like and they told me that they will most defiantly will be using waterproof mascara so it doesn't come off as easily as lipstick. Luckily I will not be around for that....so we got ready and I grabbed all my stuff, and we drove two hours to the east to where our sail boat that we rented was docked, I slept most of this trip because I was so tired after getting up at seven for the last five days.

My neighbor and I 

We then sailed off to the west through many islands. We spent a lot of time using the motor of the boat because it wasn't the windiest time, but we did use the sail a lot on Friday and it was really nice and peaceful. The weather wasn't the best on Friday, it was kinda raining, but It was not that bad. We had prepared for the worst weather and only brought warm clothes. It was very nice though. I think that the weather was pretty good on the first night and on Saturday and Sunday it was amazing! So we sailed through the archipelago and the first night we stayed at an island called Borstö. It was really nice. It was a very natural harbor, with only a wooden dock and a disgusting outhouse. There were a couple summer houses on the island and one other boat docked for the night. It was nice though. At night we had a delicious dinner, played some finnish/swedish card games and I also showed some pictures of Colorado to them.

This was the place that we stayed the first night, not the most developed place, but that is also an upside to it. 

The next morning I slept in, which was very nice because I haven't slept in since last Sunday because mornings are so early and I hate it! It felt so nice to have slept long enough! In the morning we had the typical finnish breakfast: Sandwiches, which is quite good. By the end of this year I am going to be addicted to dark bread, which is something that I have never seen in the US, so that will be difficult so say goodbye to! I also had tea outside the boat in the crisp morning air which was very nice. The two kids in our neighbors family went into the water and so did my host mother, they dove off the end of the boat a couple times, it looked nice, but I didn't feel like getting into my bathing suit and then getting all soaked, so I decided that I would go swimming tonight.

My new red boots! I wish that I could say that they are Nokia boots but sadly they are not, but just as good! These will defiantly come in handy in Colorado when all the snow is melting in the spring and there are more puddles than cars in the parking lots in Summit County! 

We took off and spent the entire day sailing. I really liked the landscape because the finnish archipelago kind of looks like Norway and it made me happy to be surrounded by the islands. They were quite beautiful. All day it was totally sunny, which was awesome! But there wasn't much wind so we didn't use the sails the whole day. It was really nice though. Then on Saturday night we stayed at an island with much nicer facilities than the first one I must say... There was a nice restaurant and they had a sauna and it was a lot nicer, but less natural, but I was fine with that...as long as the toilet wasn't an outhouse I was fine! The island's name was Korpoström.

So we got in our bathing suits and jumped off the dock that was there. It was quite fun and the water was very warm, it was 22 celcius...which is like 71 farenthiegh...it was at least on the surface when the sun was shining. But it was still a good temperature. We jumped in several times and then we went into the Sauna and stayed in the sauna and then back to the water for some swimming and then back in the sauna, it was overall really really nice.

Our boat is the one that I am swimming in front of 

And I was so patriotic that I wore my american flag bathing suit 

Then after a while in the sauna and swimming we eventually went back to the boat and got dressed and then we went to dinner at the restaurant that was there. I ordered grilled beef with garlic butter and it was honestly the best piece of meat that I have ever had in my life...it seemed like nothing could beat my grandma's ham, but this beef just did. IT WAS AMAZING! I was so depressed when it was gone. While I was eating it, I had an amazing view of the sunset going down over the archipelago, and I had one of those feelings like everything in life is totally perfect. It was so nice. So then for dessert I had some italian dessert, which was pretty good, kinda thick and I was really full after I had eaten everything, but overall I was very very pleased with my meal, I was even tempted to ask for the chef to tell him that I had never eaten anything more delicious in my life.

Before I had tasted the best food in the world

After....sadness

The cutest little girl evar! And she spoke english like fluently and she has never been taught it! She just picked it up from TV! 

My host dad 

My host mom 

My dessert 

Our boat after the sun went down 

It was so beautiful! 

So afterwards we played more cards and saw some pictures I had from Hawaii and then we went to bed.

The next morning I slept in so when I woke up we were already on our way back. We had the same breakfast, which is so good, and then we spent a lot more time on the boat. After a while and right before breakfast we stopped near a bay and the two kids and I jumped off the boat several times, it was really nice, and I was reluctant to get back in the boat because I wanted to stay in the water. But eventually I did and soon after we had lunch. We were able to use the sail because it was a bit more windy than yesterday, so it was very quite and nice. Soon we made our way back to the harbor that we had left on Friday afternoon and sadly we packed up our cars and drove back to Turku. Overall the weekend was very amazing!

And last but not least I will get to the third section of this post's title: Swedish! I am learning it! Officially, but not officially! I am taking a swedish class in school, but to be honest I picked up more swedish this weekend than I have in three weeks in that class. This weekend I spoke swedish with the little girl that is our neighbor, and it gave me more confidence in my swedish speaking ability. Swedish is different from norwegian, so it is hard for me to understand every conversation, like I can understand basically every conversation in norwegian, but swedish I understand only like half. And I can't even try to read and write in swedish because any ability I have in the norwegian language is that of oral and comprehension, so I cannot read norwegian at all! And swedish is totally spelled different so I can't read or write ANY swedish at all. And that is why swedish class in school is so hard, that and it is in finnish and the kids in that class have been studying swedish for several years....but this weekend I have officially started learning swedish, yet not officially because I am not taking any real classes. But I plan on starting to swim with a club soon and that club is totally swedish speaking So that will also help my swedish ability, someone asked me why I would want to "torture myself into learning swedish" but I have such a great opportunity to learn two languages this year because I am living in probably one of the most bilingual cities in Finland, and I have a bit of a head start on swedish with my norwegian background, so the question would be why wouldn't I take advantage of the opportunity to learn two languages this year?

Sailing under the finnish flag! 

This is my life now....

Sorry to anybody who has slow internet and the pictures may take forever to load *cough grandma and grandpa cough* but I have learned that lots and lots of pictures have made it easier to read a blog, because I read a lot of exchange student blogs and I hate it when they just have a block of text, they are very hard to read.


And again I am going to end this post with a quote from my english textbook because it has some pretty awesome quotes in it!

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist" - Indira Gandhi


Also if you want to check out the websites for the islands that I visited here are the links:

Korpoström

Borströ

Sorry that the websites are mostly in Finnish.....

Moikka!