Pictures from Lapland

Ilona , Heli, Ella and Me next to a stone globe at the arctic circle
Me with the Santa Claus building!
On an old fashioned swing during a pit stop
at the Arctic Circle
At a museum
me and Ilona
Ella!
reindeer!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hiking up a mountain with steps..
nice view
nice view 2

nice view 3
white water rafting!!!
meeeee ( behind me is the guide dude)
all dressed up for the rafting
NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!!!!!!!

The Swedish side of the border ( see the arrow pointing to Finland...)

So here are somep pictures, I have loads more still on my camera, your patience is kindly requested ;)

I have failed ( again) to put my pictrues on the computer, the process is complicated because all the texts are in Finnish! So I will wait for when Anssi comes home to try again. We think maybe the systems on the computers here are different from those at home, so some of my devices are not working here. But I won´t bore you will technical talk ;) Though as you saw, my mom did put some pictures of Lapland that I emailed to her, very kindly I might add.

On Tuesday we went to see the new Harry Potter movie, and it is worth describing. Not the movie itself ( which was quite good, I must add but you can look up a movie review site for that...) but the theater itself. It was built inside an old factory in the middle of Tampere, and naturally looks quite differnet from American theaters. There were escalators up to more theathers, brick walls everywhere and a completely different lay out from what I am used to. I tried to explain to Ilona how American theaters were often big block buildings full with hideously loud crowds and lines! Another difference was how the Finns acted. They were quieter (as I expected), and generally more respectful of others in the theater. The lines at the ticket booth were polite and if not completely silent, at least hushed. Once the movie started, no one talked at all. I am in the habit of sometimes commenting on the movie to those watching with me, so I had to keep my lips pressed tight together so I wouldn´t burst forth with a `omg did you see that?!´ People did giggle softly at the funny bits, but there was no loud gafawing from the fat man in front :)

Wednesday we slept late and prepared to have some family friends over in the afternoon. I took a long walk, which was nice. The friends came at about 4:30, we ate a gigantic amount of food, with rubarb pie, chocolate chip bananna muffins and chocoalte cake for dessert! The muffins I had made earlier from a recipe of my mom´s. They turned out pretty good, for being a Finnish variation! I had to make some changes, like using shaved chocolate instead of chocolate chips and puting the batter directly into the papers ( no muffin tin) but they tasted okay! At dinner I finally discovered the meaning of the word ´ oikeesti´... the girls said it all the time and I was always wondering what it meant! Now I know it means ´really´!!!

I also got some travel paperwprk from YFU yesterday, I suddenly am being forced to think about going home! I have, as of today, 22 days left in Finland! I will be going on the trip to Estonia ( August 10th-11th) and then I have a orientation event in Helsinki until the 15th, when I fly home. I will get to meet the Ambassador of the US to Finland, and some other important persons! I recently found out that I will be staying with Petra ( my former exchange sister from Finland)´s family during my time in Helsinki, which is a relief. I am glad I will be where I know one person, instead of trying to adjust to a completely new house of strangers! They are coming on Saturday as well ( I am looking forward to that!) But there is all the packing to think about... uuuuugh I will push it to the back of my mind for now.

Today was quite eventful. First we went to Tampere to see the Pyynikki Observation Tower. It was built on a hill in Tampere, just outside of the city center. From the top ( which is open to the sky) one can see the entire city spread out below. Even more awesome, ( if that is possible) is that one can see the city as it lies between the two lakes. Anyone who has looked at a map of the Tampere area has seen that the city is on a narrow strip of land between the lakes Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. Now, from the tower I could actuallty SEE that picture from the maps! Really insane. We ate some amazing pastries at the base of the tower, they are apparently very famous and everyone who visits Tampere is told to come to the tower and eat that kind of pastry. Now I know why!
Then we went to see a beautiful Church called the Tampere Cathedral. It was full of beautiful frescos and stained glass windows... and a giant silver pipe organ which I was dying to try out.
Then to the market square in the city center. It was like huge flea market\farmers market... people selling their old stuff and more people selling their fresh veggies. We bought some `black sauages´another Tampereian delicacy ( haha). It looked like it came out of the wrong end of something, but it tasted pretty good. Not at all what I expected though, I was imagining it more like spicy sausage. We also ate some of a salad\frenchfries\ sausage dish which was quite yummy. After that we drove a short way to a museum. It was a recreation of housing for factory workers in the 1900´s. The arrangment of the rooms moved up from the early decades until about 1978. The rooms were tiny, and had housed 7 or more people, it was hard to imagine living like that. Very interesting though.

I have been starting to think of home differently, as people promised I would. It seems smaller, less important to the workings of the world, and the problems in it not as big. At the same time it has become much more dear. Seeing so much more of the world is fantastic, but there is something to be said for home as well. Those who have ever left somewhere for a trip will recall the amazing feeling that you get when you leave an old place for a new one. Any old travelers can say ( I am sure) that there is also a distinct feeling when you return home. I will back this up and clearify what I am talking about when I have actually experienced it.
Now the sauna is heating out in the garden, and I am going to go lie somewhere and try to digest the three tacos I just ate.
xox Megan

hello!
I just finished a lovely lunch here at the Haanpää´s, grilled meat, dark bread and butter, new potatos, salad, mushrooms filled with cheese and wrapped in bacon ( oooh) and strawberry muffins for desert! The strawberries were wild ones that grow in the back yard and theya re insanly sweet and good. I had forgotten until now, but I have a recipe that Mom had given me for chocolate chip bananna muffins, I plan to make them on Wednesday, when some friends are coming over. I am a bit worried that there will not be any chocolate chips in the Finnish store, but I am hoping. Äiti also made a rubarb pie, it was sitting out on the table next to the strawberry muffins. I had to walk away, they were so tempting! Äiti made the muffins in a different way: instead of putting the batter into the muffin tins, she put it directly into the papers and put those on a tray in the oven! I was amused. We will eat the pie tomorrow I think. The Finns make such good food, both in taste and in healthiness! Every lunch and dinner the table is loaded with yummies, I look forward to every meal. There are some things that I miss ( like bagles) but most of the food is similar. In the summer Finns grill ALOT, almost every night here. They cook minced meat on sticks ( the name escapes me), sausage, chicken, pork, you name it. I may have mentioned this before, but they also grill other things, like fruit, vegatables in tin foil and toast bread... yum! While we were traveling we went twice to ´Hesburger´, a fast food restraunt alot like McDonald´s. I was GREATLY amused by one thing there: how the cashiers brought you your food to the table when it was ready, like a normal restraunt. Of course the wait was much shorter, it still being a fast food place, but I was impressed none the less. No annoying lines ( like at McDonald´s ) while you stand there and wait for your food... ;)
Everythings is going really nicely now, all problems are cleared up and understood... at least we know now that there was a problem and know how to fix any future ones. I sort of expected to not do much this summer, aside from the Lapland trip, but it is not the case! We have SO many plans, like this new one: Sometime at the end of July we might pack up the RV ( again!) and drive to Turku, where there is a playland that Heli wants to go to. It is based on a Finnish cartoon character family called ´Muumins`. Then we would drive to Helsinki, stay at a really nice camping place there and maybe see Petra there! (If she is reading this, it might be sometime between the 27th and 31st of July... email me!) I am hoping it all works out! I am also going to an adventure park sometime soon, and well as a concert ( next Sunday), and the new Harry Potter movie ( Tuesday). I admitt it is nice to not just sit around the whole time. I am so sorry that I don´t have pictures up yet, I have about 170 or so, and they take so much time to upload... also Ilona doesn´t really want all of them on her computer because she is afraid they might slow it down. So those are my excuses, please be patient ;)
I have been making a habit of taking a daily bike ride, which is lovely. The Finnish roads have nice wide sidewalks, so it is easy to take a quick ride. And it´s exercise! Whoo hoo! I am always afraid that will get lost, but it never happens. I have gotten used to seeing people biking\walking everywhere.
The other day the girls taught me a Finnish dance called the ´letka jenkka`... you hop and jump and hop some more.. it´s really funny! Now I remember that they taught me another game too.... there is a big loop of elastic, which two people put around their ankles. A third person then jumps in and around the two elastics in a pattern, and if they mess up they have to start agian! I tried and did pretty well. Even Simo did it!
So that is life at the moment.. right now Ilona and Ella are playing the piano randomly, pretty strange sounding. Äiti says she really likes my playing, which is good because I like to play too! Heli is very good, for being 8 years old... I am impressed.
So that´s it for now, I´ll write again soon. =D

hello! I am back from Lapland now, with a gigantic load of things to write about. I have my diary open here, and will be reading off of it as I go, I can´t remember all the things we did. To put it into one word, the trip was amazing. But you can´t possibly find much to interest you in that one word, so I will elborate :)

We left about 10:30 am on Sunday, July 5th and drove over 6 hours (!!!) to Oulu, on the western coast of Finland. It was a grusome drive... the camper shook and rattled so much when we drove that I felt quite ill for a while. The girls entertained themselves for all that long time with food and games... I might note that during this trip I have 1) learned about 4 or 5 new card games and 2) gained a few pounds!! They would often play the games in Finnish though. They played one alot like Madlibs, except that they wrote them themselves.... they laughed pretty hard. Something I found very nice was how every time another camper like ours pased us on the road, Simo and Marjut waved respectfully to them. Marjut told me that this is the custom in almost all European countries! We camped that night at a large campground... it was very close to the sea and we went for a walk there, which was really lovely ( although VERY windy). During our walk them Marjut asked me if I was unhappy with them or didn´t want to be there with them. She thought that because I had not been talking alot during the drive that I was sad! I quickly assured her that no, everything was fine, I just didn´t always talk constantly! I explained that sometimes when I was in an unfamiliar situation, I was shy and reserved. Anyone who knows me can back me up there I think! I felt really bad that she had been worried about my happiness!! The next morning it rained. Then it stopped, but everything was soaked! This proved to be a pattern the whole trip!! :) During the next leg of the drive ( which I will tell about in a minute!!!!!) we had a near disaster and a really lucky break! We had just gotten on the main road, when Ilona noticed that there was a window open somewhere. Soon it was discovered that the window up where the girls slept was MISSING! It had been left open and had BLOWN AWAY when we started driving! We pulled over, and Marjut and Simo got out and walked back the way we had come looking for it! Us girls were all quite and grim... we just sat and waited for a horrible length of time. We watched in the mirrors as they started back... but we couldn´t see if they had the window! If it was broken, we would have to go back home! Ella, looking through her binocculars annouced that they didn´t have it. A long, grim silence. Then she said, ´wait, yes they DO´!`The mood liften at once and everyone was sighing in relief and laughing. It was all in one piece, with just a tiny corner chipped off. Simo managed to tape it back into place with duct tape, and we continued on. Phew, close one! The adventure reminded me how much life is like a movie sometimes! NEXT STOP: YOU`LL NEVER GUESS WHERE! I now have been in four countries in my lifetime: the USA, Germany, Finland and SWEDEN!!!!!! We went to a town just over the Swedish border that same day!! There was no need for a passport, you just drover over a bridge and there you were! We went to a huge Swedish chain store, which was IMPOSSIBLY BIG! Imagine this if you can: A Kmart, a big carpet store, a furniture store, a kitchen ware store, a garden store and a toy store, all combined and multiplied by two. That was IKEA! We also went to a Swedish supermarket.. all the prices looked really expensive because they were in Swedish krones! For exmaple, a loaf of bread was priced 29.45 krones... which was only a few euros! We bought some food and ate it in the car: cold meatballs, two kind of swedish bread, potato salad and coconut and chocolate balls! Yum. Next stop, Rovaniemi, the unofficial capital of Lapland at the Arctic Circle! We went to the Santa Claus post there. The Finnish santa is called ´Joulupukki´! You had to walk through an alborate maze of bridges, fake glaciers and earth-rotation-monitors to get to his office, where you gave your names, your hometowns and your ages. Then we went in a sat next to the Joulupukki! He asked me if I was a lady all the time and made me do an American dance, haha! An elf took a picture of us there, and I mailed one card home. The next day we went to the Ranua Zoo ( in Rauna). It was fun, although VERY COLD... but that was to be expected at the arctic circle! I was a bit put out by the cold summer I was having, but then I´d remind myself that I in was Finland for pity´s sake and get over it :) We then drove to another camping pace in the mountains ( the Valtavaara range, which means ´power hill range´). Wednesday was a good power day: We hiked part way up a mountain as a trial run for the next day, when we planned to make it to the top. I was tierd and sore and not enjoying myself for the first few minutes, but then suddenly my whole view changed! I was so full of energy that it was all I coulddo to keep from running up that mountain! It was a hard path, loads of ups and downs, but I was somehow loving it. It helped that if you stood still for too long the mosquitoes would descend on you in clouds, so the best thing was to keep moving. I felt so good! After lunch we went white water rafting(!) near Kälyä. We put on big water proof boots, a water proof jacket, rubber boots and a helmet. Then we crammed into a yellow van for a 25 minutes ride to the starting point. Then you sit in an inflatable raft and paddle through a maze of rivers and lakes. Sometimes our guide would put on the motor when we had to go along way to the next set of rapids. The actual white water part was really really fun. Scary as anything, but fun. I was always afraid that I would fall off the raft, because you had to sit on the very edge, and your feet were the only things keeping you there ( you pushed them into the cracks). I loved it actually. Just like hiking, at first I hated it, but then I started to really enjoy it. That day really taught me that I like outdoor activies more than I ever thought :) There was something in the quality of the air there that made me feel so good, it filled my lungs completley and tasted so good in my mouth. I also tasted some water straight from the lake as we went... it was that clean! We saw some goregous scenery, and even a mother reindeer and her baby! Throughout the Lapland portion of the trip we saw herds of reindeer along the side of the roads and eating near the camp grounds!!! They are all owned by someone, but are allowed to roam free. It was now July 9th, and we went hiking again on the same mountain in Ruka. This time we took an easier route, and it practically flat, with wooden brdiges over the swampy bits. When we reached the summit, it was the strangest thing. If the weather had been nicer, we could have seen all the way to Russia from there, but it was not fine. All that could be seen was white fog, thick as anything. The trees stopped, the ground stopped and there was just whiteness!!!! There was a little hut at the summit, and all four of the walls inside were carved with the names and mesaages of those who have been there. I carved ´USA´ inside a heart there... I was so proud of it! There was also a book, in which all the hikers had written their names, the date and their hometowns. I wrote: ´Megan Yeo Stafford Springs CT USA´. Be proud all you Stafford citizens, your hometown is recorded in a book in hut on the top of a mountain in Finland!!!! We cooked sauages ( makkara in Finnish) in a traditional Lapland hut a little bit down the mountain. It had a fire in the middle and hole in the top for the smoke, with wooden benches all around. That was it. Then we drove about 2 and a half hours to yet another camping place in Vuokatti, which was right next to a ski and snow board place. We then went snow tubing (inside), which I thought was hilarious, seeing as it was July! I have now been sledding in the middle of summer! We had a sauna that night at the camping place, Ella, Heli and me. We went swimming in a little pond in between trips to the sauna, which made me feel all sleepy and nice. The next place we went to was like a little peice of heaven. The Haanpää´s grandparents summer cottage in Kaatamo. There was a little blue cabin, where I stayed with the girls, which was close to a little red cottage, where Mummo and Pappa slept. There was beautiful garden all around, and a beautiful lake just there. There was an underground celler, an outhouse, a smoke sauna ( more about that soon) and a regular sauna. There were trees all around, flowers all around, and a feeling of contentment all around. The day we got there ( Friday) it was warm and sunny, and the sun intesified the beauty of the place. I loved it at first sight. It reminded me alot of my great grandparents cabin in New Hampshire, except it was much smaller. The red cabin was almost fairytale like, full of little trinkets, an old brick oven and many woven rugs. It was clean, neat, everything in it´s place. Marjut´s parents only knew a few words in English, and by a few I mean about 5 each. Nonetheless, Mummo greeted me warmly in Finnish, and Marjut translated. This was often the case during our stay there, as she was the only really strong English speaker. But Mummo said something like ´Welcome to Eastern Finland, I hope you will not feel uncomfortable here and that you enjoy your time with us.´ During dinner ( which was amazing, Mummo is a wonderful cook!) they asked me what my picture of Finland is now. I had to think, but I said that was beautiful, clean, healthy, unique, modern. The people are friendlier than I expected, and more beautiful too. Finns take excellent care of themselves, their possesions and their country, it is something that I admire and respect. During this trip, and during my stay so far I have noticed something about people in general. Wherever you go, in whatever country and whatever culture, people do not differ that much. Their customs may differ, their clothes, their food, their language and their ideas. But when it comes down to it, they are all the same. We all love and laugh and hate and cry, eat and sleep and dream, no matter who we are. Before I came, I imagined myself in Finland like from a bird´s eye view, clearly showing me in the middle of a foregin country. When I got here however, I found that the view wasn´t that different after all. I felt the same as I did back home. I hadn´t changed at all, not the way I imagined. It´s like that quote `wherever you go, there you are´.

I did find it extremely challaging that everyone spoke Finnish all the time. I stopped trying to talk really after I while, because it was so much effort to translate everything. I think my vocal chords almost forgot how to talk! It made trouble for me, because during the weekend Marjut asked me ( again) if I was happy there, because it looked to them like I wasn´t. She said that Ilona especially was upset, she had said that I kept answering her questions with only one word, and she thought that I didn´t like her! This mortified, horrified and dismayed me. I was very upset... because I hadn´t noticed at all that I did that! There I was, trying so hard to do everything right, that I did everything wrong! I had been prepared for the typical Finnish silence, but this family had a more talkative fmaily culture! I do not talk alot when I am taking in a new situation and learning about people, but they took it as unhappiness or just not caring! How horrible! I tried my best to explain that this was typical Megan behavior, and tried extra hard to talk to Ilona. She had been waiting all spring to be my friend, and I was totally messing it all up. Another bad thing: I was a total idiot and accidentally deleted ALL THE PICTURES FROM THE ENTIRE LAPLAND TRIP FROM MY CAMERA! Luckily, Marjut and Ilona had taken many of the same pictures, so I will have some to post here ( when I get to it haha). The same day that I deleted the pictures, I had a really great experience. The smoke sauna. It differs from the regular sauna in that there is no chimney, and when it is heating the smoke is let straight out the open door. When you go there there is no smoke, just the smell. You sit and hit yourself with a bundle of birch branches and then run out into the lake! I didn´t like it as much as the normal sauna because of the smoke smell, which got into the back of my throat and felt strange. Still, a sauna is a sauna, and it was lovely. Washing my hair in the lake was also fun :) I also had a very interesting conversation on that day with Marjut ( Äiti) about homeschooling, the differences between American and Finnish education, culture, and people. I tried to explain everything in the best true light! We had another upset the next day, while making smores. They had never made them, and so we had to improvise with the crackers, the type of marshmellows and the fire ( we used the grill). Everyone was enjoying them, until Heli dropped hers on her hand, where it stuck and burned her! No one wanted smores after that. Heli held her hand in cold water for a long time, and I felt horrible! The burn is looking better now, and they all want to try smores again, with better luck next time! Tuesday night I went night fishing. I don´t think I´ve ever been fishing properly before, out in a boat on lake with pole. But I found that I really enjoyed it ( just like the hiking!!!) I caught the first fish too! All together we ( me, Ella, Simo and Pappa) caught 19 fish! Mummo made fish soup for lunch the next day, which was very yummy. Another mishap: ( btw, these are all out of order, but the 4 days we stayed there all blur together in my mind so it doesn´t matter!) I woke up one morning to find that I had been bitten by something in the night, and my upper lip had swollen to three times the normal size!!! It was awful! We put medicine on it, and by evening it was almost back to normal size, but still, quite depressing! We also went in a rowboat to an island across the bit of lake... I have dubbed it ´Ant Island´. Not becuase it is small, but because it is inhabited be a large number of nasty red ones! Imagine us all hopping and jumping around... ;) The lake and the islands in it reminded me strongly of Three Mile Island ( in Vermont) where my family goes in the summer. It was especially strange because that was the same time of month that we are usually there... so it felt right somehow. I also bought some things from a ´storebus´which comes for the people staying in thier summer cottages there. Very funny. It looks like a bus outside, but like a one-aisle store inside!!! I went with Simo and Äiti to her cousins house one evening... the house was lovely and the cousin laid out a goregous table of typical finnish treats... pastries, cakes and tea! I tried to be lady like, the set up was so lovely. I hope I didn´t seem quiet and boring! So many little things happened too, that are really amusing. Like the girls and I have a running joke about the mud at the bottem of the lake! They didn´t know the word ´mud´at first so they told how the bottom felt by wiggling their fingers and saying `bleeeeeeegh` now we do it just for laughs! I must remember now that no one can read my thoughts, annd that my actions might not be seen by others the same way I see them. I will try to be a better sister and exchange student, and open my eyes to the wonderful place I am in.

In closing ( yes I know I should have stopped typing long long long ago, you are probably snoring over there) I would like to write down some lyrics that I made up during the trip. Here goes:



Wake up little person

Open you eyes and see

There´s a whole world just waiting

The universe is your playground baby.

If the key opens the door

And the window´s open wide

take a chance and make a leap

You´ll find all of the answers outside.

Broken dreams and shattered hopes

Fill the path that lies ahead

Those that have gone before have left them

Made a river of tears they have shed

But where there is winter, bring the sun

Coax the flowers up out of the earth

Make a garden from a desert

Find the answer to what life is worth.



And when that window´s open wide

And when that flower begins to grow

Just remember all you ´ve seen, Love

Just remember all you know.



Pictures soon, I promise! Love you all, Megan

Here are more pictures! They are dreadfully out of order, but here they are. There are also loads more, but it takes so long to upload them that these will have to do for now!
Here is the view from the sauna beach we went to in Turku!

Here I am in the window of a Finnish castle from the middle ages... in Turku

Me in a famous church in Turku

Marika, who was the YFU person in charge of our group in Turku, she was hilarious!

me washing carpets!!!!

Heli washing carpets

me and Ilona washing carpets with the lake in the background

Heli and Ilona ringing out the carpets :)

CARPETS!!

Like I said, there are so many more pictures! Yesterday I bought a memory card for my camara and now I can take many pictures at a time, instead of only about 20 like I could before. Thus there are now even MORE pictures! Yesterday we also went stawberry picking! They allow you to eat as many as you like and pick as many as you like... there are no worries about people eating too many because they know that a person can only eat so many strawberries! Clever huh? And it´s true, I was full after 5 minutes! They were the most amazing stawberries too...Äiti and the girls had a nice way of dealing with the greens. They would just remove them when they picked the berry... that way we didn´t need to do that at home! After picking we ate coffee and pastries and gazed at the view... you´ll see when I finally put those pictrues up. It was magnificent, all the little green islands sitting in the sparkling lake with the puffy white clouds floating by... ahhh. We leave for Lapland tomorrow, I will not be posting during that time. I will however keep an account of it in my diary, and take millions of pictures! Before I go, I must tell about yesterday a little. The girls and I played Sing Star! I was pretty bad, seeing as I didn´t know any of the songs, but it was terrific fun! We are finally getting comfortable enough with eachother that we can laugh and tease... it´s so amazing. Yesterday I also entertained the family by teaching they an English tounge twister `how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood...etc` They thought it was pretty funny... and tried to teach me a little song in Finnish. I wasn´t bad.
I also made they brownies for dessert! They we amazing, and smelled like home. It was nice to make them something that they hadn´t had before. I seem to have gotten over a hump.. I was a little homesick\culture shocked a few days ago, but now everything is a little easier. Phew. Okay, gotta run, I´ll write when I get back from visiting Santa Claus!! xxx

PICTURES AT LAST! Here are some, there are loads more, they are coming soon! Enjoy!

here are the girls ( r to l: Ella, Ilona and Heli) walking in Tampere.

An Accordian player in Tampere

The market in a Tampere shopping center

my room!!!!

my borrowed bike and flowers

Heli and friends!!

Ilona and Heli

Heli and origami bird

me and the girls ( this is the table we eat most dinner at)

Heli!!

Marjut ( far right) and friends a lake home

Ilona and Ella drinking sprite in a row boat on a river!!

Me and Heli in the row boat

Ilona in Anssi´s army hat

Anniina and Heli and the doll ( Martta)

Me and Ilona after sauna :)

Dinner at the Siipibaari ( chicken wing bar!)

good morning!
yesterday I experienced a genuine peice of Finnish summer life: carpet washing . You bring the carpets to the washing place, which is usually adjacent to a lake. You soak the carpets in lake water that is piped up to the washing basins. Then you scrub them with small bristle brushes on a board laid across the basins ( the boards are about 2 feet by 7 feet). Then you ring out the water in a rolling thing ( I don´t know it´s name) and hang them up to dry! It´s quite a scene, all the multicolored carpets hanging there! I the afternoon I biked about 10 minutes with Ilona to the new shopping mall. It is very nice, all new looking and with good lighting. I had never heard of most of the stores, but they didn´t vary much from American ones. After that we drove about 45 minutes to a family friends´ summer cottage. It was beautiful and so hard to describe! The cottage was fairly large (for a cottage), surrounded by a lawn, gardens and trees. The lake was right there, beautiful and peaceful. We ate a huge dinner which included the following: chicken, vegetables,sausage, corn and peaches, all grilled...bread, more bread and two kinds of salad!! I was impossibly full. The Finns went back for seconds and thirds though! I have heard it said that Finns eat alot, and it is true. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening snack are the major meals, and they are full blown meals. People don´t snack randomly as much. Even though they eat alot, they are all fit becuase the food is so healthy and fresh, and they exersize more. It´s something I wish we did back home! Dessert was amazing as well, pastries and stawberry cream cake!!I went to the sauna with the girls... it was relaxing and helped me digest.
One thing that I found challanging yesterday was the language barrier. At dinner, everyone was talking, laughing and telling stories in Finnish, just babble for me. It was sort of lonely. A couple of times I caught myself slipping into self pity and depression... and had to shake myself out of it. I quickly found that the best way to do so was to turn to someone and start talking... in english, but still. At least 5 people there spoke English, and the man who owned the cottage liked to ask me questions about American politics and my opinions of Finland. Anyway, now I know how to help myself when I start feeling sad and culture shocked. And it is still only Thursday!!! How bizzare.
I tried to put some pictures up here, but failed. Does anyone know how to do this? If so, I would be grateful for the tip.
xx