p.s.

oh just another finnish tradition I remembered, so they make this delicious drink called "glogi" pronounced gluggy, which is basically really hot fruit juice that tastes a bit like hot apple cider, only better. And in it you put almond slices, sometimes whole ones, and raisins, which you spoon out with a spoon. It's really tasty and you enjoy it with gingerbread cookies and other yummy things. And yeah, everytime we visit someone's house over christmas it's what we always drink. Along with eating Torttu, a star shaped flaky biscuit with pie filling in the middle usually blueberry, sometimes chocolate or strawberry, or even apple. They're realllly tasty :) And yeah, I'll probably have a lot more of these type blogs, as I slowly remember different things we did.


!$%?#$ :D

i willll

post more blogs, more frequently, once the hype of the holiday season is over. You would think being on break meant more free time, but tis not so. I leave tomorrow morning at 8 with Annina, my host mom Raija, and her friend for a week long stay at Annina's cousin in Helsinki ! The capital city of Finland. I'm pretttty stoked and will definitely take millions and zillions of pictures for you all to see when I get back, and I'll post like a mega post of all the happenings, so look forward to that ! As for this past week, lets get to talking :) So Finns celebrate Christmas over the course of three days, its pretty spectacular and fantastic to say the least. The main day is what we would consider Christmas Eve, the 24th. The daytime activities are minimal, the idea is just to be at home without worrying about what to do or when to do it. The parents cook all day, but none of it is rushed, theres no certain time that everyone eats, just when the food is ready. My host dad told me that Christmas is the only day of the year that 96% of all Finns eat the exact same meal. This meal consists of: a slow cooked [and by slow I mean overnight in the oven, 9 hours total, slow cooked] ham, potatoes, both mashed and baked, a seaweed and mayonaise concoction that disgusts me beyond belief, but some people, mainly the finns, find it quite the delicacy. There is also raw fish, both "ice fish", I dunno what that is, and raw salmon, and then smoked salmon served cold. Also found on this table is bread only baked and sold two weeks before and after christmas, it just happens to be plain old raisin bread, but they think its fantastic and therefore it is a special holiday treat :) Aren't we lucky ? There is also lantuu, which is rutabaga, we had to look that up in the dictionary and I'm still not sure what rutabaga even is...mashed carrots cooked in the oven along side a pan of liver and rice pudding, mmmmm, can't get enough of that...that wasn't really my favorite. We also had scalloped potatoes with a creamy onion-y sauce, that was really tasty, and also some mushroom-y type spread for the bread, not too bad. Soda for dinner is only allowed on holidays and rarely drunk [drunk, is that right?] on any other occasion. So we got to enjoy some nice coca-cola and sprite, it was exciting. For dessert my host mom, Raija, and I made a cheesecake with rasperries on top, a mocha-fudge cake [which by the way doesn't taste the same a week later...] and of course, coffee to go with everything :) After dinner and dessert, which took up about 2 and a half hours to complete, everyone dispersed to their own quarters to ponder commiting suicide as we all felt as if we were going to explode at any given moment. About an hour or so later there came a knock at our door ! Raija called the boys downstairs and then opened the door to none other than, SANTA CLAUS ! It was spectacular, he came in right through the front door :) He brought bags of presents, made us sing to him, I even did a nice rendition of Jingle Bells, and Raija and Alvar sang some finnish-y christmas song. Santa was sweet, although he kept hitting his cowbell and it was kind of annoying. You can see this thrilling event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzPKNjdBJJ4. After our nice encounter with Santa Claus everyone dug into their presents, not making much fuss about what they got, it was a very quiet time to say the least, minus me of course, who made exciting exclamations over every present opened :D After the mess was cleaned up and thank yous were made, we trudged upstairs to watch a Jackie Chan movie :) Complete with Finnish subtitles of course. Then we all went into a deep, dreamy sleep and woke in the morning to the smell of......more ham ! Yes, ham for breakfast. As well as everything else that had appeared the previous night. Salmon, raw fish, seaweed, the whole deal. And so we ate, my brothers and I chose to settle for toast topped with ham as it seemed the least likely to make us sick the rest of the day. Then my host parents and I went on one of our famous hour long walks around the island, this time trudging up a snowy mountain that in turn overlooked the half frozen lake, it was gorgeous, and yet somehow all of forgot a camera....next time ! We then made it back home and guess what, time for lunch ! 30 minutes later we were seated at the table faced yet again with the leftovers of christmas dinner. More ham, more fish, more bread. Ham, bread, fish. Fish, bread, ham. Over and over for the next five days, and I believe it would have continued had we not run out of ham :/ It was indeed a sad day when we threw the ham bone into the trash. Hm, or not. So, now it is Sunday and my host mom is cooking. Yes, thats right, shes cooking. New food ! Hooray for chinese food, because the chinese don't like pork, which means no more ham ! And then I get to enjoy and ham-less week in Helsinki, at least I hope so....And so, for now, that is all I have to share. My Christmas was wonderful, I recieved so many lovely gifts that mean so much, but describing them would be difficult, so just know that I had a lovely time here. Next monday will mark my official fifth month here, it seems to have flown by, yet slugged on as well. I'm not sure what to think anymore, this ham is rotting my brainnnnn ! o_O until next week, happy new year :)

its almost christmas timeeeee.

two more days ! I'm so very excited :D This weekend was a blastttt. On saturday my family and I went over to the neighbors for his 53rd birthday, had some delicious food and just chatted and held the little 8 month old baby who was the cutest thing ever. His name was Eero and his sister, 2 or 3 years old, was hm. I actually don't remember her name...It meant "Lily of the Valley" though, and she was really cute as well. So that was fun. Then later that evening Sanelma [Arttu's girlfriend] and her parents came over. They didn't speak english to me, so it was a veryyyy long 3 hours of just sitting there not understanding. Raija tried to get them to speak, but they wouldn't. But oh well. Then on Sunday Annina and I met up and went out to lunch and planned out my trip to Helsinki [the capital city of finland] next week. We also got to look through my yearbook which she was really excited about, so that was fun. We ate at a place called Amarillo and it was delicious<3 Then my host parents picked me up and we drove over to another family's house, the same family that visited our house like two weeks ago. They had a really cute poodle, and their daughter Vera turned out to be really nice. She is almost 17, and at first it was really awkward trying to think of what to talk about, but after a while we had lots of fun and what not. Today I met up with Maria downtown for a promised and long awaited shopping trip. We went to almost every shop in Jyväskylä and had MAC donalds for lunch, courtesy of her father :] We found her a cute top that was on sale, woooo, and had lots of fun. I spoke finnish the whole day and it felt niceeee. Tomorrow I think is a nice free day and then on wednesday its.......CHRISTMAS ! woooo:] Yes, finns celebrate it on the 24th...But I'm really excited for it. There are probably 8 packages under the tree right now, more than half of which are for me, from the sainpalo's and Pastor Jim and Sonna, and my family. So I'm kind of confused if this family does the whole "giving presents" thing...maybe its a last minute sort of thing...I dunno :D Wishing you a very merry christmas and a wonderful new year ! Hyvää Joulua !

Declan Galbraith

I recently came upon his videos, hes pretty amazing.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03iH-Bsvj8



He's 17 now, and still singing, but this is my favorite video :) when he was like 8 ? 9 ?

happy wednesday :)

indeed it was ! But lets talk aboutttt yesterday ! So I went to school around 9, had a very nice art lesson with Barbara again, stole an apple from the lunch room and thennnn went home ! I spent the rest of the day making christmas cards for all my friends, it was quite fun. Later that evening Raija's brother and his wife came over for coffee and desserts. His name was Petri, so I called him Uncle Pete :) They spoke english very well, but I tried out my finnish a few times as well. We ate some delicious food, chatted, and then they went home. So todayyyy [actually, this was wednesday, and today is friday, but whatever.] I went with Arvo in the morning to pick up my christmas package from the um, package place ? :) We got there and the man handed me my package and as I was walking out I noticed that I was leaving a trail of coffee as I walked. I assumed that one of the packages my mom sent me had opened, so it was sort of interesting. When I got home and out of the car, there was this little pile of coffee grounds on the seat, but at least our car smells yummy now ! :D I got home, opened my package to find a zilllllion bags of coffee, one which had opened a bit :] My yearbook, anninas christmas gift, some enchilada sauce and chiles, flossssss !, a present !, anddddddddddd JIFPEANUTBUTTER. mmm, I opened it and just stood in the kitchen breathing in its heavenly scent that hadn't touched my nose since last summmer. It is so delicious<3 Anyways, then I proceeded for the next two and a half hours to bake chocolate chip cookies ! I ended up making 127....hahah. But everyone loved them, and I gave them out to my friends for christmas. That evening I took the bus downtown and then another one up to Palokka and visited the Sainpalos ! Anna and Lauri weren't at home :/ But juuso, Maria, and Harri were. We ate some ice cream, chatttted for a bit, and then Juuso and Maria and I played this um penguin game that was reallycool. Juuso had to leave for a dance at his school, and Harri was going to an ice hockey game, so Maria and I had the house to ourselves ! We played the finnish version of Taboo, it was hard but quite helpful and we had lots of fun. And then we watched numerous videos of Anna Abreu, Anna Puusijärvi, and Koop Arponen, the finnish Idols winners. Haha, it was really cool :D And then Thursday ! I went to school for a meeting with my counselor lady at 12, had some glogi, a finnish christmas drink usually alcoholic, but not this time, it tastes like hot apple cider and its so gooood. I picked out my classes for next period, I'm taking Art [ahaha of course] Psychology, the Dance class that prepares us for the dances we have to do at Prom [waltz, tango, jenkka, uumpa (i dunno how to spell that one...)], and a religion class with Annina in finnish ! Fun fun. And then I start finnish lessons again, so that will also take up some of my time :D After that I had 7 hours to kill before youth group, but its pointless to go home cause it takes an hour to do so....So I hung out in the art room for like 5 hours, in the middle Annina and I went downtown, bought some lunch, and just sat and talked for a while. Then at 6 30 I walked up to the church for our christmas party at youthgroup. The church was so pretty ! Everyone was all dressed up [I wore a dress as wellll] and there were pretty lights and candles everywhere. And then we had an amazingggg worship session, it was so so good. We played a few games, learned some scottish/irish dance, etc. But it was so much fun. I didn't get home until pushing midnight though...but oh well :D And then today ! I've just been sitting around enjoying my day off of school :) Merrrrry Christmas !

15/12/08

Well we're half a month away from the end of 2008, does anyone else feel that it went by terribly fast ? Goodness, I've already been here more than four months, spencer is in junior high, jordan started college ! Before you know it I'll be graduating [hopefully] and oh my goodness, driving ! So my family got our christmas tree this weekend. My host dad recently joined the local hunting club so we went out with them to cut down our tree, from the middle of a forest ! It was his first "kill" :) Arttu's girlfriend, Sanelma, came along, shes really sweet. She hadn'treally spoken english to me before, so I kind of thought we just might never talk. But then, while tree hunting, she opened up and we had a lovely conversation :D She reminds me a lot of my brothers lovely girlfriend, Katy, not only is she super sweet, Arttu is lots nicer to his family when she's around. Maybe in a few years Arttu will eventually turn out like Jordan and just be nice all the time :D On sunday I went into town and met with Piia and Annina and we did some nice christmas shopping :) I didn't really accomplish much and I've resolved to just make cookies for everyone, inexpensive and delicious. Although, I'd like to give something more "from the heart" to a few of my friends, but I'm still stuck on the "what"....Any ideas ? Then we all headed up to church ! It just happened to be the christmas service, so it was really cute. The kids choir did a few numbers, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xti0v7aX0 ! After church I went home and enjoyed a fantastic meal of hamburger patties topped with delicious sauce and pineapple rings ! It was soooo good. My host parents are wonderous cooks. Today I went to school, enjoyed a fabulous art class with Barbara, the italian exchange student, she's hilarious :] I walked around town with Annina afterwards and then came home and watched part of spiderman 2 with Alvar. Tomorrow starts test week, so my week will be unbusy. Yet, I have lots to do....On wednesday I get to see/maybe collect my dress ! And then I'll head over to the Sainpalo's for a nice visit :D Maria sent me a text message today and asked how i was [all in finnish of course !], it was really cute. I told her that I was coming to her house on wednesday at six, mä tulen sun kotiin keskiviikona kuudelta, and she was excited. Then on thursday, I'm going to youth group and its our christmas party ! So that should be fun, I'll try and take pictures/video of some of it :) Also on Wednesday I'll be baking my cookies to give to my friends, because thursday is the last day that I'll see them before christmas. On saturday my host family is going to our neighbour's house to celebrate his birthday, and then Sanelma and her parents are coming over for coffee. And thatttt is it for news :) I have a few pictures on flickr as well ! www.flickr.com/ilovepaige345

"I want to know you more"

Tuntea sinut, kuulla sun äänesi
Haluan enemmän (haluan sua enämmän)
Koskettaa sua, nähdä sun kasvosi
Tuntea sinua (huhtea sua enämmän)

I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice
I want to know you more
I want to touch you,
I want to see your face
I want to know you more

We sang that in church last week :)

Laulaaaaaaaa.

Oh my goodness, so today was the big performance of the Sankta Lucia choir ! It was soooo great. We dressed up in Angel's robes and carried candles, and sounded really great. It was so cool. I have it on tape, but its on Annina's camera, so I have to wait until I can get it from her. Then, during the "christmas assembly" there were different skits and presentations and such. Belly dancers, the ghost of christmas past play, a band, etc. Andddd Annina and I sung three duets, Joulumaa, a finnish song about "christmas land", which went really well I think. Its a very pretty song, if you understand what its about....Then we sang Frosty the Snowman, once in Finnish, Hei Kuura Parta, but the words were so tiny on the paper and the lighting wasn't so good that I kind of botched it....but then we sang it in english too, and that one went a bit better :) Then at the end, Annina and I sang White Christmas, Valkea Joulu, once in finnish and then in english, and it was really pretty, and everyone clapped and yeah, it was so much funnnn. Then after the assembly was over the Sankta Lucia [Saint Lucy] choir walked down to the Library in town and sang on the stairs of that. We sang three songs, Sankta Lucia [its a swedish songs ! so we sang it in swedish !], then "Kuului Laulu" or Angels we have heard on high. In finnish, and then a traditional finnish song called "Heinilä Harkien Kaukalon". It was a very nice day :D I really do like singing, I guess I just didn't do it that often back home...hm. Tomorrow my family and I are going Christmas tree hunting ! And then that night I'm talknig with my real familyyyy, I'm so excited ! On sunday I'm meeting Annina and Piia downtown and we're going christmas shopping and then to church ! Next week is test week, so that means almost no school for me. And then we get out for Christmas break ! I'm possibly going to Helsinki with Annina for new years to visit her cousins, but I'm not really sure....And that is all of my news for now ! I'm sending out christmas cards on monday, they shoulddd get there by christmas, but if not, I'm sorry ! Hope you all have a wonderful weeekend ! Hyvää Joulua ! [merry christmas !]

Alvar

my little host brother who is 14, is so adorable ! So he has this weird bone thing that sticks out of his chest ? His mom and dad don't know what it is, but they're sort of worried. But he was just like "mom, I think my heart is just too big" it was so cute ! :] Haha and then my host mom, Raija, whose english isn't perfect, was all "aw, you are too sugar !" [meaning, he was sweet :)]. And yeah, it was adorable.

Tuesday

Okay, so promising to blog more, im going to do just that. Today is Tuesday. On sunday I had Annina come over to help me prepare for my hugeee Finnish final exam that was yesterday. We went over verbs and sentence formation and all the stuff that I had learned in my course and then hung out and tuned the tuneless guitar. It only holds a tune for about five minutes, and then its off again >:O But we had fun. My host dad, Arvo, cooked a delicious meal for lunch, and then Annina and I walked to the bus [20 minutes.] and went to church ! I reallly like the church here, it reminds me so much of church back home, so it was really nice. We had communion with real bread and real wine, the bread was yummy, the wine, not so much. After church I came home, but thanks to my 45 minute bus ride and 20 minute walk I didn't end up getting home until 7 30. We then watched the Finnish Idols with Arttu [16 year old host brother] and his girlfriend Sanelma, shes really pretty :] On monday I had my very large very stressful finnish exam that went surprisingly alright, I find out tomorrow what my score was, hopefully a 5. [the scale is 1-5] And then today was just a normal school day, without any finnish lessons. It was short and sweet, although I had to be at school at 8 so I had to take the 7 o'clock bus downtown and then book it to the school. It snowed all day today, so now we have new snow ! Its quite pretty, and soft, and such :) Tomorrow I have choir practice after school, two more practices on thursday, and then we perform on "Lucia päivää" or Lucy Day on friday. We sing at the school celebration, and then move downtown to the town library. We're trying to find someone to film it, so you'll probably get to see it ! I'm really excited for it, and then on thursday night I have a Rotary dinner and my host families are invited ! So I get to see the Sainpalo's again, and I'm really excited for that. In finland they have things called name days, where they just pick a slew of names and dedicate it to one day of the year. So today was Anna's name day, so I texted her :) This weekend my family and I are going Christmas tree hunting ! Yay :D I'll take pictures so you can see this wonderfully exciting event. But nowww, my host brother and his girlfriend are here, so I'm gunna get out of their way ! Happy tuesday :)

ensi vikko.

last week. So I got back from Lapland on wednesday morning around 12 30 am. The trip was really great, there were some good parts and bad parts, but all in all, it was wonderful. The bus ride took eleven hours for me, 18 for others, and the first one was quite interesting...But bus rides always are :] It was really odd at first to speak english so much, but we all got used to it. When we got to Muonio we all checked into our rooms, and I was rooming with Hope [Ohio] Cindy [Florida], Jenny [Florida], and Stephanie [California]. I was apprehensive at first, but we actually had buckets of fun. Our room, unlike most of the others, had a small sauna, but we basically only used it to dry our clothes and make our room smell better (: We went reindeer sleigh riding, snow shoeing, husky sledding, and ice sculpturing ! I would have gone skiing, but it wasw crazy expensive, so Bailey and I played in the snow ! It was probably 3 feet deep, and realllly soft. The things they call mounatins are actually just large hills, the highest point in Lapland is about 1 km or 1000 feet high. So yeah, not very big, but it was nice. Somehow on the last night all four of my roommates and I locked our two room keys INTO the room, so we were locked out. We had to split up and go sleep in the extra beds with the tutors, it was interesting, but fun. The Rotary man stood outside our door yelling "OPEN THE DOOR" at it, it was really hillarious. He seemed to think someone was inside....odd. The trip home we stopped in Rovaniemi to meet the REAL santa claus ! It was exciting, although he was a bit creepy. I wanted to buy something, but nothing really caught my eye, so I decided to buy a colouring book and crayons ! The whole bus ride home Cindy, David [Germany], and I all coloured cute christmasy pictures :D So yeah, my weeekend was fabulous. I was then picked up by my new host dad Arvo and we drove to my new house in Muuratsalo. I live 1 km, 20 minute walk, from my bus stop and then the bus takes a 45 minute trip into Jyväskylä, so it kindddd of sucks. But I'm getting used to it. Each night Arvo, Raija [my host mom] and I have gone on 5 km, or 1 hour, walks. Its really nice, and feels really good. The island I live on is really quiet and peaceful, its so cute. I'll take pictures soon ! My family is really sweet, and funny ! They get my sarcasm, and throw it back, so its been lots of fun. And my host brothers TALK. It took Lauri and Juuso at least a month before they started any conversation with me, but Alvar [14] asks how my day was and Arttu [16] and I have pleasant conversatoins about all sorts of things. So it has been really great :) So my life is wonderous and I'm loving it. Hope all is well with you !

Youtube

www.youtube.com/user/jocey846 ! I have new videos from my lapland trip, most of them are pretttty hillarious, so have fun :D

no internet

so yeah, my new house is awesome, but i dont have wirelss internet, so my time online has been cut. im acutally liking it this way though, i spend more time with them, and im reading books again, it feels good :) so yeah, my blogs will again be few and far between im afraid :/ im posting from the library now, so ill try and do that as much as i can, but i only get 15 minutes online....have a nice decemberrrr !