The End of my Finnish School Experience

I realize that I haven't posted in a long time, but here I am again, I have been meaning to post since I have been back in the US but I have been busy (I am also a member of the world wide Procrastination club!). After being back in the states for so long my english is most definitely better than it was when I last posted, but alas my finnish has dwindled! Which makes me sad to the end of the Earth. 

I will start with where I left off. 

The last several weeks of my time at Luostarivuoren Lukio were some of the greatest in my life. But these great weeks were draped in sadness of the knowledge in the back of my mind that I would soon have to leave all that I knew behind and return to that place I "lived" in before I truly lived. 

There is nothing worse than a goodbye. 

The last weeks of school I spent a lot of time by the river with my friends, enjoying the spring/summer, and admiring how green everything had suddenly become. I also became OBSESSED with Eurovision...To this day I am still disappointed that Sweden won...

I had to do a couple short speeches in finnish for my school and for Rotary. The speech for Rotary was long, but I wrote it all myself, and surely enough I had many grammatical errors, but I didn't want anyone to correct me, because I wanted Rotary to know that it was MY finnish that I was speaking and nobody else wrote my speech for me (because I know a lot of exchange students who did that in the past). I wore my beautiful (and heavy) Rotary blazer while I presented and I talked about everything from my trip to Estonia to how I though the rain was exciting when I first arrived. I was so depressed when I walked out of that door afterwards, because I knew it was my last Rotary meeting, and I was so sad at the thought of no longer being that club's exchange student. And of course I would miss the delicious food every Tuesday. 

My speech for my school was a little different. Different in that I cried many times during the writing process. It was late at night and my emotions were high and I couldn't bare the thought of leaving behind all these wonderful people that I have met! I would miss everything about it like to the smiles I have gotten from people I barely know and the waves on the street from friends I talked to six months ago, but we still wave whenever we see each other. It hurts me to think about the idea of no longer being the center of attention as the strange and shiny toy from another country that everybody asks questions and is so friendly to. 

Thankfully I managed to not cry during my speech, because that would have been a bit embarrassing...I actually made a lot of people in the room laugh with a couple of the jokes I made, which was a great moment because finnish audiences are the hardest to present in front of. 

A bit grainy photo of the three exchange students in Luostis 2011-2012

Ykis paras asia tapahtuu minulle koulun viime viikkossa. Robin, Suomen Justin Bieber, mene luostarivuori ennen lukio (middle school) ja lounsassa yks päivä mä nähdän hän ja minä juoksin hänelle  ja kysyäin englaneksi "Can I have your augograph??" ja hän sano "Mitä?" ja mä selitän että mä olin vaihto-oppilas, ja hän antoi mä hänen allekirjoitus! Best moment of my exchange right there...I set out from the beginning of my exchange saying to my friends "I am going to get his autograph or else I am not going back to the US". It was kind of symbolic that it happened in the last couple weeks of school. 

One of my last finnish school lunches...My friends were embarrassed that day that I was taking pictures of my lunch..but that's what they get for being friends with the exchange student 

I should also note how obsessed I was with the Finnish hockey when the world cup was in Helsinki. It was amazing watching Finland play, I loved it so much, and I died a little inside when they lost and Russia won...that seriously killed me a little. It was a bit scary when Sam and I were in town on the day of the USA-Finland game and we were wearing our american flags and everything, just to be trolls. But then USA lost and everything went as planned. My host father did threaten that I would sleep outside if US won that game...Was he serious? We will never know....

My host parents gave me the job of baker for my host brother's graduation party, which was the day after school got out. That meant 200 pulla. All before 12:00. Being the cook that I was, I demanded of myself they be fresh, so I would make them the same day. On top of that, it was the day I left for Eurotour, so I invited several of my friends from all over finland to come to my host brother's party (since we left in the evening) They came over and it was all a good time. Although it was one of the most busiest mornings, I really enjoyed making 200 pulla because in the end, I can say that I made 200 pulla in just four hours. 

That was the day I had to say goodbye to my very good friend Winnie from Taiwan, who would be leaving for Taiwan when I was on Eurotour. It made me very sad to say goodbye, but I plan on making a trip to Taiwan in the not-so-distant-future, so who knows when I will see her again! 

That evening I left for my Eurotour, which was, as I expected, the greatest two and a half weeks of my entire life.....

more on that soon.....

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

Estonia

Two weeks ago, I visited Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn is a common weekend destination for many finns, since the ferry from Helsinki only takes 2 hours. I was excited to go to Estonia mostly for the sake of going, and I didn't really know what to expect, since I didn't really know anything much about Estonia, other than that it is full of Finnish tourists. When we got to Tallinn and started walking around in the old town, I was seriously amazed at how beautiful the city was. I think it was probably one of the most, if not, the most beautiful city I have ever been to. The old town was so beautiful that walking was almost difficult because it was cobblestone, and all I wanted to do was stare at the buildings throughout the old town, so I tripped several times.

We spent the weekend sightseeing in the old town, and eating in many restaurants. We went in celebration on my host mother's fiftieth birthday. 

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 

It's Summer!!!And lots of things are Happening!

It’s summer and the anticipation grows! I know that I told myself over and over again that I will study more finnish right when school gets out, but I haven’t. I have been....too busy? Yeah let’s just go with that....

But I have been doing a lot of things, for one thing I have cleaned out my closet and I will soon be having a garage sale to fundraise for next year. That has taken up a lot of my time. Also I have been out with my friends, enjoying summer, ect. I am putting studying finnish off and I do feel bad about it but I will focus on it eventually. I promise, there is no way that I would let myself go off to Finland with only the vocabulary that I have now. 

So I have officially gotten my first host family! Which has made me super pumped! I originally emailed the host family that was on my guarantee form and they emailed back soon after. I was very excited about them when another host family emailed me and said that they would be hosting me in August. Naturally I was a little confused. So I talked to my YEO (youth exchange officer) and he said that it is normal that the host family that is on the guarantee form isn’t always the first host family and that the second family to email me is probably the first host family I will have. So I started to get excited about this family as well. Another exchange student from my district is in Finland right now and it’s so funny because he is staying with the family that will be my first host family! It is very coincidental!

Facebook is possibly the greatest invention of all time! I am just going to put that out there(and I still haven’t seen the social network yet!). It is so helpful in finding and talking to people from all over the world who are going through the exact same thing! I have found many people who will be going to Finland next year and those who are already in Finland and people who live there. It is so great! I can't really imagine what being an exchange student 30 years ago must have been like! Having to receive information by actual mail! Can you imagine?The thought seems to scare me as an exchange student! Now it is so quick and easy to email my host family or my YEO so quick and get a response within a day. Or instant messaging people in Finland and getting to have an entire conversation being worlds apart! If there is anything that is more handy than Facebook when it comes to talking to people all over the world, you will need to tell me about it!  

  Anyways....As the days go on I find myself thinking about all the american things that I will miss. First and foremost I will miss my cat. She is such a big part of my american life, it makes me sad to think that I will have to spend a year without her :( Second I will miss some of my favorite TV shows. Most of the shows that I watch I don't really care about and I can miss a year. But the shows that I will miss the most are The Daily Show with Jon Steward and The Colbert Report. They are very american shows. And I know that by going on an exchange I'm trying to get away from american culture. But they are some of my favorite shows, and I love being "update with american politics" (I put those in quotes because it really isn't a news show but one of the only ways I can actually pay attention to politics) especially since I'm going to miss the primary elections for 2012 and I always like to see the political bits of Saturday Night Live. I am going to miss websites like hulu and netflix. I was aware that they don't stream in other countries but then I was reminded of it the other day when a friend who is already on her exchange posted about it on Facebook and it started to seem so real :( And of course I will miss my friends. I am spending a lot of time with them now that it is summer and I keep thinking that I will spend next year without them. Of course I will make new friends but that is also one thing that scares me a lot about the beginning of next year. Everybody tells me that Finns are very reserved and that I'm going to need to break the ice. I would be able to do this but it is also in a language that I barely speak. So I am freaked out a little by this thought. But I am sure that I will be able to accomplish this. 

It is easy to put my exchange out of my mind right now with summer in Summit county. I know that other future exchange students are not having such luck but I am spending a lot of my time with friends and the weather here as been absolutely perfect! It reminds me that I am glad that I'm not leaving just yet because summer in Summit is the best time of the year! Also I have a huge trip to Norway coming up and I will be trying to speak a lot of norwegian with family when I'm there. This will help me with my swedish when I'm in finland because Swedish is basically the same as norwegian just some small differences. Here are some pics from summer in Summit County. 

As you can see I am able to put my exchange out of mind and not explode from all the excitement!