kolkytyks - 31

The weeeekend ! Let's start with friday. I woke up around 8 that morning and called kara to wish her a very happy, early, birthday, so that was fun :] I headed to the bus station around 10 o'clock and attempted to buy my very first bus ticket. The lady was very nice and knew a lot of english, so that was helpful. Because I'm only 16 I get a discounted price, so my bus ticket was only 15,20 ! I then waited for the 11 o'clock bus to Helsinki to show up. When it did I put my bags underneath and climbed aboard. Chet wasn't there yet and he had told me the day before that he might not be coming, but I was really hoping that he would, I didn't want to ride in a bus by myself for three hours. With seven minutes to go, I really didn't think he was coming, but he did :] So that was nice, we just talked the whole way there. [Chet is from Canada and is also living in Jyväskylä and is in my school] We got off the bus at the stop in Lahti and had an hour to kill. So we put our bags in a locker inside the station and took a stroll around the city. It was bigger than Jyväskylä, but not as new. There was a huge flea market happening down the road so we went and checked it out, but it wasn't too special. Just a lot of wool hats and socks :] At 3 o'clock our bus to Pujälahti was arriving so we headed back to the station to gather our things. We ran into a bunch of other exchange students also waiting for the bus, so that was nice. When we got there I think we were all shocked at how big this place was. It's a sports training center for all of Finland's finest. There's a huge soccer pitch, disc golf course, track, swimming hall, gym, etc. We got our room keys and I ended up dorming with P, this Taiwanese girl who was really sweet. Dinner was really good that night, we had some sort of meat, potatoes [of course] and salad and bread. Then we went outside to meet with our tutors who were rebound exchange students from two years ago. One of our tutors lived a year in Australia, one in South Africa, one in Oregon, and one in Washington State ! She lived near Wenatchee, so she was cool to talk to. We played a few "group bonding" games and then kind of disbanded into a volleyball team, soccer team, and the kids who hung out at the kiddie playground. I, of course, played soccer. It was really fun, but we played on this grassy knoll rightttt next to the lake, so whenever someone would kick it hard and in the wrong direction, it'd go out into the lake. I ended up being the retriever for it 'cause I didn't care if my pants got wet. I made some new friends this weekend, ones whom I had only seen back at langauge camp. It was nice to have new people to talk to :] After game time we had a bit of free time so the Oregon tutor asked if we wanted to go in and get some hot chocolate. We sat in the lounge for a bit, just talking about our homes and stuff. At nine we went outside to the campfire and enjoyed a very Finnish custom, crepe making over an open fire ! You take a skillet, attatch it to a broom handle basically, and then put in butter and then the batter. They were so delicious, plus we had homemade strawberry jam to put on top. Mmmm, they were delicious, much better than s'mores. The smoke was really terrible however, so my eyes, along with everyone else's, were burning after the first hour. A lot of people went to bed around 11 or so, but a group of us, Dante [Canada], Trey [Illinois], Erica [Oregon], Nathan [Oregon], a girl from Germany, and another girl from Illinois, sat in our dorm lounge and talked until midnight. We basically just compared how different our foods were, apparently in Canada ketchup chips are really popular, I've never heard of them. But it was fun :] The next morning we had breakfast at eight, porridge<3, bread, and fruit. Yummm. After breakfast we went down the street to more soccer fields and the disc golf course where we attempted to play disc golf. But with regular, plastic, ultimate frisbee type frisbees. So we all really sucked, but it was loads of fun. I was partners with Cindy, this girl from Florida, she was really nice too :] When we got done we didn't really have anything planned so one of the tutor's asked if anyone wanted to play again, this time with her. I volunteered, so off we went ! She spent her year in South Africa, it sounded so cool ! We just talked about different things involving the exchange and what not, it was really cool, I'm glad I went with her. Afterwards we didn't really have anything to do until lunch which wasn't for another two hours, so Erica, USA girl, Germany girl, and I went and sat down in the lunch room and just talked. We did that a lot this weekend, talking. I woke up that morning with a really stuffy nose and sore throat, which has only worsened since. A lot of people are sick right now, I guess I caught it as well. At lunch we ate potaotes [:D], salmon, casserole, salad, and bread ! And for dessert we had this delicious chocolate mint mousse. The food here is spectacularrrr. After lunch we checked out of our rooms and had another game time. This time we met in the dorm lounges. The tutors had put us in groups of three or four, I was with Juan [from Mexico City] and MarjaLissa (prounounced mar-ya-lee-sa)[from Germany] and our first task was to answer five multiple choice questions that were written down for us on a sheet of paper. They were just basic questions about finland like what certain words meant, how to say a certain phrase, and little known facts [ex: day of independence, national game, etc.] We got all 7 correct ! So that was fun. Afterwards we had to make up a skit, song, poem, etc., on the topic of our Five D's. No drinking, no driving, no dating, no decoration, and no drugs. My group decided to make up a song, it was acutally really hilarious and everyone liked it, we performed twice ! We went first, just thinking that other groups would follow if we broke the ice, but when we were done, the other groups all said that they didn't think of anything. So we were the only group to do anything. The tutors were kind of disappointed, it wasn't very hard to make a song. We made ours to the tune of Jingle Bells :] But after that we played this game called "Squirt" that Dante taught us. In Finnish its called PAM! It's a great group game, I'll have to teach it to you all when I get back home. After that we all just hung out in the lobby and waited for our rides home. I rode home with Martti, my Youth Exchange Officer [YEO] and we also took another girl home, she lives across the bridge in Jyväskylä and her name is Yurie, shes from Japan. She was nice to talk to :] I got home around 6 that night, no one was home, so I just watched TV. Maria came home around 7 and "told" me that her and her grandma, who lives just behind their house, were going on a walk with the dog. I went with them and Maria showed me her "fort" inside this bush near her school, it was actually really cool, I wish I had something like that. We climbed a tree and sat in that for awhile, then rode our bikes around for awhile, trying to find her grandma again. We found them and then rode back to her grandma's house. Inside, Maria showed me her baby pictures, they were so cute ! Around 8 I rode back home and waited for Juuso to get home. We watched part of XMEN 3 and then he got online. I just watched movies until I got tired and went to bed. Anna got home really early this morning, she got 3rd place in some race ! She leaves for England this afternoon and won't be back until wednesday, our fridge is stocked with food at the moment, because she's normally the cook, well, besides Lauri of course. And now I am going to go enjoy some delicious breakfast, hope your Sunday is wonderful !