I have now been in Finland for one week :) My first week here was spent at Camp Karkku with 120 other rotary exchange students from all over the world. Everyday we had about four to five hours of Finnish lessons. The classes were divided by country, so all of us Americans were together. I think we got the best teacher in the camp, Mimmu! The class was divided into small groups with six students in each, plus a tutor. The tutors were native Finns who had gone on exchange in the past few years (Rotex). My tutor was originally Onni, but he had to leave halfway through camp so I then joined Sini's group.
Everyday we also had a lecture on something. The lectures were about being an exchange student, Finnish culture, and school. Then, in the evenings, we had free time to do what ever we wanted. One of the main things people chose to do was sauna. You could choose to where a bathing suit or not, but the Finnish way is no clothing ;) There's also a beautiful lake in front of the sauna where you could swim or canoe or paddle board. We all lived in dorms around the camp. I had four roommates in mine, all American. I loved my roommates Bianca and we stayed up so late laughing every night. I felt bad for the French and American boys who had to walk very far to get to their dorm (over a bridge and up a big hill). Thursday they took us on a tour of the city of Tampere. They showed us some sights then gave us some free time to walk around the city ourselves. The oldies (exchange students that arrived in January, mainly australians) showed up at a burger place a few of us were at and then took us around the city. Friday night was our last night together. We had a sort of "talent show" where each country preformed some sort of act/dance/song from their country. The Americans did the pledge of allegiance and the YMCA :) 120 of us were all together dancing in this crowded room and it was so awesome. Our teacher Mimmu said the next day that it made her emotional to see us so happy. Then around 10 at night they had to close the main hall so we all moved outside to continue the party, better known as GorteLand among us exchange students ;)
But eventually we had to go to bed and it was so sad. I was so excited to meet my host family the next day, but to say goodbye to all the exchange students was terrible. I didn't want to end the best week of my life. But this is just the beginning of this adventure, and there will be many more "bests" in my year. And it's not good bye. I will see everyone in my district once a month, and most of the exchange students in Lapland in December and EuroTour in June. So here I sit and remind myself that it's not goodbye, it's never goodbye :)
Here are some of the pictures from my week at Karkku:
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