viisi toista

Well, this should be a long post seeing as it is a compilation of two days that were both utterly fantastic I don't even know where to begin. I guess saturday morning would be the best place. We left for Tampere around nine I think and we picked up Juuso's friend Aleksi and then headed to Särkänniemi, a huge amusement park! At first Juuso and Aleksi went off and Maria Anna and I waited for Maria's cousin Maija who met us at the park, but then Juuso called and asked his mom if he and aleksi could come and pick me up and hang out with them, so I did! It was so much fun, we went on this ride the Tornado, which takes you upside down and through corkscrews and tunnels, four times! You get on it underground, it's so cool. And the lines weren't even long until the late afternoon, so it was super nice. We rode so many rides, and so many of them so many times, but it was so exciting. And not raining, which was super nice. But then it was time to go, Aleksi had ice hockey in the morning so we dropped him off at the train station in Tampere so he could get back to Jyväskylä that night. It was a two hour drive, probably an hour train ride. And Maija got picked up by her mom, so Juuso, Maria, Anna, and I drove probably 15 km to Anna's parents summer house. It's right on this lake and more than 50 years old. There are like four pieces to the house, the sauna house, which is where we slept, the house house, where the grandparents live, the back house, where Anna's brother and his wife stayed, and then the toilet, which is an outhouse. There isn't any running water in the house, so you take these huge buckets from the lake up to the house to use for water. The sauna was a real wood sauna which is different than the one we have at this house, ours is electric. It got to about 95 degrees celcius, which is HOT. And everything is done naked, usually the boys and girls just go together, but Anna realized I'm not quite all the way Finnish yet so the boys went first, and Maria cause she loves it, and then Maria Anna Anna's mother Kirstii, and I went to sauna. It was about eight o'clock when we went in. We were in the sauna for about twenty minutes and then it was to the lake ! You run buck naked and jump off the dock into the 4 degree celcius water, swim back to the ladder, and run back to the sauna for another twenty minutes. When you're hot again, you take a birch branch, a leafy one, and beat yourself with it, literally. It was so hillarious to watch and to do, but apparently really traditional. And then of course, you run back to the lake again. And you do this as many times as you want. I think we got out of the sauna around ten, and then got dressed and went back up to the house for homemade bread. And once you're tired you just head to bed. I got so many bug bites, it was terrible, I didn't sleep at all I was so itchy. And I still am, the sauna makes it worse as well...but it was such a fun experience. When we woke up we had porridge, which is unbelievably good, I thought it would be disgusting, so I only took a little, but I found myself going for seconds. You put homemade raspberry jam on top and oh man, its delicious. Then Maria, Anna's father, and I went rowing! We rowed to this little island and stayed for about 15 minutes, it was really pretty. And then I got to row back! Anna's brother, Janne [yaw-nay], his wife, Kristiina, and Maria all went to sauna, again. I chose not to, too much sauna for one day :] So I watched the olympics with Juuso, who doesn't shut up now. I really thought he was just a quiet kid, but no, he was just shy around me. But now he like beats me up and talks to me all the time, so it's really nice, I think his english is even better than Lauri's. But it's nice to have someone to talk to other than Anna in the house :] After everyone had had their share of sauna, besides juuso and me, we went to lunch at a country inn type thing. It was in this farm house, but it was good food. And there were lots of animals to see. The sheep were really loud, Juuso, Maria and I had a nice chat with them. There were two really cute dogs, some adorable bunnies, and horses ! So that was really fun. And then we made the two hour trip home on which I just napped in a rather uncomfortable position...And for the rest of today I haven't done much, just rested a bit. Anna's other brothers wife and kids came over and Maria and I rode over to the soccer fields and wathed Mika [Anna's brother, Jaako's son, hes 11] do long jump. He apparently just won first place in the Central Finland Championships for long jump, javelin throw, and discus in the 11 year old bracket. But we went and he practiced long jumping while we watched, it was fun though. And then it was sauna time [again] and now I am here, writing a book about the weekend. I hope you enjoyed reading it, I am amazed if you even got this far...School tomorrow, my longest day...Have a good one !