Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Matkalla etelään - A trip down south

I went down to Vaasa on the second of this month to visit a Canadian friend of mine who is also a Rotary Exchange Student. We live 6 hours apart in Finland, and because it is so hard and expensive to travel I hadn’t had a chance to visit her. I know it was the last time I’ll see her until we’re both back in Canada, and we spent most of our two days together talking about going back home and how hard it was going to be. Though it may sound like a sad thing, talking about it with her really helped both of us, and I know that we’ll be there for each other when we’re both going through the “going home crisis”.

The path on the left was the trip there, the right one the way back.


On the fourth, my good friend Mika and his family picked me up from Vaasa and we continued south to Turku. I was so happy I got to travel to the south of Finland at least once this year! That’s one big problem with being north; it costs so much to travel anywhere.
In Turku we visited Turku Castle and the Cathedral, which were both beautiful but very simplistic. I like that about Finland, they get right to the point. Why make it super fancy when it could be practical instead?

Turku Church


In the castle, there was a place where people had thrown money from various countries. Some Canadian decided to throw a 50! I might have considered climbing over the rail and getting it...






The highlight of the trip was definitely the day we spent in Nantali, at Muumimaailma (Muumin land). For those of you who don’t know, the Muumins are characters created by a Finnish author Tove Jansson, and almost every single Finn grows up watching the TV show and reading the books. They’re so incredibly adorable, I can’t even explain. I’ve grown to love the Muumins in the past year that I’ve been here, and will really miss seeing their lovely faces on bowls, candies, pop, blankets… really just everywhere. Here are a few links you can check out if you’re interested in getting to know the Muumins:

Wikipedia page
Theme song (original Finnish)
Theme song (English), sounds totally weird to me
All things Moomin
First Moomin Episode turns out they have this on YouTube. Weird...
ANYWAYS, in Nantali there is an island that is essentially a Muumin theme park.  The park is very obviously made with six-year-olds in mind, but us two 19-year-olds had a blast anyways! There were times when I would just smile at the cuteness overload. Anyways, enough chit-chat, here’s some photos.

Traditional Finnish doughnuts that are to die for






Finally, something I understand ;)
My favorite Muumi, Niisku 


As of today, as I’m writing this right now, I have 23 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes and 23 second until I leave on a plane from Helsinki, leaving Finland and my exchange year behind. This is the most terrifying thing on the planet. My emotions are currently very unstable, and I feel that at any moment I could laugh, burst into tears, or both.
Because my exchange clock is really ticking, this will be my last blog post I will write while I am in Finland. I need to absorb every last second, breath in my last breaths of the beautiful Finnish air… and all that other poetic stuff. I will give you a blog post about the rest of my exchange when I get back to Canada and some posts about how I’m adapting into Canada again.  

See you later alligators!

Hyvää syntymäpäivää minulle - Happy Birthday to Me

Hello all! It’s time for a new blog post! Here’s an update on what’s happened in my life since the last post.

Our Rotary district in Finland, district 1400, had its district conference, an event that all the exchange students are asked to attend. District 1400 covers over half of Finland, but we have the least amount of exchange students, only eight this year. Sadly, one of us couldn’t make it, but the seven of us had a lot of fun in Oulu during that weekend. On Saturday night we had to do a short presentation, where we introduced ourselves in Finnish and another student and I had a little “speech” (in Finnish, of course!). After that we were planning on singing a song, but our small group didn’t have many talented singers. We decided to just read the song out like a poem. Though this all might sound disastrous, the presentation went really well. We were complimented on it for the rest of the night, and our district chair said it was one of the best he’d ever seen. Now, most of my district friends have headed off on Eurotour, a Rotary trip that takes the students across most of Europe. I’m sure it will be an amazing experience and they will have a blast, but I decided that I would rather spend my last month on exchange in Finland with my friends and my new country.


At my first cocktail party!

Majito (the one in the big red dress) and I decided to dress with our families cultures in mind. She wore a traditional Ecuadorian outfit, and I threw on my kilt.

You know you're at a fancy party when the plates have cup-holders. We were so impressed



During the test week I only had three exams, and so I had almost a week with “nothing to do”. I decided to visit my little brothers’ elementary school for a day to see what it was like. The teachers and students were very excited to have me there, and I had a lot of fun at the school. Though I spoke Finnish with the kids most of the time, some of them were brave enough to ask me questions in class in English. I was very impressed with their language skills at such a young age! I spent half of the day with Onni, my eight-year-old brother, which was a comical scene as we walked down the hall. To say I stood out in the line would be an understatement. The kids at the school never made me feel out of place or anything of the sort, but after that day I felt very old… Realising how long it had been since I was in grade 5 was a quite a shock to me!

Also during exam week I visited an Angry Birds theme park. For those of you who are unaware, Angry Birds was made by a Finnish company, so Angry Birds is a big deal here. They have a lot of merchandise all around Finland. The park was made for children, but it was enjoyable enough for me. My two little brothers and sister had the time of their lives, and just kept on going. About half way through the day I thought I was going to collapse, and I fell asleep almost instantly on the bus ride home. All around enjoyable day, though!



A giant trampoline that you could jump from into the giant foam pit (see picture above)




Saturday was our last day of school before summer. Yes, Saturday. It wasn’t really school though, we had a sort of assembly that wrapped up the year, since the exams were all done. I spent most of the assembly trying not to think that it was the end of the year and that I wouldn’t be coming back to the school on Monday. The phrase ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ has a very applicable at the moment. I’ll spare you the teary details, I’m not really in the mood to cry right now.
ANYWAYS, after the first and second years had their assembly the third years had their graduation. Muhoksen lukion grad class of 2014 consisted of just fewer than 40 students, compared to the 135 in my grad class in Canada.

I mentioned in my last blog post that I wrote a Finnish exam, and I was very stressed about the results. Well, they arrived just a few days ago in the mail and… I PASSED!! My Finnish level is rated at a 3/6, 1 meaning that one can speak very, very little Finnish and 6 meaning fluent. Though it may not sound like much, I’m ecstatic! I’ve been in Finland for almost ten months and I am half way to fluent. That’s a huge accomplishment in my books!

And finally, I turned 19 on the 26th of May. I had an amazing birthday with my great Finnish friends and family. The kindness of those around me never seems to end! Though it was a beautiful day, I couldn’t help but feel a little lonely without my Canadian friends and family. I’d spent every birthday I could remember in Canada, and it was interesting to look back and see how far I’d come from the past year.


You are going to get a post soon again about a trip I just recently took. Maybe even in the same day as I post this one. We’ll see…