Host Family, School, Life :)

I've been living with my host family now for five days. On the first day I came I was still very sad about leaving camp and my exchange friends, but I have adjusted now. I really really love living in this house and they treat me like their own daughter. On Saturday I met my host sisters Jenni and Janina and their boyfriends Santeri and Joonus. Here are some pictures of the house and my bedroom.

Sunday I met Minna and Ida my "host cousins". They are twins and go to my same school. 
Monday was the first day of school. I walked with Minna, Ida, and their friend Pauliina. I didn't have a schedule yet, so I just went to their classes. School ended at 12:30, so I went to the English teacher's room to make my schedule. So something that amazed me about this is that, all I had to do was click on the subjects I wanted to take. Then I was in that class. That's it. You don't have to fill out a paper on why you want to change classes, you can change anytime you'd like with the click of a button. Now all of the sudden I am in these classes just like that. The classes I chose are English, Math, Home Economics, Art, Finnish History, Technology, and PE. I have a different schedule everyday and sometimes two hours of one class.                                                                                             

So Tuesday was my real first day of school. School in Finland is so different from school in America. There are fifteen minutes breaks between each class. There are no "detentions". They don't need them here, because you choose to go to high school in Finland. Everyone in lukio is here to get an education, graduate, and move on to university. Teachers never have to yell at a class to be quiet. Shyness and quietness are common personality traits of Finns. This is a bit difficult for an American exchange student :| Most of the people here are far too afraid to speak in English to me, because they are not perfect at it so they do not speak at all. The language barrier has been tough. Right now I speak very little Finnish so it's hard to communicate and make friends. This is why I miss my exchange student friends so much :( they can understand this struggle. Thankfully a couple of people in my classes are willing to translate things for me. Something else I had to really get used to was taking my shoes off before walking inside any classroom. I think Finland must be one of the cleanest countries...
Math class is somewhat simple. They've put me in long math 1, which means it's the more advanced of the year one maths. But it seems to be what I had learned in 8th grade. I can't read the questions, but just from looking at the numbers I can almost always figure out the answer. Today we were given a test, all in Finnish. My teacher let me skip the questions involving the metric system, but I did them anyways because metric isn't so hard to figure out. The girl behind asked, "How did you manage to take a test in Finnish?" and I said, "Math is the same in every language." which is somewhat true haha.
History class wasn't good! It was two hours today of lecture, all in Finnish. I think the teacher felt sort of bad for me! I sat and took notes, not that it mattered seeing as I couldn't read the notes. At the end of the day, my English teacher suggested I drop the history class for now and try again later in the year. I agreed that is was unnecessary and now I have a free period on Thursdays and I will go to school two hours later on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. English class is my faaaavorite. There's only about ten of us in the class. Minna, Ida and there friends Pauliina and Katriina are in that one, which is nice. The teacher always has me pronounce things and read sentences, and it's so good to hear English after having heard nothing but Finnish all day. 
Art class is really small too. Only about five of us. I think they've put me in the third year art class, because everyone is quite good at drawing, but that doesn't matter. The teacher really tries his hardest to speak in English sometimes and is happy to have me in the class. 
Then we have PE which is a nice class. A few girls translated what was said on Tuesday for me, it was just some plans for the class. Tomorrow we play pesäpallo which is going to be very interesting. In case you don't know, pesäpallo is Finnish baseball, in which the pitcher stands next to the batter and throws the ball straight up into the air. Yeah. 
Always after school Vesa (my host dad) asks if I've made a new friend or "any cute Finnish boys?". I've learned much Finnish just from driving around town with Vesa (my host dad) and going grocery shopping. In a few weeks I will go to Finnish lessons.
Also here are some pictures of my families summer cottage, we went there last night.

So that's been a bit about life for me right now after only one week and a half. I love Finland so much already. It's the most beautiful country..