i don't even remember...

Oi! It has been quite a long time since my last post, sorry to all of you who have checked back for feedback on my whereabouts, life has been crazy, but good :] I think I left off on Thursday of last week, so I guess I shall move on to Friday, if I can remember what I did...I had finnish lessons that morning, and I rode my bike to them, taking the long way around the lake. It's awfully pretty, I hope I get to do it a bit more before it gets too cold :] Afterwards I rode home and ate some lunch and then made plans to go on a biking adventure with my dear canadian friend Chet. It was really fun actually, although Juuso took the bike that I normally ride so I had to settle for the single gear, no hand brakes, flat tired, too tall bike :] I somehow managed to lock the bike in place when I parked at the Euromarket to wait for Chet, but when I tried to unlock it again, I couldn't seem to figure out how. So here I am, standing with Chet, trying to figure out how to unlock the stupid thing. We finally figure it out after about 15 minutes of flipping the entire bike over trying to see how it locked, and so off we went just riding all over Jyväskylä for 2 hours. It was really fun :] I don't really remember what else I did that night, I don't think anything too special...Um. Saturday. Well, Annina has this friend Roosa who lives about 150 km northwest from here, and she is coming with us to the festival that I'm going to on my birthday weekend ! She came up to Jyväskylä on Saturday however, so I got to meet her. We went shopping all day on saturday and then went to Chill Night to hang with the guys. We played card games, scum and BS, but they were both really fun :] Roosa was really sweet so I'm really looking forward to this festival thing in Turku. On sunday I didn't do much in the morning, but around 1 or so, Petra and Pinja came over and we hung out and ate some apple pie and ice cream that Anna made for us. At 4 we all left to go see Lauri's hockey game which was really fun actually. There was this one annoying lady who wouldn't stop clapping though. And it was really really loud clapping, and even when nothing happened she would just sit there and clap for literally five minutes straight. After the game was over Petra and I walked over to the swimming hall where Maria and Pinja had lessons, but instead of swimming she and I watched the Water Polo game that was going on that night ! There was a finnish team [of course] but the other team we couldn't really figure out where they were from. Some of the boys had finnish names, but the coach spoke broken english to them, and then like spanish or something to the rest of them ! We decided that they must have been the english speaking Spaniards living in Finland. :D Well, they won, and the finnish team lost, but it was really fun to watch :] Monday ! I didn't have much else to do so I went downtown and spent the day shopping with Annina and Roosa again ! At 2 30 we met up with Piia who begged us to go with her on a "date" with her ex-boyfriend. I guess it was just like a catching up sort of thing, and it turned out to be really awkward for Annina, Roosa, and I because we just sat in the coffee house, listening to the conversation that Piia and her ex-boyfriend were having. But oh well, she was glad that we came along :] I don't think I did anything afterwards, just hung out at home :] So on tuesday, I woke up and baked cookies ! I found out that it was Petra's birthday, LAST tuesday, so I told her I'd make her cookies :] That afternoon Anna also took Maria, Juuso and I to the new plantetarium in Kokkola, about 15 km away. It was really cool, but kind of boring, it was all in Finnish. I mean, I tried really hard to figure out what they were saying, but I ended up sleeping through the last half...Juuso slept too me so I didn't feel toooo bad...Afterwards Anna took me to Chill Night and Juuso to his hockey game. Apparently word got out that we planned on baking at this chill night because when I got there the placed was packed ! There were probably 20 people there, compared to our usual 6 or 7. But it was a lot of fun, we baked butterscotch haystacks, with wayyy too much sugar, it was kind of nasty. But Annina and Roosa had baked delicious Pulla, and of course, my cookies :] Then we played Signs, which is sort of like the name game we played in youth group a lot. Yanno, the "belle loves stewie" game ? But instead of names you have a certain sign that you have to pass around without the person in the middle catching you. It was really confusing at first, but was fun when it got going :] I woke up on Tuesday crazy excited for the day because....duh duh duh....I was going bowling with Piia, Annina, andddd Joonas :D So I was super excited. Plus, afterwards, Annina and I were going to go to Piia's where she was cooking us Italian food and then we were going to camp out in her backyard inside a tent ! But in the morning Anna also asked if we could go material shopping for my dress because there was a store that was having a sale on materials ! So we went to this little shop downtown and I found the most gorgeous green, satin material ever. I bought uh, 5m ?, of it I think...But it's really pretty and I'm going to go get measured and what not by the lady who is making it sometime this week ! After we bought my material Anna drove me to Piia's where I dropped off my stuff and met up with Annina. And then Piia drove us over to the bowling alley which along the way we picked up Joonas :] We went bowling, which was pretty much the same [and get this, the backdrop of the lanes was the exact same as the one at All Star Lanes in Silverdale!] But anyways, here you pay for the hour in bowling and just bowl as many times as you want for as much as you payed for. So we bowled for an hour, in which I came in last place :/ But successfully bowled both right and left handed, so go me ! Piia threw an absolutely perfectly straight ball every single time, if only she threw it faster, she would have gotten strike after strike. Joonas had this crazy bowling technique, but it ended up getting him second ! And Annina somehow managed to come up with a bunch of talent in the second game and surpassed me :/ But I had loads of fun, so that was cool. Then Piia said that I could invite Joonas to dinner as well, so I did, and he came ! While Piia cooked, the rest of us attempted to set up the tent on Piia's porch ! It was quite hillarious, but fun none the less. And then we all sat down to eat the most delicious pasta everrr. I swear, Piia should be a cook. After eating Joonas ran home, literally, and the girls and I piled into the car and drove over to one of Piias' friends' house. Along the way the girls asked to listen to Mikey's new cd which I had been telling them about. So we listened to that as we drove to Sara's house. They really liked it, as do I, and you should definitely check out his music. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=103009162 When we got to Sara's house we walked inside and talked for a bit and then spent the next hour singing ! Sara played the piano while the girls and I sang along with it. We sang disney songs, Finnish songs, Avril Lavinge, you name it. It was super fun and I recorded a bunch of it, so I'll get those up soon enough :] After our singing, Sara made us pancakes and then the girls and I headed back home to Piia's. We set up camp inside our tent, enjoyed some pulla and rasberry cakes, and then climbed inside the tent. Piia's parents kept telling us to put on more and more layers of clothing because it was so cold outside, so we looked like snowmen when we were finally allowed outside. We stayed up talking for quite some time, about all sorts of things, the usualy "Tent talk". In the morning Piia's mom made us eggs and hotdogs on toasted buns, and Piia made tea :] It was so cute ! I loved every minute of it. I however, was leaving that mornig with my family to Konnevesi so I had to be home around 10. After quickly packing some clothes and my toothbrush, Juuso, Maria, Anna and I piled into the car and headed for Kuopio, about 2 hours away. We stopped at this poshy hotel, went in, had a buffet style lunch, and then went to the pool inside. Only, the word pool doesn't exactly fit. There were four pools, two hot tubs, and a water slide ! One of the pools was actually located outside, but you had to swim though a tunnel from the inside to get there. The Finnish people just love going from hot to cold...crazy ! After about 2 hours of swimming, we went back inside, went to sauna [of course], and then showered and left ! We then backtracked our way to Konnevesi, about an hours drive, and finally arrived at Harri's parents summer house :] We spent the next two nights there, mostly spent playing hide and go seek or chasing the dog around. Juuso and I took a couple bike rides, and I've found that he's actually a pretty cool kid for being 13, and has surprisingly good english :] So it was really fun hanging out with him all weekend. Anyways, so we just got home today, and I am definitely ready for some sleep. Although, I'm waking up at 3 to watch my redsox hopefully win :] The game last night was absolutely terrifying, but so gooood ! So yeah, tomorrow I'm not doing much, just planning Jason's going away present because hes leaving next monday, like for good. He's going home to the states, so Tuesday is his last chillnight, and I need to make him a gift. Plus, on Monday, I've been invited to visit Maria's english teacher and talk to all her classes ! So I need to work on what to say to a bunch of third graders who can't understand me :] Fun fun ! Anyways, hope you enjoyed this super long post ! Hyvää yotä :D