Travel Blog | About TravelBlog | World Facts | Travel Wallpaper | Travel Forum | Backpackers Travel Insurance | Services | Cameras

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken

Stephanie VonAncken Hey All! Im Stephanie! I am sixteen years old and i'm on Rotary foreign exchange in Naantali, Finland! I arrived at the beginning of August 2007, and I am loving every minute! My finnish friends are the most wonderful people. They hang out with me at school, and help me practice my finnish! I have gotten SO attached to my host familes, they have been fabulous and I can honestly say I love them! They have done so much for me, and kept me my happy self! Oh! and of course I cant wait until they come visit me in New Mexico! I attend Lukio (high school) in Naantali, and take the usual classes, ie. bio, english, math, art, and now we have the vanhatanssia (the old dances) every Tuesday and Thursday from 2-4! It is a blast learning all the old dances! Every Monday evening I attend a finnish course for foreigners in Raisio, and Tuesday nights I play in the Raisio orchestra! I get homesick on occation, but I am pretty good at distracting myself, I get over it really quickly! I know that my family and friends will be there when I get home, so I try not to spend too much time thinking about them, I only have one year in Finland, and I want to make the BEST of it!!!
Private Message Subscribe Top Photos Blog Map
Joined on: August 14th 2007
Last Login: May 14th 2008

Blog Entries: 79
Photos: 1326
Recommended by 1
Visited Countries


RSS
TB Code: [blogger=45396]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by goodmorningfinland, order by Date newest first.

« back 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 next »

Today I went into school at 11 then at 11:30 met up with ten American 14-17 year old guys! Basketball players from New England! With two volenteer coaches, and Scott, the man in charge. I introduced myself then guided them to lunch. We all ate together until the other students started arriving, then they all split up and we put one at each table! They gave some presentations in a couple of our english classes, then we headed back to the trailer where they left their bags and the adults, and the guys came with me down to the harbor! We [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 62 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 548 words | [diary=273925] | 2008-05-08 20:27:35

Presenting
more presenting
Chris, Cam, Eli, Andrew, and Ryan

Today I woke up early and made french toast for breakfast for everyone! here are some pics...of me..looking like a total disaster, cooking. in finland! :) [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 27 words | [diary=273921] | 2008-05-07 21:26:44

sagging...
goodmorning!

Last weekend I changed host families! Now I live with the Fagerlund family! Tom, Hanna (yes, tom and hanna are my host parents names AGAIN!) Nea, my 14 year old sister, and Anette my 18 year old sister! Today we went to the Caribia spa in Turku to watch a Salibandi game! It was great, even though Naantali lost! :( a couple of my friends from school played on the team too!!! [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 12 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 69 words | [diary=273917] | 2008-05-07 21:19:56

Salibandi!
the team!
huddle!

Arriving day...
Arriving day...
just to refresh your memory...i wore a flag...
Tomorrow I switch families so tonight we went out for dinner, then had a jolly good time playing with my "moving away" gifts..which inclueded a classic...black rubber rat...some awesome lady bug hair ties...which i use almost every day, a couple beautiful scrap book pages and a finnish cook book! We went out to dinner at the Kylpyla Pizza restaurant in the spa hotel! It was a TON OF FUN!!! Definitely a fabulous night!!! I miss them like crazy! (ok so this blog is basically an ODE TO THE PALENIUS FAMILY!!!!...and the pics include ones from my last night, AND from all [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 50 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 123 words | [diary=273867] | 2008-05-07 21:09:53

Arriving day...
Matsku and I...cleaning?
Dont you DARE throw those cards!

This past weekend was our rotary district conference in Turku! We have 23 exchange students in our district, but Ellen was in Germany so we had 22 of us! Rick came over from Aland Friday night and stayed over with me at the Ahti's house. The next morning Lapa, our treasure, and Ossi picked us up and drove us over to the ICT building in Turku for breakfast and a meeting at 9am! All the exchange kids met there, and after eating we got a couple hours free time in the autitorium where we were supervised by two awesome swedish speaking [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 24 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 299 words | [diary=271442] | 2008-04-30 09:37:08

Max and Tara (our fellow americans!)
Sarah. Rick. Steph.
Tara and Rick

SUNSHINE!
SUNSHINE!
dancing in the sun!
Ama and I walked around A LOT this past week and visited Muumiworld! We also went all around the harbor and Hanna Aiti found a guided tour for us around the harbor and old town!!! It was a lot of fun, and I LEARNED A LOT!!! :) [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 69 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 46 words | [diary=269692] | 2008-04-24 18:31:08

Amam and the church
ama agian!
some kind of rum ice cream at Merisali!

Today Ama, Hanna aiti and I went on a Viking Line picnic cruise to Aland island (aka, half way to stockholm!). We boarded the nine story ship (same one from my trip to Stockhold for the vanhojen ristely) in the Turku harbor at 8 am. We put our jackets up then found a nice place to sit on the sixth floor. We talked and bought steph a kiddie cup with a light stick inside, my very own plastic cup AND some sukulaku! (the only salmiaki like thing i actually LOVE!). We walked around and went shopping at Tax Free and some [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 77 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 321 words | [diary=273589] | 2008-05-07 17:54:27

aiti and i
haha look at me!
dark pic. out the window. deck 6

Today Ama and I spent from 10:30 am- 3pm cooking at the summer pizza kitchen at Kala-Trappi (my rotary restaurant). Ama had brought an ENTIRE suitcase full of tortillas, cans of whole green chilies, red chilie powder, green chili powder, guac, and lots of herbs. As she cooked I was her sue chef, running outside in the crazy blizzard to the main restaurant and getting whatever she needed! They provided us with all the meat, vegetables and cheese we needed! We had fabulous tunes blasting from my ipod all day and had a LOT of fun dancing and coooking, and testing [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 30 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1054 words | [diary=268212] | 2008-04-20 11:24:47

The suitcase
woo new mexican food!
MORE!

Today we went to Laitila where Hanna Aiti's parents live! We first went to Hanna Aiti's mothers house where we greeted the sunlight outside, looked at her flowers starting to grow through the snow, looked at old photographs, ate chocolate eggs, and had a wonderfully FINNISH meal! Potatoes, Lamb, Silli (herring), eggs and salad! Then we drove over to Hanna Aiti's fathers house where Kari and Marja-terttu served us a beautiful display of all sorts of desserts, including pasha...(ama's favourite!). I bird watched from the living room window with some sweet sweet binocs. and completed one out of two brain teasers...when [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 25 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 120 words | [diary=268294] | 2008-04-24 17:36:19

more sun!
SUN!!
Eating!

easter was crazy. so many easter eggs and so much family fun and love! ama was with me! (she was visiting me in finland from March 20 throught April 2) she experienced it all! So on Easter Sunday we went to Iska (Tom) 's mothers house (my mummi, who speaks swedish and finnish and inserts some funny random english words, she is such a character) and had a true easter meal. It was HUGE, and mummi and Ulppa (tom's sister, my aunt) prepared it all!!! I think we went over around 1pm. We all recieved wool socks from the easter witch [View Full Entry]

goodmorningfinland - Stephanie VonAncken | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 35 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 488 words | [diary=266023] | 2008-04-20 11:35:23

Ama, Mummi, Muppe and I
Muppe and I
Iska tom and tati ulppa



« back 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 next »