Three weeks in Finland: Market, School, Pori,

I have now been in Finland for three weeks. :) I have also completed two weeks of school! Sometime last week I met a German exchange student, Sophia, who is just on a one month exchange. It was soo nice to talk to someone who isn't shy and speaks good English. She comes to all of my classes with me since she is only here until Thursday and it was pointless to give her a real schedule. 

I've played finnish baseball now a couple of times in gym class. There are so many confusing rules that my class usually just has to yell, "Run now, Lauren!!!". But I've been told I'm not as bad as previous exchange students...If you want to know more about pesäpallo, just ask. Its a wild game.

My town has this thing every year called Eurajoki Market. It's basically like a fair, but with lots of stands you can buy random things from. Here's some pictures from that: 

    Sophia, Annariikka, and I

   German tea

    

Then on the Sunday, I went kayaking with my host sister, Jenni, her boyfriend Joonus, my host parents, and my Rotary counselor's family. Here are some pictures from that:

So, then my second week of school begins. This week was much better than the first. People are starting to actually talk to me now, haha! I love all the girls in my gym class, they're so nice. My art class is really good too, the teacher is super nice. Another weird thing about Finland is that you call the teacher by their first names. I told the boy next to me in my computer class that in America we say, "Mr. or Mrs. Whatever" and he looked so startled. Something else I wanted to mention is that I really like all of the food here except for one evil candy that everyone is always trying to force me to eat...SALMIAKKI. Its salted black licorice. The first time I had it was in the airport the first day I got here and I had to spit it out. Its disgusting. Some of my exchange friends like it, but I don't know what is wrong with them! Anywaaaays here are pictures from school.

   In my math class

   Emin likes to take pictures of "cool exchange students"

    Art class :)

   This is me explaining something about America. The look of a shocked Finn..

   Kahvi break

   A lot of times after school I go on bike rides around town..

Then today I took the bus for the first time to Pori! Pori is a city about 30-40 minutes from Eurajoki. I met a good friend of mine, Corentin from France, there at the bus station. At some point during the day we got so incredibly lost and walked soo far from the city. It took forever to figure out how to get back (I missed the bus I was originally gonna take home), but we figured it out. But it was a really good day :D!! consisting of looking for bathrooms that don't cost money, trying to fit under one tiny umbrella, and exploring all of pori (literally I think we walked around the entire city)

   Corentin loves his chocolate...

   

    I have no idea what that is he ate..we found it on a bush somewhere

  

    This is me on the bus wondering if I missed my stop (I did)

   

   Angry birds playground..(angry birds is a huge finnish thing)

Tonight was really funny trying to get Joonus to speak English (he's too shy). 

We ate makkara (a sort of sausage) and sang Robin songs (FINNISH JUSTIN BIEBER..but actually I like Robin..and he goes to one of the other exchange students school :O)

Never a dull moment living with the Jalonens..haha :)

Hyvää yötä