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Published: September 15th 2007
A Car
I just thought this car was really cool. There are lots of cool old cars here. Some teacher at my school drives this really neat old saab. I should take a picture of it sometime. Sorry I haven't written in awhile. I guess I've just been busy.
Anyway, so where to start? I believe I last left you on the 1st, so, on Sunday the 2nd I went to my friend Emilia's soccer game. It was in Sundom, the small part of Vaasa where I live, so I was able to ride my bike there. In America 40 degrees and rainy would be car weather, but in Finland it is bike-riding weather. The game was good, but I was freezing my butt off the entire time. After the game I called my friends Mira and Sandra to see if they wanted to hang out. They were like sure, how about we go for a walk. Again, I'm thinking, cold and rainy, not exactly walking weather. It must be a Finnish thing.
On that Wednesday I had my first Finnish lesson. I'm taking them at Vaasa Polytechnic. Christine, the girl from Germany, is also in the class, so it's nice that I know someone there. All the people in the class are foreigners, obviously, and most of them are a few years older than me. They are all actually students at the school. Anyway, the
class was really pretty boring. It was all the basic stuff like how to pronounce words and stuff, and since I studied some Finnish before I came and also since I've been here for a month, I already knew everything. After the class Christine and I went and got smoothies at this place called Arnold's. I'm not sure if that's a reference to Happy Days or not. Then I had lunch with my Rotary counselor. I found out from her that the Rotary club would pay my fee for playing in the basketball league here. That made me really happy because it was going to cost € 137! After that I had to go back to the school for Group Handling. It's where you get together with your class and the teacher gives you all the important information you need to know for the upcoming month. At the end of the class we played this very weird Swedish game. I don't know what it's called. You have two teams that stand across from each other in a line and each team has five little wooden blocks lined up in front of them with a "King" block in the middle of
everyone. Then you have to throw wooden sticks at the other team's blocks and try to knock them over. After you have knocked over all of the other teams blocks you must knock down the King. Then you win. If you knock down the King before you knock down all the other teams blocks you lose. So we had a sort of tournament. There were four teams so there were three games. We played two games first and then the winners of each of those games played each other to see who would win the whole thing. However, by the time of the final game everyone was really cold and just wanted to go home so one of the boys purposely knocked down the King so we could all leave.
On Thursday I went to my Japanese class as usual. Our teacher has now switched to green striped shirts. I guess he's branching out a little. Anyway, we finally got our course books. However, we have 4 of them and they are huge. I can barely even fit all of them in my bag and they are sooooo heavy! They're really nice though and I get to keep them.
The Harbor
This is just a picture of the boardwalk by the sea. After school I went with all of my friends for coffee. I didn't really talk much because they were all talking in Swedish, so I just listened. I found that I could understand about 60% of what they were saying! I thought that was really cool.
On Friday night I introduced my family to the wonders of a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I got home from basketball practice Friday night and I was really hungry so I made myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich (I was smart and brought peanut butter with me, you can't find it in Finland). My host dad saw me eating it and thought it was really weird. I told him it was really good and I offered him a piece, but he said that he would make his own. So, then we all gathered in the kitchen and watched him make a peanut butter and banana sandwich. At first he was trying to find the peanut butter in the fridge, and I tried to explain to him that it didn't need to be refrigerated. He said, "But it's butter." I tried to explain that it's not really butter, peanut butter is just
Christine
This is my German friend Christine. She lives near Hamburg. the name. But, it seems like everyone here in Finland, if they know what peanut butter is, thinks it's actual butter. Almost every time I tell someone I brought peanut butter with me, they go , "What? It doesn't have to be refrigerated?" Yeah, so anyway, they all tried the peanut butter and banana sandwich. I'm not really sure if they liked it or not. They at least didn't spit it out or anything.
Saturday was alot of fun. I hung out with Christine, the German girl, and some of her Finnish friends. At about 8 o'clock we were bored so we went into the city. Christine and I were shocked. It was 8 o'clock on a Saturday and everything was closed. All the stores outside were closed, all the stores in the mall were closed, and even alot of the restaurants were closed! The only places that were open were the bars and nightclubs and McDonalds. So, we went into McDonalds where we met this guy who was friends with Christine's friends. He was on his way to go play basketball with some of his other friends. So, we went with him and we all played some basketball.
By the Sea
Here's me by the sea. There were only six of us and we were playing on a little kids hoop so it was only like 6 or 7 feet tall. It was alot of fun though. At one point I had to call my parents and tell them where I was, but I didn't know where we actually were, so I had to ask. I decided to test out my Finnish so I asked them in Finnish. It was so funny because everyone just like stopped and stared at me like I was an alien from another planet or something. I think they were just so shocked that I had actually said something in Finnish that they didn't know what to say. Finally, after what felt like forever, one of them answered. It was really funny though. Then after it got dark we went back into the city and hung out a little bit more. Then I went home.
On Sunday I hung out with my friend Mira again. We had a very interesting talk about American food. I tried to explain to her how I missed eating chocolate bars filled with caramel. They don't have those here, they only have ones filled with
University Students
Here is an example of the university students that we saw marching towards the sea. toffee. She then responded, "Isn't toffee the same as caramel?" I was just thinking, "Oh, the poor Finns, they don't even know what caramel is!" Then I was trying to explain to her what s'mores are. However, they don't have graham crackers in Finland, or at least they don't call them graham crackers. I had no idea what graham is, so I just gave up on that one. Later on Sunday I went to a pizzeria with my basketball team. We were there to like discuss the upcoming season and elect a team captain and such. It was pretty fun. I was in for quite a shock when I looked at the menu though. They don't have like normal American pizza flavors here, they have lots of weird ones. Almost all of the pizzas had mushrooms so I went with the banana pizza, which was recommended by my friend Ella. Again everyone ate their pizza with a knife and fork so I followed suit. I asked my friend Sandra about this a few days later and she said that alot of people eat pizza with their hands at home, but I guess when they go out to restaurants they don't
want to just eat with their hands in front of everyone else.
On Monday Jari, my host dad, gave me a way to practice my Finnish. They have this cabin in Lapland which they rent out when they don't use it. At some point in December a British family is going to use it, so the guide for how to use everything in the cabin needs to be translated into English. Guess who gets to do that. Me! It's like 15 pages long and it's soooooo hard! I've done one paqragraph already. Luckily I have a few months to do it.
On Wednesday I had another Finnish class. Again it was quite boring. We're still doing the really easy stuff. Afterwards neither Christine nor I had anymore school so we decided to hang out in the city. We did some shopping and ate lunch. Then we went down by the sea and sat for awhile. On our way back we ran into these groups of people wearing crazy outfits and chanting things while marching towards the sea. We found out that they were first year university students and it was some sort of tradition. The older students make the younger students dress in weird clothes and play weird games and stuff. Some sort of hazing I guess. It was pretty crazy.
On Thursday I spent half an hour in my English class answering questions about myself and American culture. It was pretty fun. I was really afraid that I would talk too fast and they wouldn't understand me or something, but I think I did well. Also, well I think I have to start from the beginning for this story. So, everyday it seems that me and this other guy are the first people to arrive for my music class. And everyday we just like sit there and stare at each other, well actually we don't stare at each other. We both do the whole "staring at the other person until they look at you and then you turn away and pretend like you weren't looking" thing. I just think it's so funny because we've been doing this for like weeks, every day. I think it was last week I finally said, "Hej." and he said, "Hej." and then we went back to our not staring at each other. So finally on Thursday I actually talked to him. I was talking to him in Swedish and it was really funny because I could tell he was really scared to talk to me. He kept speaking in really fast Swedish and I kept having to tell him to slow down. It was fun though. Now we don't just have to not stare at each other all the time. Also, on Thursday, I met an English teacher at my school who is married to an American man and lived in Kansas for a few years. Which, by the way, there must be a ton of Finnish people in Kansas. I swear, everyone who I have met who has relatives in America has said that their relatives live in Kansas. I mean what is so great about Kansas?! Why do all the Finns go there? I just don't understand. Also, I finished Harry Potter on Thursday. Yay! Now I have to start reading the second one in Finnish. Ahhhhh! it's going to be so hard!
On Friday I ate something very interesting. I had this chocolate bar called Maya. It was milk chocolate with little pieces of chili peppers in it. I had heard of chocolate like that before, but I had never tasted it. It was really good! At basketball practice there was a new girl there. She is from Michigan and has been living in Finland for 3 years. It was really nice to meet her. It was nice to be able to speak English with someone who can actually speak it right.
In two weeks I am going to be doing my first bit of traveling here in Finland. I am going to go to Espoo, a city near Helsinki, and visit my friend Jose. Jose is from Finland and I met him in Japan last summer. I'm really excited. He's going to show me around Espoo and we'll probably go into Helsinki too! I can't stay with his family while I'm there because they are "strangers" so I have to stay with my host dad's sister and her husband in Vantaa, another city near Helsinki. I think it's kind of goofy, but if I want to go I have to do it. I'm gong to have to take the train there. It's only going to cost me about € 50 round trip, which I thought wasn't too horrible. Especially because if I wasn't a student it would cost me € 100 round trip.
Now, for the big news. During the first week of October, the 8th-12th, I'm going to be going on my school's trip to Germany and Poland! I'm really excited. It's a history class that is going. They have been doing a project on the Holocaust so we are going to be visiting concentration camps. In Germany we will be visiting Sachsenhausen, and in Poland we will be visiting one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz. I first found out about this trip a week or two ago. I thought it would be really interesting and I thought it couldn't hurt to ask if I could go and they said yes. It's going to cost alot of money though, € 870 to be exact, about $1050, but my Rotary club said that they would contribute € 100 which helps. I think it will be a really great experience though. I mean I've never been to Germany or Poland, I've never seen a concentration camp, and who knows when I'll ever get the chance again. I figured that this is such a great chance to see such an important part of history that I couldn't let money get in the way. So, in a few weeks I will be going. I'm really excited. I'll be sure to take alot of pictures and tell you all about it.
Well I think that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well.
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Mallory
non-member comment
Hej
It sounds like you are having a good time! I am happy for you that you get to go to Poland and Germany. It sounds like such an awesome experience! I'm happy that you've been playing basketball and walking in the rain. What's the temperature been like there? I noticed your friend had a scarf on in the picture you took....I want another picture of you!!!! I miss you Kenny!!! I love you! P.S. Hej = Hey ?????