time flies when youre having...

fun ? ive been really busy this past week, hence the lack of blogging, but ive been doing lots of interesting, some fun, things :) on tuesday I went running, 30 minutes non stop with annina and piia ! It was exhilerating, and that was after mondays 45 minutes of intense cycling and 15 minutes of the hardest core workout ever, jeeees. But both were still really great. i also had choir practice on tuesday for the school and we're singing John Lennons "Imagine" for the graduation practice, in which Annina and I are sort of singing the lead, (if we sing loud enough, which we will, then we'll just over power Minttu who has a hard time with singing anyways, so yeah...that sounded mean, but it wasnt meant to be. shes a really nice girl, but the song is in english, and well some finns just don't prnounce english words so well, and yeah...anyways) so I'm excited for that. Hopefully I can get someone to tape it for me. On wednesday I had art, and we're busy making different props and posters for Lyseo (my school)Day in two thursdays from now. I really have no idea what actually happens there, but I've heard that our schools bands play (rock bands, not concert) and there is some art thing ? I dunno. I guess I'll just wait and see ! What else did I do on wednesday. Oh yeah I went to the Lutehran church wiht Annina to interview the youth pastor on Intoxicants and such for our project. So that was fun, we'll hopefully be finishing that up this weekend as we present on Tuesday...Im also giving another presentation to the Church History class on Religion in the US (sort of like the same one I did back in December with more emphasis on my own church) and then on the same day as Lyseo Day I give my final Rotary Presentation to the Rotary Club, so I have to start making that. And I have to give a speech to the students on the last da of school, which is a saturday. The 30 th of may ! Next week we only ahve 3 days of school because of some holiday and the week after that is test week and then its done ! over ! yeah ! Anyways so then yesterday, thursday, I had school until three and then I went and met with Martti my rotary counselor here and then we enjoyed a delicious dinner provided for the Rotary Meeting. Then at the meeting we heard from an authour who talked about his latest book called "Paha" meaning Evil and it talks aobut the different kinds of evil...yeah. Theennnnn I went with about half or maybe a quarter of my school to a concert put on by one boy from my school, Antti, who was giving this concert as his Music Diploma. It was really cool, he was the drummer, and really really good at it, and his band was really awesome as well. Half of the members attend the church that I go to youth group which was cool to see. Antti is Pentecostal I believe, so it was held in that church. But yeah it was really really awesome. Theres a picture on my flickr from it, so you can go see that. Today I had one hour of school, sooo nice. And then I came home and we cleaned the house and then I layed out in the sun for a bit and read a book. But the wind was quite cold so I came back in and now I am here. Tomorrow I'm going to Anninas house to work on our project. Nuppe is really sick right now, head and nose stuff, no funnn. Mimmi went to her dads for the weekend. I think Nuppe and I are going to watch LOTR tonight, so that should be fun. Next weekend, for our fourday weekend we are going to Turku and staying with Sirpas sister and her kids. I hope that will be fun. And that is it ! enjoy the sunnnn. or at least I will, its probably raining where you are. Fun fun !

7 days

left of schooooool. although, its over the course of two more weeks, so it still feeels far off. So estonia was really nice ! The town, Tallinn, was really gorgeous, espescially old towne which was just filled with old buildings and shops and the side of one of the castles had been caved out for little hand knitted shops, sweaters and socks galore ! Haha. Well on saturday, after staying the night at Sirpas' friend Ulla's house we left for the harbor of Helsinki and boarded the huge cruise ship :) Nuppe and I headed off after eating and spent most of the two hours on the ship playing Joker Poker slot machines ! I think we only lost like 2 euros or something...pretty good. So then we got to Tallinn and waited picked up a handicap taxi (ulla is the one in the wheelchair) and drove over to our hotel. After dropping off our bags, Nuppe and Mimmi and I were staying in our own room, wooooo !, we went over to the hairdressers and shopping center. For a bit we shopped and then we had our hair appointment because its lots cheaper in Estonia than in finland. I was really dreading going, I really hate hairdressers and prefer to cut my own hair. The lady I got didn't speak a lick of english, and not really finnish either, although Estonian is rather close to the finnish language, but I suck at finnish anyways. So it was a bit confusing telling her what I wanted. I tried to emphasize that I liked my hair and wanted to keep it long, and that I only wanted 1 centimeter off, just 1. And at first she seemed like she understood all that and I was happy because I thought she'd finally be a hairdresser who listened to me. But then as she was cutting away, two inches of hair started falling to the floor. GAH. I hate hairdressers. During the cutting she kept looking at my hair in disgust and somehow I ended up telling her that I cut my own hair, and then she replied with (in finnish) "OH, I thought you just had a really horrible hairdresser in America" uhhhh. thanks ? What am I supposed to say to that ? I dunno but it was horrible and now my hair is the same length it was when I left for finland....fjdsaklfklsdaöjlask. Stupid. really. but I guess I can't really do anything about it. Anyways so after that we spent the rest of the day shopping. Then at night the girls and I walked over to the convenience store and bought Sirpa a cake for mothers day and asked the hotel if they could keep it in their fridge, which they did. And then the next morning at breakfast we snuck out from the table and got the cake and then surprised mom with it :D It was quite fun. That day we did some more shopping and hten when to old towne and then around 5 boarded the ship to come home. All in all it was a fine trip, really beautiful city. And has given me yet another reason to cut my own hair. :) But now I ahve religion class to get to, piictures soon !

estonia in two dayyyys.

what fun what fun what fun ! ITS 11.11 :D i made a wish. annina and I are wroknig on this really awesome religion project for our religion and ethics class, and we're going around to every church in our city and interviewing pastors on what they're attidtude is towards the use/abuse of intoxicants is. And its really exciting although we haven't actually interviewed anyone yet. We tried yesterday at the Orthodox church, but the pastor was on holiday. But tomorrow we have an appointment with Father Alexander, from the orthodox church, and tonight we're meeting with the mormons ! Next week we should be meeting with the Lutherans and then hopefullly the rest of them will reply to our emails ! But its quite fun, althoguh we're sort of crunched for time, I only have 9 school days left....so crazy ! Although its over the course of three weeks, so it seems far away still...Its mothers day on sunday, while we're in Estonia...I don't know what I'll do for Sirpa. Something. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of our trip, not many videos because I never have enough time to wait for them to uplaod and then no one gets to see them. So lots of pictures :) Tonight is youth group, I'm excited for it and Annina is coming with, yay :D Uh and yeah. we leave tomorrow at 16.00 or 17.00 and come back around 3 am on monday morning, but I'm really excited. I just hope and pray there are no fights...I dunno how likely that is to happen, but I hope it does ! But I've got to get to english now, we just had a listening exam, I think I did sort of bad....which is really sad. but anyways ! check out my flickr ! lots of pictures :D adios ! moikka ! see ya later alligator. :P

OH

and I DO have pictures for every day of the past two weeks for my flickr, I just haven't had a way to put them online, but I borrowed Annina's memory stick and they should all be up tomorrow ! Haha, there are a lotttt of them...be sure to check it out !

ho hee hum

this past weekend was indeed happy :) We had a three day weekend thanks to the wonderufl holiday of Vappu, which means free. Its in honour of the workers, so its sort of like Labour Day. But its just fabulous, downtown there was a huge bounce house and some carnival games and millions of booths set up selling candy and t shirts and other random things. Huge ginourmus fair balloons (yanno, those helium filled pretty coloured ones ?) were being sold, I bought a large pig ! It was sorttt of expensive, but hey, when it dies I can always fold it up and take it home and keep it forever. So I wasn't too upset. And there are colourful streamers put everywere and on everyone, and everyone is just so happy and yeah. It was nice. My host mom, mimmi, and I went to Paappa's cottage and spent the wonderously sunny weekend there. We went to sauna and swimming (for about 7 seconds) in the freezing cold water (maybe 40 degrees F or something...so cold) because all the ice had jsut melted. And we went boating, and climbed on rocks (I fell off one and got a large scrape all up my shin, it looks very pretty) and got a tiny tiny tiny bit sunburned (hallelujiah). And it was nice :D Its supposed to rain today, and I'm sort of hoping it does, I haven't had good rain since I left home I don't think. Maybe once or twice when I first arrived here, but its certainly been awhile. I went running last night with Annina and Piia and Make, it was really quite fun. I was supposed to go to the gym with Anna today but she has to work, so I'll try and make up for that and do something on my own. Tomorrow I'm going to go visit the Viertolas sometime and pick up my bike and have coffee or something. And on wednesday I'm going running again with the girls and on thursday Annina and I are going to youth group. Last week I took Nuppe with me...She hated it...haha, but I'm glad she at least came with me and experienced it. And on friday I leave around 16.00 for Helsinki to pick up Ulla and then go to Estonia for the weekend ! I'm excited for that :D and the girls (nupppe and mimmmi) and I get our own hotel room ! Yipppeeee :P And now I'm going downtown to go shopping with Annina<3 Today I sent out a letter to two very special little brothers of mine, hopefully it makes it there <3! :D

fifty something days

and then i come home :) If all goes as planned, I hope to return to the United States on the 25th of June. Not so far away, eh ? Right now I'm busy planning (or trying...my host mom is being a bit stubburn) my weekends and trips and things to do and such. This weekend we are going to Papa's cottage and guess what I'm maknig for food ! Aha, I think I'm gunna be sick of enchiladas soon....Oh well, everyone likes them, so I guess thats all good. Next weekend we're going to estonia ! Yay :D Then the weekend after that I'm possibly going with Annina to Tampere to go to Ilkka and Elina's youth group down there :) We're still planning that one out, so....Then the weekend after that I'm going to Turku to meet Sirpa's other sister and meet up with Bailey ! Yippee ! We have a four day weekend that weekend, so we're there the whole time. Then the weekend after that is the last day of school, yayyy. I'm staying in town to watch Piia and Make graduate but Saturday afternoon I think we're driving down to Helsinki (we as in my family here) to see their cousin Lauri also graduate. Thennnn the week after that, June 4th, is the big marathon that Piia, Annina, and I have been training for, but my host mom is being kind of dumb aobut it and saying I can't go because she had other plans...Plus that weekend is also Roosa's big birthday party that I've been looking forward to and she says that I'll have to miss that too. So we're working that one out at the moment, hopefully it all goes well ! Then the week after that I think I'm having my going away party with all the women in my life in finland at the raija's sumemr cottage in Kangasniemi, which will be super nice because we're just going to spend all day eating, going to sauna,swimming in the lake, repeat. Hehe :P And then soon after I leave ! Wow, I'mmm busy. :D

Hello to everyone ! and now I want some lunch, numnum.

Kesä on tällä :)

Summer is here. Goodness, finally. Well, rather spring is here, but its been so long since the sun has shined that it feels like summer ! The lake is still a bit frozen, but I think it'll melt within the two weeks coming. So my Rotary Conference was a bore. Seeing the other exchange students was fun, we had a blast at dinner, and at bowling. I hung out with Cindy for most of it, but I was surprised and how many other people seemed so different than back at Karkku (our language camp) or at Lapland, so it was really quite fun. Except when Rotary made us sit for four hours at a time listening to boring speeches in Finnish and in Italian....blahhh. But we found ways to entertain ourselves the first day, thanks to chet and kathleen ;D The food was nice, minus that huge cabbage rolled carrot thing...ew. Our dinner on saturday night took four hours to get through, but Trey Cindy Nathan, the girl from South Africa, and I all had a blast at our end of the table :P There are two kids who got here in January from Australia, Jordan and Ashley, both who were really quite fun and the girl from South Africa who was really cool, but I don't remember her name... I went home in the evening as Rotary wouldn't let the kids from Jyväskylä stay in the hotel (seeing as the conference was in our town) so Anna came and picked me up at 10 45 and I slept at their house for the night. Then we went back to the hotel at 8 15 and I met with all the other kids who apparently didn't sleep at all, so they were all dead. Nice. The first four hours of the morning were spent listening again to more long boring speeches in finnish and in italian. And then we had to sing some stupid song aobut grandmothers laying our mothers eggs and then our grandmothers laying ours ?! I dunno, it was so weird. It was one of those songs that has play on words or something ? "Mun mummuni muni mammani muni mummuni muni mun" were the words. So Fun ! Then we were off to lunch which was nice and then all the exchange students went home, which was the last time I'll see any of them, kind of sad. Anna picked me up and I went home to her house to finish packnig up my stuff because Sirpa came home on Saturday and was picking me up on Sunday. Being home is nice now, I missed my own room and Nuppe and Mimmi. Sirpa was in a good mood and came home bearing gifts :) I got a really nice shirt from Canada and....an 8 GB Blue Ipod Nano of the newest selection. Oh my word am I spoiled or what. I didn't really know what to say when I opened it, I was in complete shock I think. Who just buys their exchange student an Ipod ?! So crazy. But I'm really happy, it was really nice. Gosh it was so insane, I just gave her like some huge big hug hahah. But yeah, and then she made us waffles, num ! Tonight I'm going to the gym with Anna again, going cycling. I should be going every week from now on because the lady said I can go for free ! Wow ! Then tomorrow I'm ´planning on going running with Piia and Annina around 20.00, and maybe this weekend go to the fair with Petra and Pinja and Maria :) We have a three day weekend this week because its Labor Day here. Then in two weeks we have a four day weekend for some odd reason that I don't remember ? We have a lot of random days off. But we also have school on Saturdays sometimes...that kind of sucks (yeah well to be honest I don't go to those...theyre usually test days on subjects that I'm not taking) I now have to go ! Adios.