Weeks 10 and 11: Fall Holiday, Museums, and Tiramisu

This past week was fall holiday. The previous week was rather uneventful. My fall holiday schedule was filled with many fun things. The first Saturday of the fall holiday I travelled to my host mom's mom's for the weekend. I was slightly worried about accidentally getting on the wrong train and ending in the wrong place, but thankfully that didn't happen. That evening, we went for pizza and I discovered that strawberry-kiwi Fanta exists and that it is delicious*. We then went to the movies and saw Muumit Rivieralla. It was, of course, in Finnish, but I'm pretty sure I understood enough to know what was happening most of the time, though I was somewhat confused about the relationships between characters at times.

On Sunday, we went hiking at a national forest. We hiked up a rather tall mountain/hill and saw some really amazing views of the trees in the surrounding area with their leaves changing with the season and the lakes below. Also, along our hike, there was a bridge that was used to go over the lake. After our hike, my host mom's mom showed me some of the sights in the surrounding area until it was time for me to go home. Again, I did the trains right and ended up exactly where I was supposed to go.

Monday was a very chill, relaxing day for me. I accomplished little to nothing productive, as far as I can recall. But it was a very relaxing day and for that, I am thankful. I slept in uncharacteristically late on Tuesday, waking up only when my host mom texted me asking to make sure she had turned off the coffee maker that morning before she left, which she had. I then started to prep the "American" style dinner I was making for that evening. I made hamburgers and fries (both from regular potatoes and sweet potatoes) for dinner. Just before we had dinner, we went to pick up Sindi, the student from Italy who is studying in Finland with the same organization as I, from the train station. We had dinner and later, for dessert, we made chocolate, strawberry, and banana milkshakes, which were delicious. 

On Wednesday, my host mom, little brothers, Sindi, and I went to Hämeenlinna and toured the castle and the prison museum. In the castle, much to my dismay, very few of the informational signs were in English, and my reading comprehension of Finnish is not yet at a point where I could understand museum displays. There was, however, one small exhibit in which all of the information was in English and I spent much more time in that exhibit than anyone else I was with, thus leading me to believe they were all probably very grateful there wasn't English signage throughout. We then toured the old prison museum, which everyone, aside from myself, seemed to enjoy. 

Friday, we went to the city of Lahti where we toured the Ski Museum, visited the Sibelius Hall, and walked around the harbor. The ski museum was very interesting and had most of the information in English as well as Finnish, so I was able to fully understand the history of skiing in Finland. At the Sibelius Hall, not only were we able to appreciate the integration of modern and historic architecture, we were able to go in to the concert hall where someone happened to be practicing organ and the awesome acoustics. For lunch, we went to an Italian restaurant which everyone, including Sindi, thought was pretty good. 

On Friday evening, we had out "Italian" style dinner and ate really yummy Italian food that Sindi made, including caprese and tiramisu. Our week was very busy, filled with a lot of fun activities. I realize now that I've not discussed the weather much, if at all, in this post and it had seemed, from the past few posts, that I'd come into a routine of beginning each with discussion of the weather. There's not much new to say. It is still around freezing most of the time, it sometimes rains, and occasionally there is something falling from the clouds that isn't really rain and isn't really snow.

*Strawberry-kiwi is my favorite flavor. When I was little, I remember we would have this strawberry-kiwi juice that I loved, but in recent years, I've not had it at all. Maybe it was discontinued...

Weeks 7, 8, and 9: Chillier Weather, Exams, and a Trip to Helsinki

These past few weeks have been rather busy and, in a way, seem to have flown by. So busy, in fact that I haven't had anytime to work on  the craft projects discussed in the previous blog entry; neither have gone anywhere since that post. Someday I will finish my hat and sock gray-wool rectangle, but that day has not yet come.

The 'week seven' was the last week in the first grading period, the week proceeding the exam week. Rather than reviewing the entire week for the exams, we seemed to learn new material until right before the exam, only taking about a day for review in most classes. And then came the exam week. I was very, very stressed about my exams, and it seemed to me that I was maybe stressing a bit more than my peers, and therefore most of my stress wasn't entirely necessary. The exam week is set up so that everyone takes one exam each day. The days of the exams, school starts at 8:00 in the morning. Students must test for an hour and then leave whenever they are finished with the exam, the longest time they can test being four hours, ending at noon. On my first English exam, I had finished all of the exam apart from the essay before the first hour was up. I then spent about half an hour writing what I thought was a pretty good essay within the 150-250 word limit. Upon finishing my essay, I recounted my words and realized that, while writing, I had somehow counted wrong and had actually written a nice 265 word essay. I then spent between twenty and thirty minutes going through my essay and trying to cut it down to proper length, ultimately ending up with a 249 word essay on which I scored nicely. Also, the morning of the Tuesday of the exam week it snowed. Sort of. There was a mix of snow and not quite snow in the air, but none of it stayed on the ground at all and stopped by the time I had finished with my exam. 

The Saturday following the exam week there was another meeting for the exchange students in Helsinki and a Beach Party (vlog). Now the concept of a beach party in Finland in late September was a bit perplexing to me as 'beach' implies warmth and outside isn't warm. It was at an indoor 'beach' which was essentially a large room whose floor was covered in a lot of sand and whose temperature was raised to what I was told to be 26°C. Before the beach party, however, we did other things in Helsinki. I went exploring, ultimately searching for the Starbucks*. I walked around for a while and looked in a few shops, bought myself two headbands as my hair is now at that somewhat unmanageable point where it is too long to just wear it down as it covers my eyes and my nose, but is yet too short to put in any sort of ponytail that would be acceptable for someone of my age to wear. I knew, generally where the Starbucks was, but wasn't entirely sure and so I asked a few people for directions. I followed them and found a Ben and Jerry's, where I got myself a cone of Phish Food (which has always been one of my favorite flavors) and again asked for directions to the Starbucks.

I was informed, from the Ben and Jerry's, that the Starbucks was only just down the street from there, probably less than a block. I thanked the lady for the directions, ate my ice cream, and headed to the coffee shop, which was now very easily within my reach. I got into the Starbucks and found myself at the end of a very long line. I waited in line for maybe fifteen minutes, before ordering my venti Pumpkin Spice Latte. I was somewhat surprised that the barista spelled my name right as that usually doesn't happen, even in the US.

After getting my Pumpkin Spice Latte, I made my way back to the train station, where I was to meet the other students shortly. It was fun to see everyone again and to meet the students who had arrived in Finland since our first meeting at the end of August. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant that was pretty yummy and then went to the beach party. At the beach party, there were a lot of people who were, presumably, alumna from other programs within the organization. There were some organized games, which the six of us played as a team, our team name being 'The Princesses', which, if I remember correctly, happened at my suggestion. I'm not sure if we won any of the games, but I do know that we beat the record at the limbo, the prior being at 80cm, and us getting it down to 65cm.

Last Saturday I made dinner. I decided to get back to my Southern roots and make fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits. I realized partially through the meal that I should have made sweet iced tea to accompany the meal, but it was too late. Next time, I suppose. Another thing that I realized while making dinner that evening was that I'm not sure if I have ever even made fried chicken before. I followed a recipe and, at least in my opinion, it turned out pretty good.

A small revelation I have had in these first few months is that the lunches are rather different from what I remember from when I went to public school in the US, and it isn't just the food.  I remember one day when I was at school, I had a disposable, plastic knife in my lunch with which I intended to put hummus on crackers to eat for lunch and I got in trouble for having the aforementioned plastic knife. Here, we have lunch provided (for free) from school. We have glasses that are actually made out of glass and utensils that are actually made out of metal, including knives. The first time I was given a metal knife with school lunch, I was slightly surprised, but by now it has sort of become normal, the initial shock having worn off. Another thing that has become somewhat normal to me is it being just about freezing when I wake up and seeing the thermometer reading right around 0°.

*The Thursday before this I was talking to one of my friends about my slight despair at not being able to have any Pumpkin Spice Lattes this year as I was under the impression that there were no Starbucks in Finland and she informed me that there was (at least) one in Helsinki, which made me extremely excited and happy because I thoroughly enjoy my delicious, over-priced, seasonal coffee.