We woke up at 10 this morning! SO EARLY! (gosh, coming from someone who is usually up at the break of dawn…what is Finland doing to me?) We made breakfast and showered then spent half an hour searching the house for all of Max’s belongings! Oh! And he ended up leaving a pair of socks, a pair of pants, the “M” key off his laptop, and his sweatshirt. Goodness! Max caught the bus back to Turku and I came home to continue reading on Finland! Emma and Tapio came and picked me up around 4 to go visit my host Ukki [View Full Entry]

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Saturday This morning I was home alone again because Emma had to go to work and all my friends from Naantali were tired because of the party last night, so I txted Max. I went for a run, and when I was half way around my usually loop Max txted me back saying he wasn’t busy and I could come over! YAY PAIMIO! I ran home and showered, then rode my bike in the rain to the bus stop and caught the nest bus to Turku! There I walked around for half an hour waiting for the next bus to Paimio. [View Full Entry]

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Mom and Dad. I love you. You are both so amazing! Yesterday I had an early Christmas. I got home from school and Erkki said my package was here! He told me it was at customs because Mom had put gummy vites in it and I needed to go down to the harbor and declare them! I waited until Leena got home from work, we ate dinner and then Leena and I drove to the harbor. After getting lost in the harbor building and taking a SCARY lift up to the 4th floor we found the customs office. The lady laughed [View Full Entry]

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I got out of school early today like usual Fridays, and I rode my bike to the Kuvaus in town to get my photograph taken for my student ID! It only took a few minutes to get them printed so I taped one onto my student ID application and went to the Posti to mail it! When I got home I made myself some lunch and read my new book on Finland Mommy sent me for a few hours; I learned so much! I started getting homesick around 4pm so I txted Maiju, Lotta, and Saija and told them I would [View Full Entry]

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Friday: I talked to my parents this morning. It was fabulous! I absolutely love the webcam. It was 10:30pm there time and 7:30am my time! I was all dressed and ready for school early so I got online because I know a bunch of my friends from home are online at night New Mexico time! Mom and Dad were in bed on Mom’s laptop and their webcam is on the computer upstairs so they only saw and heard me but they were typing me questions and it was so much fun. I talked to them for almost 20 min before I [View Full Entry]

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So basically I just experienced the best sport in the world. It was amazing to watch. So intense! I just wanted it to keep going and going and well…yeah it was awesome, but I was SO cold. Ice hockey. Yup, there was the first home game tonight! So today is Keskiviikko (Wednesday) which means I don’t start school until 10:15, yes I know WONDERFUL! I was really tired last night so I fell asleep early, at 8pm and slept all the way until 8:20 this morning! It was great! I needed the rest and it made my day the best so [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday I left school early at 2pm and came home to pack. We packed up the car and left for Lapaijarvi at around 3pm. We drove for four hours until we reached the biggest village store in the world, Veljekset Keskinen, where we stopped to eat and shop. We were there for an hour or so and then we drove another hour and arrived at my host parent’s summer cottage at around 9. It was beautiful; a log cabin right on the lake. At first I thought it was small to be able to sleep all of us AND have [View Full Entry]

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Today was a special day. I didn’t have a class until 10:15am! It was great! I loved sleeping in late! When I did finally get to school, I had biology! I usually take notes in bio, even though they are in Finnish because there are many scientific words that are similar to the English translation. Today there was a lecture so I wrote Emily a letter in Finnish. It was pretty pathetic actually. I think I ended up saying something like: "I am swim" but Maiju and Henri both read it and helped me fix it! After Bio I had a [View Full Entry]

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Early morning today in school, the usual 8:20. I had English 4 first today! We worked in the language lab taking quizzes and doing exercises. I worked with Henri since I haven’t been given my internet password yet. We did I quiz on American and British history that was hilarious. One of the questions was “What is an Excalibur?” and one of the multiple choice answers was “an Arnold Swartnegger Movie”!!! it was a pretty crazy quiz. I had Biology next, and we studied the part of a cell. I took notes in Finnish to practice my spelling and I realized [View Full Entry]

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Today Ema, Tapio, and I woke up really late after our night out! Tapio made us breakfast and then we all just hung around for a while, trying to wake up. Leena and Erkki started painting the porch and they told me to go for a swim since it was so sunny. I decided it would be a good idea so I went down to the dock and layed in the sun. It was breezy down near the water and though the sun was out it was not warm enough to swim, so I just layed in the sun. It was [View Full Entry]

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