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Published: February 2nd 2008
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New family. New year. New school term. Everything is starting again.
Hey everyone, sorry it's taken me so long to update again. I've moved to my new host family and I can't use my own computer here, so it's hard to find the time to update my blog.
So, where to start? On Thursday, January 3rd, I moved to my new host family. They are a husband and wife who are in their sixties and all their children are grown up and have moved out. They live much closer to the city than my previous host family. When I lived in Sundom I was about 11 kilometers from downtown and now it's only about 3. This means that I'm able to ride my bike to both school and basketball practice, which is really nice. I don't have to wait for the bus anymore! And as far as basketball goes, it's only about a 6 minute trip instead of the approximately 30 minute trip as before. Also, I think it's really good that I'm getting this extra exercise. All that Christmas chocolate is really beginning to get to me!
On Friday I got interviewed by one of the local
Replot
The boulders that you see are all over Finland's wilderness. Apparently the were carried here by the glaciers and then left behind when they melted after the last ice age. radios in Vaasa, Radio X3M (Extreme). I guess they were doing a show about exchange students. I don't know how they found out about me or anything, but it was pretty cool that I got to do it. I met the interviewer in a cafe and he interviewed me for about 45 minutes. He had so many questions! And of course the interview was in Swedish, which I was a little nervous about, but I think I did ok.
Monday was my first day back to school after Christmas break. It was also my first day riding my bike to school. The ride to school isn't very fun because it's uphill practically the whole way, and there's this one huge hill which I actually had to get off my bike and walk up. However, the way home from school is fun because I barely have to do anything.
On Thursday my school basketball team played in a tournament. We played all day and didn't have to go to any classes. What fun! We played 3 other teams: Vasa Gymnasium, Pedersöre, and Jakobstad. We won all three games, two of them by quite alot, which means that in February
we get to go to Helsinki and play in another tournament! I'm excited. I think it will be fun. Thursday evening I went to the movies with my friend Cecilia. We saw The Golden Compass, which I was a little skeptical about at first, but it was actually really good. Also, we went to a different movie theater this time and it was way better than the last one. It was almost like an American theater.
On Friday I learned that riding my bike to school is not always fun. It was raining/snowing like the whole way there. I ended up getting very wet and it was not fun at all.
Riding my bike to basketball on Monday was not fun either. The streets were like sheets of ice. I wiped out so many times and ended up walking. Then I discovered that it was actually easier to just glide across the ice as if I was skating rather than attempting to walk. I seriously think I could have actually ice skated there. I don't understand why they don't salt the streets or sidewalks in Finland. Maybe they just prefer the ice.
On Tuesday I started my
Swedish night class. It's supposed to prepare me to take the big Swedish test in April. I hope it goes well. I'm by far the youngest person in the class. And almost everyone else there is a foreigner, like me. There's only one girl who's actually from Finland.
On Thursday I finally got my hair cut. That was interesting. No one in Finland really has curly hair, so they don't really know how to cut it. The hair stylist cut it while it was curly first, but then she told me she would have to straighten it to finish it. When she straightened it I noticed that she had cut alot more off of the right side than the left. I guess she had a little trouble with the whole curly thing. However, she fixed it. It ended up looking ok, at least straightened. I had to wait until the next day to see if it looked good curly, and it did. I ended up really liking it.
On Saturday I went to Turku to visit my friend Max. I was supposed to take the 6:22 train, but of course I overslept and had to take the 9:20
instead. I got to Turku at about 2:00 and Max and I immediately set off to go shopping. All the stores were having big sales. I got a really nice new pair of jeans. They were originally 90 €, but I got them on sale for 40 €. Quite the bargain! After all the stores closed we went and had coffee with my friend Jose who just happened to be in town. Then we took the bus back to Paimio, the city where Max lives. We got off in the center and some girl that Max knew had rented out a bar for her birthday party. So, we went there and hung out for a while. Then we walked back to Max's house.
On Sunday my basketball team had a game in Turku, so in the afternoon Max's host family drove me there. We only had 6 players, so I got to play quite a bit. We lost the game, quite badly. Oh well. Then I went back to Vaasa with my basketball team.
On Wednesday I finished school really early, at 12:15, so I went with some friends to this new place called Spice Ice. It's an
ice cream place and it's really good! It's nothing compared to Coldstone though! (Which I dearly miss by the way and if anyone could figure out a way to send me Coldstone ice cream in the mail, so that it would be edible when I got it, you would be my favorite person forever!)
Thursday was quite interesting. We had school basketball practice as usual. However, neither of our two coaches were there. Well, they are actually just two of the girls who play on the team who also coach us. Anyway, since I am the only other person on the team who has really ever played basketball before this year, I got to coach. I've never coached anyone before and I've certainly never done it in Swedish. It was kind of hard, but I think I did ok. After basketball I thought it was kind of ridiculous to go home since i would just have to come back again in a few hours for my Swedish class. So, I went out for pizza with one of my friends, and then we went to Spice Ice for dessert. Haha, I think I'm addicted.
On Friday night I went to this music thing in the city after basketball practice. It was basically sort of just like a hang out for teenagers. There were a bunch of kids playing music and stuff. I swear about half of my school was there. A bunch of kids from a school in Belgium are visiting our school this week and alot of them were there. I got to talk to them for a bit. It was pretty cool. They all had really good English.
On Sunday I went with my host family to their other home on a nearby island. On the way we crossed Finland's longest bridge, Replot Bron/Raippaluodon Silta. It's a whole 1,045 meters long!! (according to Wikipedia, that doesn't even crack the Top 100 of the world's longest bridges) Anyway, when we got to their house we took a short walk to enjoy the scenery and then we just relaxed for awhile. I got some pretty good pictures of the scenery which I'll put here.
Well, that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well.
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Mom
non-member comment
Hi
I'm going to go eat Coldstone and think of you! I miss you.