Vikings & Oldies & Pori

A lot has been going on in life since the last time I wrote about it! Test week was a success. I actually don't know what my scores were, because I didn't know I was supposed to go get them. But I did get my grades and that is directly related to the exams so here they are!

I passed everything :D but I am really hoping no one got a 10 in English :| (I can't understand how I only got a 9)

 Then I went and visited my host dad's school on Friday. This was a really nice experience and the kids were all so friendly to me even though they spoke very little English. 

The classroom

Playing floor ball 

Saturday I went to some family members birthday party. It was...interesting! She is a color therapist so she did some of that for us and also there were lots of cute little kids running around so that was nice. After that I spent the night at a friends...and got to feed their pet snake Felix.

Monday I went to Pori, and this was the first time I really noticed how pretty the trees are here. In Ohio it's pretty, but here it's just unbelievable. The best part about it is seeing how happy the Brazilians and Australians are to see colorful trees. They are always saying "Woah, look at that tree. How does it do that. Why is it so pretty?!?!"

Wednesday I started school again with my new schedule. I really like all of my classes. This English class is cool, because it's all about speech and conversation, so I actually have more to do. 

Math class is more or less the same, except the teacher is different.

My art class is different, because now it is really full and has students from every year in it. We are all working on the same projects this time too. It is based on Finnish architecture and structural design.

Health class is pretty boring because all we do is take notes (in finnish). I understand about 25% of what I'm writing down. But it made me really happy today when she showed us an advertisement and I understood the slogan, "Terve iho on kaunis". That's pretty simple finnish, but still it was satisfying for me to read and understand that. It has definitely got to that point where it is very noticeable that everyday I can understand more of what people are saying. 

But yeah, I really like my schedule this period and here is a picture of my text books (in case you were curious)

Health, Math, Finnish

A look inside my english textbook

And also my portfolio

This past Saturday, my rotary counselor invited me to attend "Viking Day" (I think this is what he called it). It was basically a day spent in the forest in Eura at this...I can't think of a word to call it. It was like a small "village" built to look like something the Vikings lived in (completely out of wood). Here I have some pictures

   Hot tubs

There were chickens running around all over this place

My counselor Mikko and his daughter Jenna

The most interesting thing (other than "axe throwing") was the smoke sauna. This is a kind of really old "original" sauna. It was so dark in there (only one candle) that I could only see the outlines of everyone's bodies. So dark, someone asked, "Is the English-speaking girl in here?". After this sauna, everyone was covered in soot and we had to bathe by pouring buckets of water on ourselves. Definitely an experience, another thing I can cross off the list.

Sunday was our District 1410 picnic in Turku. My host sister drove me to Rauma at 10:30 and then I rode an hour and a half bus ride to Turku with another exchange student. Once we got to the bus station, neither of us had any idea where to go. And so begins the hour event of us trying to find other exchange students (they had already gone to our final destination, Ruissalo) and the correct bus stop. But finally, a kind bus driver pointed out where we should wait to take the bus to Ruissalo (a place we walked past at least twice). Then when we arrived, we walked to the beach where 30-40 exchange students were waiting. I'm actually kind of bummed I didn't take any pictures! I was just so busy talking and hugging all of my friends, especially ones I hadn't seen since camp. But here are two pictures from the Internet of Ruissalo

This was a really good time and it was just awesome to see everyone I had missed so much, back together again. Then at around 4 we all took the bus back to the city. It was so funny because the entire bus was just filled with all of us exchange students speaking all these different languages at once. Then in the city, we split up a bit and went our separate ways. One person who was there, was a guy named Jeremy who is my grand-grand-grand oldie. That basically means that he was an exchange student in Finland quite a few years ago (I'm not sure exactly when, maybe 2008). He has since moved back and lives here in Turku. He took me and few of my "oldies" to see a sort of park behind a church. It was really really pretty. This is when we decided to have a "photo shoot". 

Pictures can't show how beautiful it was at all :(

So serious..

Sam and Haroldo

Haroldo and Jeremy are such models

Well after the sun went down Haroldo, Jeremy, Sophie, and Simon all went home (they all live here in Turku). Then Sam and I took our buses home. 

Today I spent the afternoon in Pori with five other exchange students. One of them being from Pittsburgh (we had a great time laughing about country music and kids wearing cowboy boots to school). 

So anyways it's been great, travelling around a lot. This weekend is our district camp in Pori, so that should be fun. Everytime I think it couldn't get better, it does! 

A picture of socks my host grandma knit for me ^.^ it's the little things..

That's all

Moi