This week we had an autumn break, a whole week off from school. Last Friday I was invited to a party at the president of Eurajoen Rotary Club. We sat in a little hut thing with a fire in the center and it was so cool. Here are some pictures I took before people arrived.
I'm really glad I was invited to this because it was super fun (and there was really good food). Everyone in my rotary club is really nice and very interested in me.
The next day I had the pleasure of going moose hunting with the mayor of Eurajoki. This was such an awesome experience. It started off by just walking through the forest, stopping, then walking, then stopping. For a long time. Then finally, we saw one. It was so magical. I watched from behind a tree as a moose walked through the forest :D. Then we stood there for about thirty to forty minutes until we heard they got him. So then we walked to see the now dead moose.
Me sitting on the moose hehe
The dog was inspecting the wound haha
Then after, that I went home and quickly packed my things to go to Pori for two nights. I was staying with my host mom's sister's family. They have the cutest kids.
Sienna
Benjamin and Elle-Maija (ell-aye my-yuh)
So cute ^.^
Manu the cat
On Monday we went to Yyteri beach. This is supposedly the nicest beach in finland! It was so pretty, but really cold.
<3
I love those kids, too cute ^.^
Monday night I came home and went straight to bed (exhausted). My host parents had gone to France so it was just me at home during the day while my sister was at work. This was a really great few days of just relaxing and doing nothing!
Friday was a flag day (United Nations day). In case you didn't know, the rest of the world does not have flags up everywhere all the time. So anytime the finnish flag is flown it is for a special occasion and it is beautiful.
Friday my aussie friend came to stay with us. Also something really magical happened. Right when we got off the bus in Eurajoki it started to snow! The first snow in Eurajoki of the year. It has already snowed in most of Finland, but not much on the coast. I was so happy to see a little snow, it was so pretty.
So after giving the 'grand tour' of Eurajoki and my house, we ate dinner with my parents. This was an unusual dinner, because now they had to be careful of what they said in finnish (Sam knows finnish) and they couldn't understand our english anymore (we started talking really fast). Also they were very curious as to if we could still understand each other with our very different accents/dialects (yes, it's not hard, just hilarious).
Then after a very long night of watching breaking bad and eating Turkish food, the next day we went to Rauma. It rained the whole day and nothing too exciting happened. But we saw three other exchange students
I don't know what I'm doing just being my usual self :D also take note that i had taken my coat off just for the picture and in reality it was freezing.
Another hilarious picture that perfectly shows the finns reaction to foreigners (the woman in the background hehe). And look how awesome my onesie is :O
So this past week I was pretty sick. My host parents were in Italy, but luckily my host sister was around to check up on me! I am still a bit sick, especially from a busy weekend, but I'm alive :D
I received a nice surprise last Friday when my principal handed me a big box. Inside the box was a brand new laptop. I'm not sure why I am getting one of these (or why I really need one) but I'm not complaining! The school was nice enough to pay for mine for me since I'm an exchange student.
Saturday I took a bus to Pori for our District 1410 camp!! There are 39 exchange students in our district (I think we are the biggest or second biggest). We stood in front of the bus station with all of our bags in a huge pile as we waited for our district chairman to arrive. We also had four members of Rotex (past exchange students) there. Again, I am so disappointed I didn't take more photos, but I get so caught up in the moment (this is a good thing in the end). But I had some other exchange student send me some photos and I have a few of my own.
Once the district chair arrived, we went on a tour of Pori. I've been to Pori a lot, several times a week. But our district is big and lots of other students have never been here. So basically he took us through a few shops and then to this really beautiful church.
Bianca from New York also featuring "Cut Junior" the koala bear.
Corentin and Valentin (French of course)
Cutberto, Sam in his Suomi onesie, and Cut Junior :D (that koala bear is made out of real kangaroo fur)
Of course lots of pictures of trees. Also our explanation for why the leaves fall off the trees: "Because the color yellow is heavier than green."
So then we were given an hour or so of free time to explore. I walked around with the oldies and we got stopped countless times by finnish men who wanted their picture taken with Sam and his finnish flag onesie (it was a big hit).
After that we returned to the bus station to take a bus to Junnila! Junnila is place about thirty minutes outside of Pori in Reposaari. This place was so awesome. Luckily I found pictures of it online. It looked a bit different when we were there (cloudy and autumn-y) and you get the idea
This building we stayed in!
A few of us went up here on this sort of roof around 10pm and the lake looked so awesome. The sky above the trees was tinted orange even though it was dark out. So cool.
I was very caught off guard in this picture haha. With Priscila and Gorte.
So we arrived to the place at around 2pm. They divided us into two people per room, I was with my friend Luisa, then we brought our things inside. After that we moved to a separate building for lunch (or dinner or whatever that was). Then we just hung out for awhile and there was a sort of game the Rotex had organized to play outside so that Kari could learn all of our names (I don't think it worked).
Around 6pm (by the way, it was already dark!) we had the official part of the night, the "meeting". This was basically just Kari going over the rules (rules we've heard a thousand times already, but still important). The oldies (Sam, Haroldo, Sophie, and Anna) gave us a short speech about exchange and it was really touching :'). Their advice was to not waste a single day, because it really does go by so fast. They said they could all remember being in our shoes like it was yesterday, thinking "I have so much time". And now they only have three months left! So I am really taking this to heart and living every single day fully.
Then Kari announced that there was a change on the schedule and we wouldn't have a bed time. Everyone was very excited about this, because usually rotary is always making us go to sleep at 11 or 12, but not tonight :D We also gave a big thank you to Kari for organizing this camp for us because no one had planned anything then at the last minute he pulled this all together for us which was really awesome.
The Rotex
After playing a few games, one of them being "Hedelmäsalaattia" (fruit salad!), we got to go to sauna. Of course it wouldn't be a night in Finland without sauna <3. Since there were so many of us, we had to break into groups of two. I went with the first group and this was a good group to be with! Everyone was okay with a really hot sauna, so that means lots of löyly. This was good, because I was feeling sick and sauna is great for that. Then we all ran outside and went in the freezing cold lake (very briefly). After we decided we had enough sauna, we showered then went back inside to eat some pizza, makkara, bread, fruit, and other stuff.
The rest of the night was spent dancing and yelling and swinging on swings and just having fun.
I don't remember exactly how late I stayed up (maybe 5 am) but eventually I fell asleep in one of the rooms. The next morning at 8:30 I awoke to Kari pulling on my leg and saying "Aamupala!".
After breakfast we went on a walk through the woods and to the sea.!It was really pretty!
Val and Zane
So I'm not even in this photo, but this is most of my district. Kari has one with all of us but I'm not sure where to find it. But this is still a nice picture :D
After lunch, we packed our things and headed back to Pori. It was a really awesome weekend. I love my district so much (we are the best one for sure :D) thanks to everyone who made it so fun.
Here is a video Corentin filmed on his GoPro. Sorry the quality is a kind of bad but I wanted to share it. It's basically just clips of us dancing and being very loud, very late at night (poor Kari).
Benjamin and Elle-Maija (ell-aye my-yuh)
