Blogs from Naantali, Southwest Finland, Finland, Europe - page 2

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 tutors. We learned how to sing Hakuna Matata in like 10 different languages at least, then got into groups with our fellow country people. Each country put on some kind of small play, or sung ... read more

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 things and tasteing things and laughing, and having a jolly good time. Ilkka, the chef at Kala-trappi was there to get us anything we needed, and I had a lot of fun discribing what I ... read more

What a place. The most Finns i have ever seen together! We went to the game tonight! It was a lot of fun, even though TPS wasnt playing very well at all!!! But I got my TRIP (yes i was TRIPPING during the game, (the juice boxes in finland are called TRIP!!!)) haha! We visited Bedrock (from the flinstones) between periods and had some snacks, and watched TPS (the Turku team) play the Ilves....(which I first thought was called ILLNESS...that got a laugh) ... read more

What a day. I can honestly say that this has been one of the most exciting days here! I woke up early and got into the car in my pj's and boots with Iska (h.dad). He dropped me over at Leena's where we ate some eggs together for breakfast, then I went upstairs to put the curlers in my hair! Today was the big day, finally! All these hours of practicing and it was here!!! February 15, 2008!!! The VANHOJEN TANSSIT!!! The Vanhojen Tanssit is an old tradition in Finnish schools. The second graders (or juniors) all practice and learn special dances to be performed when the Abit (graduaters/senior) leave the school, when the second graders are the oldest students in the school. (this year February 14 the Abit left, so now we are the oldest ... read more

So this was a very long weekend, so Im definitely not going to write everything that happened, but Ellen came to visit me again from Kankaanpaa! Friday night we went to my host aunt's dogs birthday (she has no children, but she has little NELSON!!!), it was pirate themed, and we had a lot of fun...well everyone attacked me with those little popper things, it was a blast, uncontrolable laughing. Saturday Ellen and I met up with Eddy Mexico and a couple other exchange students in Turku and got some free massages and some chinese food! Then Sunday morning was crazy bright and sunny with snow EVERYWHERE so Ellen and I went walking to Muumimaailma (Muumiworld) with Leena and Henkka!... read more