Avantouinti (or in English Emily being crazy)

Well over the weekend I had District Conference at a place called Mikkeli which is about 100 km's from my house. Although it was good to meet all the other exchange students in my district, most of the weekend was spend sitting round and waiting for things to happen which gets a bit boring sometimes. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so when I get some photos send to me I will put them on my blog.

This afternoon after much convincing, I went to avantouinti with my host family (which in english is going to sauna and then running and getting in the frozen lake). It was so cold that when I got out of the water I actually couldn't feel my legs. They were so pink from the coldness of the water. After we had stayed in the water for a little bit (and when I say a little bit I serisouly mean getting in, going f**k its freezing and gettin out as fast as humanly possible) and then going and sitting in sauna. As warm as the sauna is when you first get there, the finns seem to love adding water to the stones and your skin feels like someone is chucking hot water on you cause it gets so hot.

Me in the water (you can tell by the weird look
on my face just how cold the water was)

Annu swimming!

Lassi going for a casual swim!! This is a perfect example why
foreigners call finns, crazy finns!!

Me and Annu!

The worst thing about taking this picture was that I had to wait in the water for Annu to get in (although only a few seconds, it seriously felt like minutes). Once in we had to quickly pose so I could get out quickly and get back to sauna and try warm myself up again.

This Thursday I am finally off to St. Petersburg. I am so excited about getting to see all the other exchange students, especially Jodi. It has been so long since I've seen her and I am missing her sooooo much. I will get back to Taavetti on Sunday afternoon and Sunday night I am going out to celebrate Labour Day. It is a big celebration in Finland so of course I am expected to go out for a while. Then on Monday morning I have to get home nice and early so I can go to Stockholm, Sweden with my host family for 2 nights. Never thought I'd be able to say that I will have been in 3 countries in 2 days. It's going to be a big week and I can only imagine how tired I will be when I finally get home and get a decent night sleep. But I will make sure I put lots of pictures on next week once I get home. Well time for me to go and pack my bags for St. Petersburg. I have another exchange student staying at my house tomorrow night so we can go to our pick up place together so I have to get everything ready before she arrives. Haven't had any emails from some certain people lately (eg. Joybells) so it would be nice to hear how everything is going. Missing you guys like you wouldn't believe. Love you always.

Hyvää Pääsiäistä

Happy Easter everyone. Easter here has been really good and I have had the best weekend. We got four days off school which added to the excitement of it all. On friday I had a big lunch with my host family and my host grandma (lassi's mum). After lunch, Annu, my host mum and me headed into Lappeenranta. Annu and me went and watched the men's floor hockey game while my host mum went to visit her parents.

The sunset from my host grandparents apartment!

And again! So pretty (annu took these)

The two chicken's that were on the table

Some easter eggs!

On Saturday I went to Lauri's house for lunch. His mum cooked a really good lunch. I think they are all good cooks because Lauri cooked lunch one day and it was so yummy. he's good to have around....he can always cook for me when I'm hungry now. lol

This morning when I woke up there was a cute contained filled with lollies for me as my host parents knew that I don't like chocolate very much. So nice.

My little goodie basket!

All my lollies (i think I'm gonna be getting fat soon)

My basket

Well this afternoon I went and visited my next host family briefly. they have a really nice house and my next room was really nice. my host sister made a cake which was so yummy. they have so many nice cakes in finland. dont know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. annu and me then went into lappeenranta for a couple of hours. she went to see ice age 2 which i also wanted to see but unfortunately the movie was in finnish so i decided against it and instead went out with lauri while she was there. when we got home we decided to take some funny pictures of the toys we had collected from the kinder surprises that my host family had bought for easter. you guys are all gonna think we are weird and we probably are a bit but it was so funny when we doing it. you may need to look at the pictures from annu's dance to understand these pictures properly.

Lauri, Annu and Johannes

Lauri and Annu

Annu (she has a long neck in her professional dance picture so annu's
making the toys neck long aswell)

Lauri (we chose this one because it had glasses like Lauri does)

Johannes (don't know why this one was chosen for Johannes but oh well)

Just thought I would include some random picutes at the bottom. I took these the other night to send to Uncle Cliff for the reunion but they wouldn't go through because his inbox was full.

Annu and me

My host family

Oh and incase any one hadn't heard. After my speech at Taavetti school, we all got a picture in the local newspaper and a small write up about us. I will try scan it and put it on my blog soon. It's such a bad picture but oh well. Missing you all heaps. Love always

Emily
xoxo

My Weekend Out

Well I had another big weekend, although of course there was no alcohol consumed. My host parents went to Jväskylä over the weekend so Annu and me had the house to ourself's. Friday night we went to Lappeenranta and watched the women's floor hockey game (its pretty similar to field hockey, just played inside and with plastic balls). The Lappeenranta team ended up winning 6-4(not to sure of the score but it was something like that) and therefore won the Finnish championship. You have no idea how excited everyone was. Afterwards we went to a bar called 'The Old Cock' for a bit because the girls who Annu's plays floor hockey with and who also were watching the game wanted to go there for a bit. And since one of them was our ride home, we really had no choice. Although I'm not complaining.

Our floor hockey team

Saturday I headed into town early to spend the way with Lauri. Was a good day once again. We just watched a movie and spend time together. Then saturday afternoon I met Annu in town and we headed round to a friends house where we stayed for the night. Annu, Mervi, Ellie (two finnish friends) and myself headed out to a nightclub called Cannibals at about 11 where we ended up staying till about 3:30. Was a real good night. Some other friends ended up coming so it was a good night to catch up with them all. Lauri ended up coming at about 12:30 and I think about 5 or 6 people told us how cute we look together. I have to say hearing everyone say that gets a bit annoying after a while although its nice to know everyone thinks we look good together. We headed home at about lunchtime on Sunday and after getting some food into my belly, it was off to bed for a 4 hour afternoon nap for me. It was really warm yestreday (got to about +9 degrees) so I fell asleep in the warm sunlight that was shining through my window.'

Annu, Mervi and Elli

Mervi, Elli and me

Annu and her best friend Ittu

Just a very interesting picture of Lauri and Johannes (a 3rd grader from school)

Well school started at 8 today, which meant I had to get up at 5:30 to be ready on time for the bus. When i woke the snow was really really heavy so my walk to the bus wasnt very fun but thats ok. I managed to re-arrange my timetable abit so I don't start school till 12 on Tuesday's and I finish at 2 so I'm pretty happy bout that one. I got my Finnish test back today and my teacher said I did really well. Only had a few spelling errors and I got all the clock's right that I had to tell the time. There were 12 altogether so I was pretty happy bout that one.

Last Monday I went along to the Fazer Factory Factory with my Rotary Club. Fazer I think is one of the biggest makes of bread, chocolate and lollies. I dragged Sarah (the American Exchange Student) along with me so I wouldn't get lonely. best bit about the whole tour was the free bag of bread waiting for us at the end. My host family was pretty happy to get so much different bread for free. lol

Some of my rotarians in the special clothes we had to wear!!

Sarah and me with our free bags of bread!!

I had my speech at Taavetti school last Friday. It all went pretty well. Had to introduce myself in Finnish to two different groups which had about 100-150 people in each group. It was all pretty scary since I had sayin speech's in English let alone in Finnish. I just had to say my name, how old i am, that i am an australian exchange student, where I live in finland and australia, that I speak english and a little bit of Finnish. i think that was all. was good though, we got paid €20 for doing so I'm not complaining bout it. lol.

Sarah and me after our speeches!

Just a random photo of Lassi and Annu I thought I would include! She's gonna kill me when she sees its on here. hehe

Missing everyone heaps and I love you all.

Emily
xoxo

Test Week

Well in Finland all there tests are done over a week. We have 6 weeks of classes and then we all do tests for our various subjects. Well test week was this week and it works out pretty good if your an exchange student. It started last Thursday and I only had to do 2 tests, Psychology on Monday and Finnish on Tuesday. I think both tests went well but I'm not sure. We were supposed to go get our tests back today but as everyone knows, I am a major slack ass and I couldn't be bothered having to go on the bus for an hour for the sake of getting to tests back so if I have time tomorrow I will try find my teacher's and get them back. Every Friday now I only have double art where I am making a scrap book of my time in Finland. Hard I know. Although it does start at 8 which means I do have to be up at 5:30 to get ready for school. My timetable didn't work out very well this period, my classes start at 8 every morning so no sleep in's for me. Although this is the last period before summer holidays and before i go to Europe.

As well as having double art tomorrow I also have to go give a speech along with the other three exhcange studnets from Lappeenranta on our countries. Shall be a barrel of laughs since I hate speeches so much. Me being good old Emily, I have left my speech till the last minute again and I am still working hard trying to find information and actually getting it together. I am half way there so I will get there. Will let you all know how it goes after tomorrow. Missing everyone heaps and love you all. xoxo

Sledging with Lauri!!

Well whoever thought sledging or as I think we call it back in Aus sleding could be so much fun, Standing at the top of the hill I never thought I would make it to the bottom without hitting a tree or tipping the sledge but how wrong I was (after a few attempts I finally made it to the bottom). To help me on my first go down, Lauri sat on the back of the sledge to show me that it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Although not scary, I learnt having Lauri on the back isn't as safe as I thought it would be as he managed to tip the sledge and both of us ended in the snow. Although very cold lying in the snow, I have to admit it made the whole ride more funny. My first attempt going down by myself I have to say didn't go quite to plan. I made it half way down before hitting a little tree and coming to a halt. At this stage I still hadn't worked out how to steer the sled, not very easy if I say so myslf. By the second attempt though, I must say that I was pretty proud of myself. Towards the bottom of the hill there is a little jump, which Emily decied on purpose of course(not!!) that she would go over. I must say the landing isn't very soft and I had to walk up the hill with a sore bum. ouch!!

Getting ready to go down the hill!! arghhh

After a while of sliding down one hill we decided to move to a steeper hill. Once arriving there and seeing how steep it was I decided that I would slide from about half way down. Plus this one was a bit bendy and seeing as Emily hadn't quite learnt how to turn yet I decided I didn't want to risk going from the top and hitting a big tree. I decided before I climbed back up the hill, it was time for me to finally make my first snow angel in Finland.

Making my snow angel

The Finished product!!

Lauri and Me(our first photo together.....ohhh)