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 !