What the Finland?!

This is a so late it's early entry. I've got the most screwed up sleeping patterns eve!

Anyways, the big dance is Friday! My dress is hanging up on my closet behind me, tempting me to try it on and spin in front of the mirror. I've got all my jewelry and stuff laid out around my room. I've already lost my shoes so the ones I'm wearing now make me grossly taller than my dance partner and consequently I tower over most of the boys in my school. Awesome. Hurray for stooping over to dance with short people! Dance lessons have been ridiculous! I'm gonna miss goofing off with Phany and Ami (the exchange students in my school from Mexico and Japan), inappropriate dance moves with Tom (the exchange student from America), crying to Patric and Pia about not knowing what the heck I'm doing and the uber fun breaks in between. Like when me, Phany and Ami tried picking up one of us and running across the gym. Oh yah, I should mention that Phany and Ami are both five foot nuffin. Hahaha. We are soooooo not finnish. Oh love.

We had our last practice today before the real thing and oh my gosh, I really hope we don't look like that at the real dance. I've invited my current host parents, Vippe and Marco, and my previous host parents, Outi and Esko. I wish I could invite my siblings (my current siblings are Aku [7 years] and Ida [14 years]) and my previous sisters, but we are only allowed four guests. I'll be sure to post pictures, but no videos. I do not want to expose my terrible finnish and german dancing skills to the interwebs. Although.... You'll probably be able to find the catastrophe that is my Vanhojen Tanssi on YouTube later. Hahahaaha.

I change host families next month, a couple days after my 18th birthday (wow, I feel old). I went to go visit them last week at their house and discuss the moving date, and their family is lovely. The father doesn't speak any english, so I will have to actually speak finnish to people (Holy cats!). Everyone is super nice and they have the most adorable cats (Duuuude, I miss my cat) and the house is so cozy. The only problem that I can find is that they live all the way out in the middle o' nowhere. Wait.... I'm from Redcliff..... Hee hee. My point is, they live half an hour (by bus) out of the city center (as far as the neighboring towns) and my previous families lived like 10 minutes away from the center by walking. Technically I'm still in Turku, but I don't even appear on the map. Crap. Oh well! I'll get used to it! It's gonna be awesome.

St Petersburg tour is coming up! It's in May from the 6th-9th (Sorry Gordon, gonna miss your birthday), I'm not sure if I'm gonna go or not. But it's exciting regardless. Oooh! We've got some of our information on Eurotour too! Oh my gawsh! 3 weeks touring Europe!!! I can't wait!!!

Well, I'll be back after Friday with the news of how the dance went! Get ready for some Carnage! Love ya, miss ya, bye!

Anteks! Sorry bout that folks, its's been awhile. After much nagging from friends and family,I'm finally writing a new entry. I apologize, especially to the rotarians, but its been a really hectic winter.
I went to Lapland at the end of november for four days with all the exchange students in Finland. It was so cool to see some of my friends that I haven't seen since Karkku. And Lapland was beautiful. There was snow everywhere and the sun was shining for the three hours of daylight. There were a lot of students who have never seen the snow before, and their excitement was extremely contagious.
Alas, I am a failure as a Canadian. I have to be the only one who can not ski. I tried going down the main hill once, it took me an hour and a half, I fell seven times (once taking out apole) and 3/4 of the way down, I had to take off my skiis and walk. Fail.
On a brighter note, I got to see the reindeer of Finland and go on a reindeer sled. Also, we got to ride a legit dog sled. I thought I was going to die on that last one. Hahaha.
Christmas was not that big of a deal, it kind of just felt like any other day. I'm with my second host family now, so we went to Raisio on Christmas Eve to be with the family. We opened presants that evening and I went to sauna. They do this candle thing at the graveyards which was very beautiful and rather sad. Then it was off to church with my host family where I met up with my first host family again. Nothing particularly interesting happens on Christmas Day, all the festivities being on Christmas Eve.
The second year dance is rapidly approaching. February 19th I believe. I've been taking dance lessons with my school since December, but I must admit that I still look rather ridiculous.
Tomorrow I am off to Tampere with the other exchange students to meet all the newbies from Australia! Can't wait!
I'll write again soon! I promise!

Oh gosh. I love Finland. There is always so many things happening around here! Like last week I had a Hallowe'en party with my school which was tons of fun and then on friday I left to go to this little town in the middle of Finland with my host family. It snowed for the first time in Turku as we were leaving. We celebrated my host dad's father's 70th birthday in this little mining town and drove back sunday morning. It was an 8 hour car trip and my iPod died. -face palm- It was nice to spend time with my host family though and I got to practice my finnish a lot that weekend.

This weekend is the district camp in Laitila (?), I really have no idea how to spell that.... It's gonna be tons o' fun. District 1410 is the best one, regardless of what 1390 has to say. I'm not completely sure what's gonna be happening there, but I do know that we are gonna go to sauna and apparently swimming. I just really hope its not in the lake.

Days are so short here now and they're just gonna keep getting shorter. The sun doesn't rise until 8 or 9 and sets at early as 4.30. Bah. It's not really that cold yet, but the cold is so different here. I'm right on the coast so its very humid. So the cold seeps in and chills you to your bones. Urgh.

All the exchange students in Finland (all 130 of us) are heading up to Lapland on November 27th for a week. We get to do some sightseeing and skiing. Maeghan should know how good I am at skiing. This is going to be a gong show. It's an 18 hour bus ride there. Oh gosh.

Tomorrow is finnish lessons with the students in Turku, and as per usual we're going for coffee afterwards. I don't even like coffee, but wednesdays are always amazingly fun. There's a new girl too. I think she's from the states.. Geez, I hope we don't scare her.

Anyways, I'll update this when I have time, but that's it for now! Kiitos ja hei!

So yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada. Me and Lian both didn't want to spend it alone so we came up with the brilliant idea to make Thanksgiving dinner at my house for my host family. Holy cow. For anyone who does not know of my cooking back at home, I live by the saying, "If it can't be microwaved, it's not worth eating." Lian is the same. Maybe its just a Canadian thing.

Anyways, on the menu was turkey of course, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, cauliflower and broccoli, cheese sauce and cheesecake. You might see a number of problems already. The vegtables are no problem, but no one has gravy with their meat here, same with Turkey and cheese sauce, so its pretty much impossible to find. No one here even knows what stuffing is. I got the recipes from my mom and my dad and my host mom took me to the grocery store. Now, we couldn't get an actual whole turkey, instead we got this loaf od turkey, it kind of looked and smelled and tasted like a ham. I think it was a ham. Lian disagrees.

Lian slept over at my house and sunday morning we started cooking. Gong show. The turkey took waaaaaay too long to cook so the stuffing was late. We managed to kill the mashed potatoes and melt an oven mitt together. The veggies were okay and the stuffing was by far the best part. The cheese sauce cooled down too quickly and ended up looking more like margarine or jello.

It turned out to be okay and the cheesecake was delicious. Mostly cause it was made by my host mom. All in all, a very good day. Bringing a bit of Canada to Finland.

Bah! I've been neglecting my blog. I'm sorry that my entries are so spacey, but I find that my days are always rather full, and I find that doing something makes on enot homesick. Which is pretty awesome for me.

So anyways, today I'm going to write about something very finnish. Every year in February, all the third years leave the school to study for their giant exam on everything they learned in high school. To celebrate this, the second years hold a huge dance thinger, buy a big poofy dress and learn the waltz. It's kind of like the grad banquet. They start learning how to properly waltz in November or December and have a date as early as grade 7. My high school is about 80 % girls so you see how hard it is for us girls. After the dance (which parents come to watch), there is a big after party and then we all jump on a boat and head to Sweden and back. We don't actually get off the boat at all, but it will be super fun regardless. I'm so excited! I might even have a date! Who is taller than me! I can wear heels! YES!

About the Sweden thing, I kinda left you hanging there. Sweden was super fun and the boat ride was kind of epic. My camera is still broken so I didn't get to take any pictures, but my host family t ook some of me at the palace and with the guards. (They have such cute shoes! XD ) I got to look around Old Sweden, which was gorgeous, and New Sweden, which was adorable and expensive). I'm excited to go back again!

I'll try to write again tomorrow if I can. If not, the next time I have time!
Moi moi!