p.s.

oh just another finnish tradition I remembered, so they make this delicious drink called "glogi" pronounced gluggy, which is basically really hot fruit juice that tastes a bit like hot apple cider, only better. And in it you put almond slices, sometimes whole ones, and raisins, which you spoon out with a spoon. It's really tasty and you enjoy it with gingerbread cookies and other yummy things. And yeah, everytime we visit someone's house over christmas it's what we always drink. Along with eating Torttu, a star shaped flaky biscuit with pie filling in the middle usually blueberry, sometimes chocolate or strawberry, or even apple. They're realllly tasty :) And yeah, I'll probably have a lot more of these type blogs, as I slowly remember different things we did.


!$%?#$ :D

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 :)

its almost christmas timeeeee.

two more days ! I'm so very excited :D This weekend was a blastttt. On saturday my family and I went over to the neighbors for his 53rd birthday, had some delicious food and just chatted and held the little 8 month old baby who was the cutest thing ever. His name was Eero and his sister, 2 or 3 years old, was hm. I actually don't remember her name...It meant "Lily of the Valley" though, and she was really cute as well. So that was fun. Then later that evening Sanelma [Arttu's girlfriend] and her parents came over. They didn't speak english to me, so it was a veryyyy long 3 hours of just sitting there not understanding. Raija tried to get them to speak, but they wouldn't. But oh well. Then on Sunday Annina and I met up and went out to lunch and planned out my trip to Helsinki [the capital city of finland] next week. We also got to look through my yearbook which she was really excited about, so that was fun. We ate at a place called Amarillo and it was delicious<3 Then my host parents picked me up and we drove over to another family's house, the same family that visited our house like two weeks ago. They had a really cute poodle, and their daughter Vera turned out to be really nice. She is almost 17, and at first it was really awkward trying to think of what to talk about, but after a while we had lots of fun and what not. Today I met up with Maria downtown for a promised and long awaited shopping trip. We went to almost every shop in Jyväskylä and had MAC donalds for lunch, courtesy of her father :] We found her a cute top that was on sale, woooo, and had lots of fun. I spoke finnish the whole day and it felt niceeee. Tomorrow I think is a nice free day and then on wednesday its.......CHRISTMAS ! woooo:] Yes, finns celebrate it on the 24th...But I'm really excited for it. There are probably 8 packages under the tree right now, more than half of which are for me, from the sainpalo's and Pastor Jim and Sonna, and my family. So I'm kind of confused if this family does the whole "giving presents" thing...maybe its a last minute sort of thing...I dunno :D Wishing you a very merry christmas and a wonderful new year ! Hyvää Joulua !

Declan Galbraith

I recently came upon his videos, hes pretty amazing.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03iH-Bsvj8



He's 17 now, and still singing, but this is my favorite video :) when he was like 8 ? 9 ?

happy wednesday :)

indeed it was ! But lets talk aboutttt yesterday ! So I went to school around 9, had a very nice art lesson with Barbara again, stole an apple from the lunch room and thennnn went home ! I spent the rest of the day making christmas cards for all my friends, it was quite fun. Later that evening Raija's brother and his wife came over for coffee and desserts. His name was Petri, so I called him Uncle Pete :) They spoke english very well, but I tried out my finnish a few times as well. We ate some delicious food, chatted, and then they went home. So todayyyy [actually, this was wednesday, and today is friday, but whatever.] I went with Arvo in the morning to pick up my christmas package from the um, package place ? :) We got there and the man handed me my package and as I was walking out I noticed that I was leaving a trail of coffee as I walked. I assumed that one of the packages my mom sent me had opened, so it was sort of interesting. When I got home and out of the car, there was this little pile of coffee grounds on the seat, but at least our car smells yummy now ! :D I got home, opened my package to find a zilllllion bags of coffee, one which had opened a bit :] My yearbook, anninas christmas gift, some enchilada sauce and chiles, flossssss !, a present !, anddddddddddd JIFPEANUTBUTTER. mmm, I opened it and just stood in the kitchen breathing in its heavenly scent that hadn't touched my nose since last summmer. It is so delicious<3 Anyways, then I proceeded for the next two and a half hours to bake chocolate chip cookies ! I ended up making 127....hahah. But everyone loved them, and I gave them out to my friends for christmas. That evening I took the bus downtown and then another one up to Palokka and visited the Sainpalos ! Anna and Lauri weren't at home :/ But juuso, Maria, and Harri were. We ate some ice cream, chatttted for a bit, and then Juuso and Maria and I played this um penguin game that was reallycool. Juuso had to leave for a dance at his school, and Harri was going to an ice hockey game, so Maria and I had the house to ourselves ! We played the finnish version of Taboo, it was hard but quite helpful and we had lots of fun. And then we watched numerous videos of Anna Abreu, Anna Puusijärvi, and Koop Arponen, the finnish Idols winners. Haha, it was really cool :D And then Thursday ! I went to school for a meeting with my counselor lady at 12, had some glogi, a finnish christmas drink usually alcoholic, but not this time, it tastes like hot apple cider and its so gooood. I picked out my classes for next period, I'm taking Art [ahaha of course] Psychology, the Dance class that prepares us for the dances we have to do at Prom [waltz, tango, jenkka, uumpa (i dunno how to spell that one...)], and a religion class with Annina in finnish ! Fun fun. And then I start finnish lessons again, so that will also take up some of my time :D After that I had 7 hours to kill before youth group, but its pointless to go home cause it takes an hour to do so....So I hung out in the art room for like 5 hours, in the middle Annina and I went downtown, bought some lunch, and just sat and talked for a while. Then at 6 30 I walked up to the church for our christmas party at youthgroup. The church was so pretty ! Everyone was all dressed up [I wore a dress as wellll] and there were pretty lights and candles everywhere. And then we had an amazingggg worship session, it was so so good. We played a few games, learned some scottish/irish dance, etc. But it was so much fun. I didn't get home until pushing midnight though...but oh well :D And then today ! I've just been sitting around enjoying my day off of school :) Merrrrry Christmas !

15/12/08

Well we're half a month away from the end of 2008, does anyone else feel that it went by terribly fast ? Goodness, I've already been here more than four months, spencer is in junior high, jordan started college ! Before you know it I'll be graduating [hopefully] and oh my goodness, driving ! So my family got our christmas tree this weekend. My host dad recently joined the local hunting club so we went out with them to cut down our tree, from the middle of a forest ! It was his first "kill" :) Arttu's girlfriend, Sanelma, came along, shes really sweet. She hadn'treally spoken english to me before, so I kind of thought we just might never talk. But then, while tree hunting, she opened up and we had a lovely conversation :D She reminds me a lot of my brothers lovely girlfriend, Katy, not only is she super sweet, Arttu is lots nicer to his family when she's around. Maybe in a few years Arttu will eventually turn out like Jordan and just be nice all the time :D On sunday I went into town and met with Piia and Annina and we did some nice christmas shopping :) I didn't really accomplish much and I've resolved to just make cookies for everyone, inexpensive and delicious. Although, I'd like to give something more "from the heart" to a few of my friends, but I'm still stuck on the "what"....Any ideas ? Then we all headed up to church ! It just happened to be the christmas service, so it was really cute. The kids choir did a few numbers, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xti0v7aX0 ! After church I went home and enjoyed a fantastic meal of hamburger patties topped with delicious sauce and pineapple rings ! It was soooo good. My host parents are wonderous cooks. Today I went to school, enjoyed a fabulous art class with Barbara, the italian exchange student, she's hilarious :] I walked around town with Annina afterwards and then came home and watched part of spiderman 2 with Alvar. Tomorrow starts test week, so my week will be unbusy. Yet, I have lots to do....On wednesday I get to see/maybe collect my dress ! And then I'll head over to the Sainpalo's for a nice visit :D Maria sent me a text message today and asked how i was [all in finnish of course !], it was really cute. I told her that I was coming to her house on wednesday at six, mä tulen sun kotiin keskiviikona kuudelta, and she was excited. Then on thursday, I'm going to youth group and its our christmas party ! So that should be fun, I'll try and take pictures/video of some of it :) Also on Wednesday I'll be baking my cookies to give to my friends, because thursday is the last day that I'll see them before christmas. On saturday my host family is going to our neighbour's house to celebrate his birthday, and then Sanelma and her parents are coming over for coffee. And thatttt is it for news :) I have a few pictures on flickr as well ! www.flickr.com/ilovepaige345

"I want to know you more"

Tuntea sinut, kuulla sun äänesi
Haluan enemmän (haluan sua enämmän)
Koskettaa sua, nähdä sun kasvosi
Tuntea sinua (huhtea sua enämmän)

I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice
I want to know you more
I want to touch you,
I want to see your face
I want to know you more

We sang that in church last week :)