Kiitos Ironia: December 2013

Terve kaikkille,

Minä tiedän joka minä tarvitsen kirjoittaa uusi viesti, mutta se on joululoma ja minä haluan olla Manninen perheen kanssa (nykyinen isäntäperhe). Minä vaihtan perhee keskellä joulua ja uusivuosia, ja minä olen surullinen lähteä Manninen perhe, mutta olen jännittynyt tavata ja asua uusi perheen kanssa!

Uusivuosin jälkeen, minä kirjoitan viesti joulusta ja lomasta!

Kiitos olla kärsivällinen! Hyvää joulua, ja onnellista uuta vuotta 2014!

Hello everyone,

I know it's about time I wrote another blog post, but right now it's Christmas holidays and I want to spend as much time as I can with the Manninens (my current host family). I will be changing to my new host family between Christmas and New Years. I am very sad to leave the amazing Manninen family, but am also excited to get to know this new family!

After New Years I will write a blog post about my crazy Christmas holiday!

Thank you for being so patient! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Last weekend, I was in Lapland with 145 other Rotary Exchange Students. It was the first time I had seen almost all of them since Karkku, so it was amazing to see everyone. Some people have changed since the last time I saw them, and some haven't changed at all.

The camp took place in Muonio, which is quite far north! (Muonio on google maps: https://goo.gl/maps/RrBBl) We saw reindeers, many reindeer(s?), and even got to ride in a pororeki (reindeer sled)! We also went to a husky "farm" as you might call it, where they breed sled dogs for the various trips they offer. None of the dogs are sold from the farm, they are raised for the sole purpose of being sled dogs. We also saw Santas Village, which I had already visited with my host family back in September, but it was quite different with all the snow on the ground!

The first two days of the trip we visited a ski hill. I put a lot of emphasis on the word 'hill'. Where I'm from in Canada, we have mountains everywhere you look. I also live a few hours away from the Rocky Mountains (http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalliovuoret), so I know what a mountain looks like. Finland has no mountains. Thankfully, I knew this before signing up for the Lapland trip, so I chose to cross-country ski instead of down hill. I had only done it a few times before many years ago, so I was quite a sloppy skier. I still had a nice experience skiing around the little trail and, occasionally, falling on my butt.

The main part of the trip was really spent bonding with the other exchange students and sharing stories about our new lives. I had an amazing time in Lapland and cannot wait for the Russia trip!

And now, here are some photos from the trip.

The sky in Lapland has this very mystic glow about it everywhere you go. At least, when the sun is around it does, which is approximately 4 hours each day :P