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!!!

Koeviikko Update

It has been a while...I realize....

But I will try to post more, or at least some....

Lately I have been pretty busy. A lot has happened since last post. I have switched host families, which is great. I am now in my third and last family. It makes me quite sad that I am in my last part of exchange, but there is also a part of me that is quite relieved that I won't have to stress over moving again. Not that it is an incredibly stressful process, but packing is a pain, and there is always the fact that you are moving in with complete strangers. Though I have to say that it is quite an amazing thing that exchange students do, and that is move in with complete strangers, and most of the time, feel quite at home within a couple days.  When you think about it, it is a bit strange. Now I have the shortest bus ride that I have had in all my host families. It is only 15 min, and 10 min by car, so very close to the city, which is nice. 

Moving

Spring appears to be coming. I have stopped wearing my thick winter jacket, and I am now wearing my converse again. The snow is all melted, and it is starting to be warm again. I just started my last jakso (semester) in school. Which is incredibly depressing for me, and everyone else in school just loves it. 

I just had test week, and I took two tests, and slept the rest of the week. The first test I took was spanish, which naturally I aced. The second test was biology, which took a bit more studying. But when I got to the test, the questions were a lot easier than I thought they would be, though I still don't know what I got, but I think that I passed. Both tests were in english, but the study material was in finnish....

This weekend was Easter, which was nice because in Finland they get off school Friday and Monday, and since I had only two tests during the test week, I had several more days of break than everyone else. On Monday we went and had a late lunch on one of the restaurant boats that float on the river in town. Eating on one of those was on my bucket list of things to do in Finland, so I am happy we went there. Also a finnish easter tradition is to eat Mämmi. Mämmi is one of the most finnish foods in the world, and most people hate it and think it is disgusting. Most finns even hate it. Everyone has told me that I have to try it, and I did try it (with tons and tons of sugar, at their instruction) and I didn't think it was all that bad...I was expecting it to taste really strong of crap, from everyone's descriptions. But it wasn't really that strong of a taste (though that maybe because of how much sugar I put on it). It is not my favorite food in the world, but it isn't really that bad at all. 

Also on Monday, my host family and some of their friends and I, went to a movie called Iron Sky, which is a new finnish made movie. It was about Nazis from the moon, which sounds a bit stupid, but it was actually good. The actors spoke English and German, of course though, they had swedish and finnish subtitles, which got me through the german, alright. I thought that the movie's perception of americans really put it into perspective how americans are viewed by the rest of the world. Perspective that you cannot get from any Hollywood movie. 

Iron Sky Trailer

Vanhojen Tanssit Part 4

Where I left off....

16.00-18.30

Everyone arrived at the place where we were dancing, we all admired each other's dress, got our shoes on, and then practiced some of the dances, and practiced how we would transition dances. Then we waited as families and onlookers poured into the stands surrounding the wooden stage.

18.30

Once the families were there, we all got into our lines and walked out on stage and then one of my friends, who was the host of the whole thing, said everyone's names in set of four and we would walk out into the middle of the stage with our partners and we would bow to the two crowds. Then once everyone's names were called we started our first dance, which we did quite well, and then onto the next one and the next one, and so on.  I think we danced our best, more than any one of our practices. I mean I did make some stupid mistakes, as I always do, but overall it was good. Before I danced one of my friends told me that if you mess up a ton in practice that means you have no more mistakes to make when it comes to the real thing. Which I doubted at the time, but it turned out to be somewhat right! Hurray! There was a band there, they played the music to the dances, and it sounded good. After about two hours of dancing (and a break in the middle) we eventually danced the last dance and then it ended.

My partner and I

After that, some people went to parties, to clubs, to other people's houses, or back home. I went with my host family out to dinner, which was nice. Then we came home and I got out of my dress and makeup and went to bed (after several hours on Facebook)

Friday

10.00

I woke up this morning and got right back into my dress, which I remember thinking that it was a bit funny that I wore my dress for several hours yesterday and now I am getting right back into it again, kinda like this event just won't end (which is a good thing, because nobody wants it to end). I did my makeup, and knowing that I would be just going right back to the dance in the morning I had left my hair in last night, so this morning I didn't have to do anything more than spray a little hairspray on it.  Then my host mother drove me to the same hotel as the dancing was at yesterday, and everybody else  was there in their dresses and the boys in their tuxes. Some of the girl's hair and makeup wasn't as big as it was yesterday, because the main dance was yesterday night, and that was the most important part, whereas today was not as important. So the next two hours we seriously didn't do very much, other than hang around stage. There was a photo shoot going on for professional pictures, and we also took a group picture. But that only really took a couple minutes. But we hung around taking pictures with our own cameras as well, and talking. It was fun, a bit boring after two hours, but still fun. I kinda wondered why we didn't practice some more of the dances, but we didn't because yesterday was the most important thing, and today didn't matter that much, so we didn't need to practice.

Hanging Around

During the group picture photo shoot

More hanging around (we did this for like two hours!)

With some friends :D 

12.00

Eventually we stopped doing nothing and the students from the school poured in. All the younger students from the hugh school and the middle school came and watched us dance. So we danced all the dances again, and it all went pretty well. I was so sad to dance though, because I knew that it was going to be one of my last time dancing, and I really didn't want it to end, because I have been practicing the dances since November, and they are so much fun to dance now that I am actually pretty good at them.

14.00

So then the dances ended, and people left, I hung around on stage with some of my friends for a little bit and then after that I got a ride with a couple other girls to a local nursing home, where about sixteen of us went and we performed the dances there, for some of the seniors. We went there, and at first we chilled, the staff there laid out some snacks (candy bars and juice) which was all attacked when we got there because we were all starving (or at least I attacked them). There were about 8 boys and 8 girls who went and danced at the old people's home. We all were volunteers, most of the people didn't want to go there because they just wanted to go home and be excited for the weekend (the weekend after the dances is full of partying) I was actually the first one to volunteer to go to the nursing home, but there were others. We didn't perform all of the dances, only about five, but it was still really fun, and I was really glad that I went, because it was more opportunity to dance!

Chilling before we danced 

Those of us who went to the Nursing Home and danced

After that I got a ride to the center of town (I would have walked because the nursing home was so close to the center, but there was a blizzard out) and then I took the bus home. This was the second day in a row that I took the bus home wearing something out of the ordinary (a huge fur coat and a prom dress) but I didn't care.

When I got home I chilled out and looked over all my pictures, and I was sad because it was all over, and I didn't want it to be over. But alas, I had no choice. Overall I think that the last two days were some of the greatest days that I have had on my exchange, the whole experience of the dance was just so wonderful! It was definitely one of the highlights of the year.

Life in Photos Lately

Here are some pictures from life lately:

Studying? 

Luostarivuori

Dance Class

Turku

My nemisis: The stairs by my school

(They are basically a ramp now because of how much snow is on them)

Dancing 

Hesburger

Art Class

And More Dance Rehearsal