My Time In Finland: 2009

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Thank You

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has kept intouch with me while I have been here. It really helped at times. See you all soon I guess :D

This weekend was like mid-summer festival thing. It about how the sun never goes down here anymore.

It was fun. We went to the kiosk at the bridge and watched the bon-fire. We then went down to this hall thing where they had this dance thing on. I found out i cant dance for the life of me.

Then we went back to Heidi's parents place where we played rock band 2 till 4 in the morning.

Heidi and Her friend

Niko, Tommi, Tomi and Seppi standing with the bon-fire

Heidi and Tomi dancin

The drums for Rock Band 2

Heidi's friend who passed out like two seconds after arrving back to Heidi's parents place

Tampere Again and Särkänniemi

Last weekend i went to Tampere again and I took my friend Christa with me.

We went to an amusement park called Särkänniemi. It was so much fun and soooo much better then Rainbows End.

We hung out there all day and we even got a see a dolphin show.

Then when we left the park, we went to this restaurant which is made up like an american diner. It was so cool.

Me and Christa driving bumper cars

Dolphins

Dolphins with rings on their noses

Cans of Coke i've never seen before. I had the Cherry one cause i wanted to taste it as i will neve rprobably taste it again.

Caitlin In Savonlinna

Caitlin is another exchange student in Finland from New Zealand. She came and stayed for four days with me and while she was here, we went flying over Savonlinna. It was so much fun. But i think Savonlinna looked way better from above during winter as you saw in one of the other blogs

Caitlin and the plane

Caitlin wearing head-gear

Olavinlinna castle. It has a cover over it as they have set the castle up for the annual Opera Festival which happens ever summer in Savonlinna

The City <3

Helsinki

I went to Helsinki with my friend Christa and her school. It was a school trip but i was allowed to go with. We went to these two museums.

One was a Walt Disney museum and was all about the different movies disney had made and it was actually quite interesting. im just glad they had things written on the walls about the movies as the quide was speaking in Finnish.

We then went to a museum about finnish history. It was quite interesting as well. We didnt have a guide on this one but it interestin just to look at the artwork.

We then got to go shopping and looking around the city.

My birthday and other friends birthdays

So i had my 19th birthday here. it was fun. i had Heidi, Antti, Tommi, Christa, Rita, Taru and Tuulia at my host parents house and we just hung out listening to music and playing drinking games. It was fun. Then the ones who were old enough, Heidi, Antti, Tommi, Tuulia and I, all went into the city and hung out at The Rocks.

Leaving the bar with the sun coming up.

Then on the 30th of april, it was my friend taru's birthday and it was also this thing called vappu. I was hanging out with Rita and her friends thats night. it was quite fun

Taru cutting her "Barbie" cake

Me and Rita walking through the city on Vappu with our free Ballons

The week after my birthday, it was my friend Antti's birthday and we pretty much did the same thing like at my birthday except we were at his place and we went to a different bar.

Antti with Rita's sunglasses on.

Then a week later, it was Christa's birthday and Rita and I went and spent the day hanging out with her playing clue....i won twice :P. Her birthday was also mother's day.

Sweden

Over easter in Finland, I went to sweden with my host mother and my two host sisters. We went there on a cruise ship type boat. It was really fun. Sweden was so warm compared to Finland.

here's some pictures

It says welcome to Sweden if you can't read it.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Tampere

I went to Tampere with my host mum to see my host sister and her new puppy which is from Australia. While there i ended up staying with Katie who is another exchange student from New Zealand. We went and stayed out at another exchange students house for one of the nights too.

Then Katie and I went walking around the city the next day

Lapland pictures.

Pictures with people at the disco at the end o the trip

At the Santa park

Arctic circle line

The leaders and Me

Lapland

In February I went on an AFS Trip to Rovaniemi in Lapland Finland. Its near the arctic circle. After a 17 hour train ride with 3 stops along the way, we Finally made it. It was really fun. When we firs arrived we went to a museum and looked at Lapland history and on of the guides we had in the museum was actually from Australia. On the first day we went to a amethyst mine and dug for amethyst crystals. On the second day, I tried to snowboard which didn't work out very well then I went to a spa the next day and played around in the pools and then I went ice hole fishing the day after that but didn't catch anything. For the whole two hours we were out there we only caught two fish which were probably only like 15cm long at the most. then on one of the nights, the 4th night I think, we had a competition of dressing up the guys in our groups as girls then made them do a little show. It was hilarious. Sean from America won.On our last night in Lapland they put on a little disco thing for us at the bar/cafe at the ski slopes.....no alcohol of course. On our last day when we were heading back to Rovaniemi, we went and visited Santa. REMEMBER! Santa comes from Lapland in Finland. We also went for reindeer sleigh rides. It was funny cause at one time all of the reindeer went off with people of the backs of their sleighs then when they came back one of the reindeer's didn't have any people on it. They had been over taken by two reindeer sleighs which caused them to fall off. Then we went back to the train station and left for another 17 hour train journey home.

Heres some Pictures