I love my district

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). 

Kiitos kiitos for reading this post! <3

Until next time..