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 :)