ROTARY INBOUND CAMP!

Europe » Finland
November 11th 2007

Published: November 23rd 2007

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goodmorningfinland

ELLEN!!

youre sitting on me!!! haha i love her. no joke.

Woo HOO!!! Alright, so I am a Rotary In Bound student, meaning I am INBOUND to Finland! DUH! So this past weekend was the In Bound's first camp! It was held in Laitila, 45 minutes north of Turku! On Saturday morning I woke up early and Marru dropped me off at the Turku Bus Sation on her way to the gym. There I met up with Zoe, Eddy, Max, Danie, Mario, and a bunch of other exchange students from the area, and we caught the 10:30 bus to Laitila. On the way we picked up Eric and Dorothee then we arrived in Laitila around 11:25. There we met up with Ellen, Sarah, and the rest of the exchange students from our district. Erkki, the Rotary Exchange Counslor for Laitila's Rotary club ushered all 28 of us into different vans. I was with Silvia and Max, in Erkki's van. We were also accompanied by Noora and Hanna two Rotex (Finns that have been on exchange and are back home in finland). Hanna and I started talking right away when she found out I was from New Mexico. Her mother had gone on exchage to New Mexico, then both her parents had lived

me, hiding behind eddy mexico

he is dressed up as aladin, and im little red riding hood, im hiding from max...because he was dressed up as SUPER SCARY barney!

in Albuquerque for 5 years while they attended UNM!!! I couldnt believe it. Then I asked her where she went on her exchange, and you wont believe where she said...LONG ISLAND, NY!! I should have know, her New Yorkers english accent was great! It was bizzarding as we drove, everything was white. We made a quick stop at Erkki's house where we picked up his son, and one of his son's friends, before continuing on our way. We arrived at our "conference center" around 12:15, and we all ran and claimed our rooms. I roomed with Sarah and Ellen, of course! Then we ran around checking out the "digs". Erkki gathered us in the common room, where we went over rules and such, then we all went for coffee and tea in the dining room at 1pm. There, we introduced ourselves, and said one thing we disliked about Finland...many disliked potatoes. After we went back into the common room, and our Rotex tried to make us play these odd games like standing in a circle throwing a bean bag, or having a hula hooping contest. Then we had some free time, so I decided to go down to the dock

The BLUE VAN!!!

the ride from the bus station in laitila to camp!

and look at the lake. Ellen, Sarah and Eddy came with me, and then Danie, Eric, and Italy followed, so we ended up having a small snow ball fight. After getting suffeciently cold and wet, we went back inside and took off our wet clothes. We had dinner next, mashed potatoes, swedish meatballs, salad, and bread and butter. After dinner we split up into four groups and had a huge fashion show. My group was Eddy and Danie from Australia, Eddy from Mexico, and Sarah, my roomie from Canada! Danie and I were the fashion designers, so we got to go into the "closet" and search through all these crazy costumes, and put together three outfits for the models in our group. Our models were Eddy, Eddy, and Sarah. I dressed Eddy Mexico, in this neon yellow ski suit, with a blonde curly wig, pink sespenders, and big green sun glasses. Danie dressed Eddy Aussi in a funny farmer outfit, with a patched up gunny sack and some tight pants, topped off with a police helmet and a shovel. Then Danie and I both dressed Sarah, in a huge bear costume with a cute pink hat and a little granny

Non from South Africa braiding my hair!

we did it over like three times.

shall! When everyone was done getting their models dressed everyone but the models went into the common room again and we made an isle down the middle. We played music on my ipod speakers, and the models strutted their stuff! It was a lot of fun! Ellen was a model for her group, and these two guys in the last group dressed up as women in REALLY tight clothes and danced provacativly. It was hilarious. Then we had one person from each of our groups be judges for the models, they had cards with numbers one through five on them, and they rated our groups!!! After our talent show we went to the sauna!!! The sauna house was down by the lake, so we wore our clothes down there then changed in a room next to the sauna. Ellen, Sarah, and I were the first few people in the sauna, but after two minutes there were over 30 of us inside! It was crazy, Italy was pouring the water over the stones, and he kept putting WAY to much so all of us up on the top level would be grabbing our faces from the heat! Some people were sitting

Im Sad, because i cant see my hair

and danie was making fun of me.

on eachother, we were sitting on the floor, on the railing, everywhere, it was packed to WAY over capacity! When we got to hot a couple of us would run down to the lake and go for a swim...yes, actually I am serious, a swim in the FREEZING lake water, remember, i mentioned there was snow on the ground, this was some extremely cold water! So the first time I went I was with Ellen, Danie, Argintina and Eddy Mexico. We ran down to the lake steaming from the sauna and it was so dark we just ran straight into the water without seeing where the shore ended! It was blisteringly cold. I went in waist deep, then dove foward, quickly dunked my entire body under, then swam for shore. The coldest part was running back to the sauna, feet burning and stinging from the cold, running on top of snow and pine needles, you couldn't even feel your feet, just cold. When we got back into the sauna, everyone was touching our skin, they couldn't believe how cold it was, but it was a great feeling getting back into the hot sauna! After getting hot again Eric, Eddy, and

talent

beautiful side braid

I went into the lake AGAIN!!! Then back to sauna...then into the lake AGAIN with Ellen and a bunch of Mexicans!!! It was amazing! After having our fill of freezing then burning, we went back up to the main building and got some nice warm clothes on. The big table in the dining room was covered in chips, salsa, dips, chocolate, makkara, sandwhiches, salad, and candy, so Ellen, Max, Non, Sarah and I spent the next hour or so talking about politics and dreams, while eating chips and chocolate!!! Then they split us up into groups of four, and we had a "How much you know about Finland" competition. My group was Argintina, Switzerland, and Zoe Aussi. There were questions like: Whats the name of Finland's National Anthem, What do the colors on the flag represent, what is Kimi Raikkonen famous for, What are the three biggest cities in Finland, What countries boarder Finland, etc. There were 20 questions total, and we got rewarded with chocolate if they were correct! woo hoo for Karl Fazer CHOCOLATE!!! I am going to have to say it is the best chocolate in the world! After, we split up in to yet MORE groups,

Steph Sleeping on Ellen

sweet.

this time with six members. My group was Sarah, Eric, France, Ellen, and Max. Then we all drew characters out of the hat, and we had to go into the costume room and dress up as that character. I was little red riding hood, Ellen was super man, France was spiderman, Max was barney, and Eric was a dragon. Sarah was our story teller. Then each group perfomed a story, made up right on the spot for the audience. Our story was a story of romance between spider man and super man. Then it ended up being a violent massacare when Eric the Dragon killed us all off...yeah, that inpro! So after all our plays we all just hung out in the big common room, playing hand games, and then Jesse Aussi busted out her ipod and her, Claire, Danie, and Non made up a sweet dance to "Touch Me". Ellen, Max, France and I got in on the action and made up a dance to "Get Freaky" then we had a huge dance off. It was hilarious. So much fun. Then we tuned off the lights and we just danced randomly to anysong that played. Argintina, Italy, France, and

Hand Slapping Game

us playing this game where you slap your hand down and it goes around in a circle really really fast. it was fun.

some Mexicans joined in and they put on some Latino dance music, so we had a huge multicultural dance!!! It was already around 2am then, and I was SO tired and hot from dancing, so we all kind of took a break and went back to the little common rooms near our bedrooms. Ellen, Sarah, and some others were sitting near our room, and I went to take a shower. While I was in the shower an extrememly loud beeping started and I heard someone say "Is that the fire alarm?" Then I heard Ellen and Sarah yelling "Steph's in the SHOWER!!!" So I ran out and grabbed a towel, then Sarah threw another one over my head, and we headed into the common room, where everyone was standing with the Rotary people. It was all ok, then Danie sees me and yells "Oh my gosh, Steph was in the shower!" so eveyrone turns and looks at me, standing there in my towel, and laughs. The beeping continued for a few mintues, but there was no fire, so I went back into the shower! YAY! and they eventually got it turned off! After drying off and getting dressed Sarah, Ellen

Eric and I

He was a dragon. He was in my play! I think he ended up eating me at the end...

and I ate some MORE chocolate! (believe me its addicting), then Jess, Non, Danie, Ellen, Sarah, some Rotex, and I stayed up talking outside our rooms, until I got tired, and went to sleep at 4am! The next morning we woke up at 8:30 and ate breakfast. Then Torsti our entire District Youth Officer gave us a speech in the common room, and talked with us about the normal stuff. After we all packed our bags we met in the dining room for coffee and cake, then had a huge hug fest saying goodbye, then we split up into all these cars waiting outside for us, and drove to the bus station in Laitila. In my car I was sitting inbetween Jess and Non, and I had my ipod speakers, so we sang to old OLD music like "Im Blue" "Love Today" and so many others. When we got to the bus station we met up with everyone else from camp, again! HAHA, but it was freezing so we all huddled, then walked to the nearest RKioski and bought MORE chocolate!!! When our bus to Turku came, and we said "goodbye" to everyone NOT going to Turku! I had the

Exchange Kids DOGPILE!!

ouch ouch ouch. many many people

window seat next to Eric on the bus, and we listened to music, then him, Sylvia and I got off at the Raisio stop, where Eric rode his bike home (he lives in Raisio) and Sylvia's host dad picked us up and dropped me off at home, where I dragged myslef upstairs, talked with Henkka for five minutes, then fell asleep. So much fun with the Rotaries!!!

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