Kali kali kali - Brr brr brrr

It is -14 degrees celcius outside, which is somewhat like 9 or 10 degrees in farenheit. So yeah, its freezing. I’ll tell you more about what else is freezing later on J [warning: make sure you have an hour or two set aside for reading this, it’s a beast.] Let’s talk about Helsinki ! So Sunday night Annina came over and spent the night. We had the lovely chance of webcamming with my church for their Christmas [belated…] service, and Annina and I got to be a part of it and read Luke 2: 8-20, it was really cool, Annina really liked it, and I had lots of fun getting to talk to people I hadn’t seen in five months (: So lots of fun there. We then headed off to bed and woke up at 6 am to shower, eat, get dressed, and leave at 8. My host mom, Raija and her friend Virpi were kind enough to drive us down to Helsinki, saving us 25 euros for a train ticket ! The ride down there was nice and pleasant, I slept most of the way. We stopped at a rest stop and ate rahka pulla, a type of doughnut, and used the bathroom halfway through the trip. (and ironically stopped at the exact same one on the way back ! Pretty snazzy.) We got dropped off at the railway station in Helsinki where we met up with Johanna, Annina’s cousin ! We were to stay with her family for the duration of our trip. So we walked with Johanna, and all our bags, up the street to the bus station which was inside the mall ? It was wicked. We then paid 3.80 euros for the bus ride up to Espoo, a city just outside Helsinki, which is where Johanna lived. When we got to her house we met her mom, Tiina, dad, Hannu, little brother, Antti (14), and her other little brother Tapio (9). (His name is Tapio and he lives in Tapiola [a suburb in Espoo], pretttty cool.) After getting settled in and were finished setting up our beds, we went downstairs and ate some um, well I dunno what to call it. It’s called pirraka in finnish which means pie, but its not pie. So I’m not sure how to explain it. But yeah, we ate that and drank some tea, and continued to make fun of Annina for being sick. She was coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose constantly, so we just called her different forms of “the gerrrrrm” and what not (: We then decided we wanted to go shopping ! Haha, shocking. So Johanna’s mom drove us to Seppo, the mall in Espoo. They told me it was small before we got there, but when we walked inside my face was like :O ß that. There were escalators everywhereeee ! And pretty lights and 5 floors, and yeah, it was amazing. I bought some shoes that might work for my dress for the dance thingy, but other than that I didn’t really find anything worth spending the limited amount of cash I had. So then we went home and had some delicious spaghetti made by Johanna’s dad, and soon after, around 8 30, we decided to get into bed ! Haha, we weren’t really sure why, but we were all tired, so we just talked until like 10 and then fell asleep. And when we woke up, it was 12 ! Haha, we slept a lotttttttt. But it felt nice, although I woke up with a stuffy nose and headache and realized I probably had slept too close to Annina and was now “the gerrrrrrm” with her :/ That day we three traveled downtown to go sightseeing and do more shopping. The mall in Helsinki was even bigger ! I really didn’t think it was possible, but it was. And it was huge. I should have a lot of photos up soon, I’ll post a link to them when they’re available. We went and saw the coolest and biggest church in all of finland, it was so so pretty, I also have pictures of that. We went to this huge bookstore, but again, nothing really worth buying, seeing as I could get it just as cheap if not cheaper, back home. But it was like 3 floors of just books books and more books. It was really nice. We took a bus back home around 3 and soon after we got home Johanna’s aunt and uncle came over with their two little kids, Leo, 5, and Eea, 3. They’ve been living in China for the past year or something, so Leo was in an English speaking school, so he actually knew and understood a lot of English. It was so cool, cause I haven’t been able to talk with any kid under the age of ten since I left home. We played different games, mostly consisting of him being a giant and hitting us with pillows yelling “YOU MUST SLEEP NOW.” “oh oh, who is waking ?” “SLEEEEEP !” It was really cute J Then they turned the sauna on and Johanna, Annina and I all went after Leo’s family and her brothers had gone. It was nice, as always, although I hadn’t been to sauna since the trip to Lapland, because my family here goes to “family sauna” and its not really something I’m comfortable with….So, it was really nice to go again :D Then we ate homemade pizza, made again by Johanna’s dad and then Tapio played the piano for us. Apparently their whole family is really musically oriented and really good at some type of instrument. Johanna plays violin, tapio piano, Antti guitar, etc. It was really cool and I also have video of that as well. Around 9 30 we went to the train station with Johanna’s dad and picked up her other cousin, Anni. We hung out with her family watching tv for a bit and then went to bed ! We were planning on sleeping in again, but at 10 15 we got a nice wake up call and 15 minute warning from Johnanna’s mom saying we were leaving in 15 minutes to go shopping at Itakeskus, the biggest shopping center in all of Scandinavia. Boy oh boy ! Well, it probably would have been really exciting and everything had Annina and I not been sick :/ It was the worst of all the days, we both had headaches, stuffy noses, and couldn’t walk faster than .5 miles an hour. The other girls were yelling at us to hurry up, but we really couldn’t go any faster, so we didn’t really see much of the huge mall. Just one floor, out of the million. But oh well, at least we got to go there. We drove on the other side of town before going home to see “westend” which is where all the rich people and celebrities of Finland live, the houses were hugeeeee, and we saw a family of swans ! You’ll see those in the pictures as well (: When we got home Johanna’s dad made us tacos that were so so yummy and delicious. During the day we baked so many desserts, I helped make a chocolate cheese cake, Johanna made some brownies, and I think we made something else as well, but I forget….But they were all very tasty :D That night we went downtown to see the Espoo fireworks, they were really cool. I think even a better show than the one at waterfront….Although it wasn’t over water, which would have made it really cool. But the fireworks themselves were really awesome. Although, the finnish crowd, probably 500 or so people, were very quiet. There was no oohing and ahhing, just staring and they clapped at the end. It was interesting….When we got home Johanna’s friend Rikka came over, she was really cool J We participated in lots of finnish traditions this new years eve. We melted tin horseshoes on a stove top and then threw them in water and examined the mold to predict our future year. I apparently will be getting lots of money and luck ? Haha, I dunno. It was fun though, and I have video of it as well ! Yay. We did home fireworks as well, they were really cool, I have lotttts of videos of that, so I’ll pick the best ones to upload. We did the countdown to the new year in English, which was really fun, and I taught them how to oooh and ahhhh after each firework (: Except, the first time we tried it, the roman candle tipped over and started shooting the fireworks in crazy directions, sometimes at us, so we hid behind a car and were screaming ooooh, AHHHHH. It was quite hilarious :] After fireworks we went inside and played guitar hero until 2 or 3 in the morning. Tapio is so good ! He plays on expert and is amazingggg. So I played against him most of the time, because everyone was guaranteed to lose against him anyways, so there wasn’t any way I could possibly win anyways [: But I still did horribly….but oh well. On Thursday Johanna’s mom wanted to take me to some museums of famous Finnish people, so we went to Akseli Kallen-Gallela’s house. He was a famous finnish painter/artist and his house is now a museum. It was pretty cool to see, he was really good. We walked around outside for a bit, part of the lake down there had frozen and people were out on it, but Tiina said it really wasn’t safe yet and they were stupid. It looked scary, and sounded really weird. That afternoon Leo and Eea came over again and we played lego’s and cowboys and Indians ! It was really fun, I built a cool army with Leo, we talked about ships going fast and how high planes can fly, it was so much fun to talk with a little kid again. That night there was a huge light show downtown at the big church. It was really awesome, I have video of it as well [I took lots of videos J], so you’ll have to watch it. We went home and just hung around watching random tv shows, built a lego spaceship, and played catch for hours with some stupid ball. But it was really fun. I don’t remember when we went to bed, but probably around 11 or 12 or something. On Friday morning we woke up at 9 ? I think, and went downtown at 11 by bus. First we walked to Ateneum, the finnish Art museum, which was so amazing. Before coming here I didn’t really like museums and I thought they were boring, but I love them now and I wanna go see so many more. The Japanese photography after Nagasaki was probably my favorite exhibit, but there was so much more that was so cool. Clips from old finnish films, different art pieces from finnish artists, books, buildings, all of it was so cool. Afterwards we walked around downtown searching for the American Store ! We found it and found cereal, pop tarts, butterfingers, goldfish, ROOTBEER<3, jelly belly’s, peanut butter, etc. I was in heaven :D It was very nice :] Then we continued to walk around, thinking of where we should eat before we go to the movie that evening. At 4 ? we met up with Johanna’s friends Maiju and Elina, and then decided to go to Pizza Raxi for dinner. It’s a buffet, so you can get what ever you want basically, it wasn’t bad. Although we were there for 2 hours waiting for Anni to finish eating her 6 slices of pizza and 15 chicken wings, it was gross. After eating we walked over to the theatre of Helsinki, 24 screens. It was HUGE. The biggest thing I have ever been in in my entire life. Friday night was the opening night of Twilight, movies come out like 3 months later than in America because they have to put finnish and Swedish subtitles on the bottom. So the kids there were going crazy, there were only 5 seats left in the whole room, which sat more than 600 people….it was so big. After picking up our pre ordered tickets we sat outside the theater, on the third floor. The cool thing about movies in finland is that when you buy your movie tickets you pick the seats you want. So if you pre order tickets, you don’t have to get to the theater early to get good seats, your seats are already saved for you. It’s genius. The movie was alright, I haven’t read the book which I guess might have made it more special, but it all seemed unreal, who falls in love in the first 3 days of school ? I dunno, it wasn’t bad, but not the greatest either….But it was still fun to go to the premiere (: Especially being in that huge theatre, it was so cool. Maiju’s dad drove us home, all 7 of us in a 5 person car….Annina was on my lap and Elina on Johanna’s. It was a very interesting ride home :] We went to bed pretty soon after we got home, although Johanna’s mom forced us to eat something before we went to sleep. So we had some toast and tea. On Saturday we took Anni to the train station at 10 and then went back to the house so that Annina and I could pack our bags and wait for her mom to pick us up and drive us home [another 25 euros saved !]. Leo and Eea came over one last time so we got to play with them for a bit and then Annina’s mom came and we piled into her car and started out 4 hour drive home. Like I previously mentioned, we just so happened to stop at the same rest stop as we did on the way here, but this time we got meals, blue cheese chicken, mmmm. It was good. We dropped my bags off at my house and then I went to Annina’s house for like 20 minutes and then we had to leave again, catch a bus back downtown to Jyvaskyla, and go to chill night so I could meet the new missionary, Brian. He was really cool and funny, much better than the previous one. We played Scatergories and another paper game that I don’t know how to describe….and then at 7 50 Anna came and picked me up so that I could go with her and Maria and their cousin Maija who I went on the Sweden cruise with, to Lauri’s hockey game ! It was super fun, Lauri got put in the penalty box, had an assist, and his team won 6-2, so it was really fun. Then Anna drove me home and I showered, which felt so good, and watched part of Sin City with my host family. I wrote some letters in reply to those that I had received while I was gone and they should go in the mail tomorrow, and then went to bed. I woke up today to the wonderfulness of our family breakfast<3 I missed it. Then I went with Raija to take Alvar and his friend Janni to the local ski slope. It was really small, but hey, its only 10 minutes away, so that’s nice. Then my host mom and I went outside and…….WALKED ON THE FROZEN LAKE. It was very exciting :] And really scary…..but the ice is more than 6 inches thick, 15 cm about, so its apparently really safe. There were tons of people out there ice skating and sledding and ice hole fishing. It was very nice, and yes I took pictures and video, of course. So you should see those as well. And now I’m just relaxing and typing up this really long massive sized blog so you all know how fun my new years was :D I hope you enjoyed, if you even made it this far…..