Espoo Art Museum & an African Circus

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to go on a trip with my school to Espoo, Finland, near Helsinki. At my school there is an African group of students studying African culture and next year they will take a trip to Africa, and there is also an art class which I am in, and we have been making African themed artwork. This was the reason behind the trip.

We left school after lunch and started driving through the snow towards Espoo about an hour away. Our first stop was to the Espoo Museum of Modern Art to see an African exhibit.

Here is everyone who came on the trip. There were only about four or five of us art students and then everyone else is in the African club. It was nice because a lot of my friends were there and it was a great bunch of students. I am in the front row in the blue.

A poster from one of the other exhibits that was going on at the same time while we were there. After getting a presentation and looking at different African costumes, we were able to wander around in the rest of the exhibit, and then look in the other exhibits for a short time before we had to leave.

The outside of the museum. It wasn't too cold, but as you can see it was still snowing and continued to do so the whole night. Southern Finland has actually gotten much more snow then the North.

Yes, I hate to admit it but now I have eaten at McDonalds. I was hoping to avoid it this year, but there wasn't much time to eat and so this was the best place to go. They have their own Finnish special of a Ruisleipä burger, but I didn't get it. Ruisleipä is a type if Finnish bread, that everyone here eats. It's like a hard rye bread.

After a hurried dinner, we got back on the bus and then went to Kaapeli. We were a bit early for what we were there for so first we looked in a small art exhibit.

Then it was time for the show! We went to see the Winter Circus; Africa! I haven't been to a circus in so long, so I was really excited. There was acrobatics, dancing, juggling, etc.

It really ended up being a lot of fun and was an excellent opportunity. I had a great time and it's interesting to see how much of a presence Africa has here in Finland. Hyvää Joulua kaikille! (Merry Christmas everyone!)

Hyvää Joulua!

Hyvää Joulua!!!!!

Moi everyone! I will be in Utsjoki, Finland for Joulu (Christmas), so I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivä!

Happy Independence Day in Finland! Itsenäisyyspäivä was on December 6th, but on Wednesday the 5th, we celebrated it at school with an assembly.

 Mao (Japan), me, Georgia (Australia), and Emily (Mexico) all attended the ceremony at school. We were a bit tired having gotten home from Lapland the same day at around 3am, but it worked out well and was very good. Georgia even gave a speech in Finnish and did a fantastic job!

 While Finnish Independence is very serious, the assembly was very humorous in a respectful way. It was really entertaining nice to see. This year is the 95th year of Finnish Inependence, and the boys running the show had built a sauna. Three of them sat at the sauna commentating for the show and making jokes about the Finns. There were also many musical performances and a couple speeches and a flag ceremony. It was really great to watch.

 Here is the main crew that ran the Independence assembly. They did an amazing job!
The next day there was no school since it was Independence day. I didn't really do anything too special, but there are a few typical traditions. At around 6pm, everyone lights two candles (usually decorated in blue and white; the colors of the Finnish flag). Some people also go to concerts and listen to the traditionaly Finnish songs.

 Here is the meal I ate for dinner. We had moose! So tasty! After dinnertime there is another tradition. Almost everyone in all of Finland watches the party from the president's home in Helsinki. Some 2,000 guests arrive, line-up, and shake hands with the president and his wife. It went on and on and on, there were so many people. After all of the hand shaking which took well over an hour (and I saw two people I have met), they showed all of the fancy food and some dancing and interviews, then the show ended. There is one more tradition. Many people watch the movie "The Unknown Soldier" which is from the 40's I believe.
It was a nice way to see how Finnish Independence went. Happy 95 years of Freedom for Finland!

To The Artic Circle; This is Lapland

Friday, November 30th was the beginning to my Northern adventure to Lapland, Finland.
It had been snowing heavily all day in southern Finland, so by the time 10:30pm came around and all of us exchange students in the area were waiting down at Lahti bus station ready to leave, we got word that the bus was delayed. We all walked across the street to the Shell gas station and sat in the cafe there. When 11:30pm came around, we headed out of the cafe and back across the street, where the bus finally arrived several cold minutes later.
There were only three more stops to pick up people and then about a 13 hour drive to the winter resort of Harriniva in Muonio. There were only a couple stops for bathroom breaks and plenty of time to sleep, especially considering that it was so dark. Unfortunately the seats weren't very comfortable so I didn't get much rest.
It was just our luck that the bus we were on; #3, ended up with some serious problems. Our break system kept failing, so we stopped on the side of the road about twenty different times on the way to Muonio. In the end, we got to Harriniva, much later than expected.

When we got to Harriniva, we recieved our room assignments and put our luggage away. I was with my friend Charlotte from Germany and then Camille from Belgium. They both turned out to be excellent roomates. We had to hurry a bit to put our stuff in our room, and then we got dressed, hopped back on the bus, and headed to the nearby Olos Pallas ski resort.
By the time we arrived, it was about three in the afternoon, but already the sun had set since rising just after 11am.

Here is a picture of Ailey (in the red coat) and me, with one of our oldies, Danika (in the orange coat) from Australia. She is an oldie, because she had already been in Finland for six months while we arrived and will now return in January.
We skied until the resort closed at 5pm, then we had to wait quite a while for some cross country skiers who needed to be rescued. Then we went back to the hotel, ate, and went to sleep.

The next day we got up and were back out to Olos Pallas just after 9am, up until 3pm. It had been a bit cold the previous night, so I bought a tube (scarf like thermal cloth) to wear to keep my face a bit warmer. Lapland was the first place where I expirenced having my hair freeze, literally, and when we first stepped off the bus on the first night, I expirenced the inside of my nose being frozen. It sure is weird, but that's what happens when it is negative 16 degrees celsius.

A group of excited skiers ready to start off the day. By this time, the sun still hasn't risen, but as you can see, it isn't really dark either. It was pretty nice to be at the ski resort when we were, because it was just all Rotary exchange students, no one else.

There were only two different lifts working for us, both on opposite sides of the same hill/mountain. So everyone was basically on the same hill the entire time, but in the end it worked out just fine.

The view from the top was pretty amazing, unfortunately, this picture doesn't do much justice to that. There were snow covered trees stretched all over the hills, as far as the eye could see. It was literally a winter wonderland.
The first night we went skiing, it was so cold that you could see ice on all of the trees, but the second day, the slopes were a bit less icy and you could see that things were a little less frozen, by looking at the snow on the trees and how it had softened up a bit.

I tried to take a picture of one of the lifts so that you could see what kind of lifts they were, but this doesn't really show anything. I have never been on the type of lift they had. They are like anchors which go behind you and push you up the mountain by pressing your legs forward.
It was really hard to get on, and the first time I didn't really get it behind me, so I ended up holding on to it as tightly as I could and was pulled up, rather than being pushed. The main thing that you have to realize with these lifts, is that your feet never leave the ground, your skis are just pushed forward along the snow.

At one point, I was going up the lift with Ailey and we were just chatting like normal. Then out of nowhere our anchor just broke off the lift. I have no idea how it happened, but next thing I knew, I was in a hole and my ski had popped off, and Ailey started rolling backwards down the hill, now clasping the part that had broken off.
We were really lucky, because it had broken off at a flat part, but the fact that it had broken at all was a bit frightening. Just our luck. And so, there above, is the lovely anchor that broke when we were going up.

This is the anchor that broke. I also have another story about these lifts. I usually always rode it up with Ailey on one side and me on the other, but one time I ended up going alone, because she didn't make it on. I find it a lot harder to go alone, because you loose balance really easily. When I was a meter or two from the top, going up the steepest part, I ended up falling off the lift. Luckily it didn't hurt too bad, and my skis stayed on, so I was just able to quickly turn around and ski down and out of the way before the other lifts came up to where I was.

I had really bad skiing luck on that day because I also ended up hitting a huge chunk of ice and falling, but that wasn't the worst part. I hadn't fallen at all the previous night, but it was almost opposite on Sunday. It was a lot harder to see for some reason, which was probably why I hit the ice and flipped.
We ended up taking a break to eat some food after I got the wind knocked out of me on top of the mountain. Ailey and I had just reached the top, and there were two other exchange students blocking the area. I had no where to go and ended up skiing into a hole. While I was trying to get out of the hole, whoever got off the lift behind us, let go of the anchor and it hit me full on in the ribs. I had no idea it was coming and it really took my breath away (not in the good way either). I got out of the hole and away as fast as I could and slowly made my way back down the hill. Again, I was very fortunate to not have been seriously injured.

After a lunch outside around the campfire of a frozen sandwich, and a sausage, we decided to try to ski a bit more. We only made it two or three more times before calling it quits, about ten minutes before we had to leave. I was in so much pain from my boots, that I ended up skiing to the bus, because I was too sore to walk.
When we got back to the hotel, I went to sauna with two of my friends and we got there before all of the other exchange students. Thank goodness for that, because when everyone else arrived there was no more room in the sauna which was two large sauna rooms joined together. By that time, we had already been in the sauna for awhile and had gone outsides three times to roll in the snow. It was really nice, and I owe the fact that I wasn't very sore the next morning, to that.

After dinner, we took a bus to Muonio Lukio and had some entertainment from the high school students who go there. They had a really good band there. Then it was our time to perform and each other the countries did a little skit. The American's sang "Jingle Bell Rock," but we failed, because they switched the song at the last moment and know one knew that one. It was still a blast watching what the other countries did, and being there with everyone.

The next morning, we headed outside to go dog sledding. I was so excited! There were huskies everywhere, some in cages, some not. And once one dog started to bark, then they all did.

It was so cool getting to see the dogs run around and behave the way they do. It was a beautiful morning, though cold, and the moon was still out and the sun still down.

Here are some of the different pens and rows that the huskies are housed in. There were also some places that the puppies were living in and they were so small and cute looking.

Here we are, all ready to go dog sledding for the first time ever. The dogs were so jumpy and excited, ready to run, and run, and run. It all happened so quickly. I wish we had a longer track that we could have taken, so that we could have gone even longer. It was so much fun though.

Then we walked into a snow tent where there was a campfire and tried to stay a bit warm, before leaving to the next spot. Unfortunately, there were so many people that I didn't really get any warmer. The only real thing you need to worry about is taking off your gloves. Your hands get cold really quickly, and they aren't always the easiest to warm up or keep warm. My thick mitens helped to keep my hands warm though, so I didn't have too much to worry about.

We walked about a forth of a mile through the snow to our next destination. A small campsite where we would be able to go sledding with a reindeer.

A reindeer herder appeared out of the trees with three reindeer attatched to sleighs. In Lapland, the reindeer roam freely, but every single reindeer belongs too someone and all of them must be gathererd up in the wintertime for marking and counting, etc. These reindeers had just been pulled from the forests not long ago, so they still were a bit shy towards people, and getting back used to pulling sleighs.

We got a picture with the reindeer herder. He is dressed in the traditional Lapish clothing of the Sami people, with thick woolen clothes, and lots of fur to keep warm. I don't think he is wearing the traditional shoes, but traditional Lapish shoes are pointed at the ends and curled up, like elf slippers. The reason for the elf-like design was actually for skiing. The old cross country skis just had a strap, and you would slip the shoes right under it and the curled back point of the shoes would keep the skis from getting away.

I got to sit in front and drive the reindeer. They definately aren't as fast as the huskies, but it was still very cool to get to drive a reindeer, even if it was just for a short time.

After everyone had gone on the sled with the reindeers and we gathered around a campfire to warm up a bit more, before going to put on snow shoes. The entire trip, buses moved together. So my group was always the forty or so students from bus #3.
It was so much fun getting to snow shoe. It helps keep you warm and it also makes it a lot easier to walk on the snow and ice.

We started heading back to Harriniva with our snow shoes, and at one point stopped to let a dog sled pass. In Lapland, many people use snow mobiles and dog sleds to get around in the back country.

We passed through some very beautiful areas. The snow on the trees is just so calm and peaceful. Everything was relatively quite and still, and in some places, you could even see tracks from deer and other creatures.

We wound our way down and around and to the river which is right by Harriniva. There is some ice, but it is still too early in the season for things to be really frozen, so no one was allowed to out very far, since the ice could easily cave in and send someone into the river.

I thought it was really cool how the river was just begining to freeze over and the way the mist lifted up above it mysteriously. Also, the sun was just beginning to rise above the frozen, wintery lands. The picture is of my close Lahti area friends (from left to right), Georgia, Ailey, me, and Charlotte.

Muonio is situated right on the border with Ruotsi (Sweden), so just on the otherside of the river is Sweden. It's new to be able to look across the river and see another country. Both sides looking peaceful with the wintery landscape.

At last we ended back up where the huskies were. It made it nice, because our hotel had almost everything just outside of it, or a relatively short walk away. Earlier in the morning, we had walked through these very gates and gone dog sledding.

At last we arrived back. The walk was very nice and not too long. It was only about negative 10 degrees celcius so it wasn't too cold, but everyone was excited to get back inside and warm up a little bit more before the next activity.

I love this picture of all of the snow shoes lines up again a snow wall. This gives you an idea of just how many exchange students there were. About 140 of us total, but only about 30 to 40 in each group.

Hope sweet home to Harriniva. It is a very nice hotel and the rooms were very nice. My bus took up one hallway for all of the girls which was nice, so all of my friends were close by. We had quite a bit of time to talk and hangout, but not too much to the point that we became overly bored.

After lunch, it was time to continue with the days activities. We drove 45 minutes out of Harriniva to the Pallas-Yllastunturi National Park. A turi is the thing between a mountain and a hill which is what Finland's landscape is made up of.

The sun was already begining to set by the time we arrived. The only real time, it gets dark is when the sun sets, otherwise there is the "blue moment" mostly. There is something different about the skies in Lapland, because the moon switched sides very quickly when we were driving. One minute it was on the left and the next it was on the right. I think it's so far north, that we are closer than we think or perhaps it just has to do with the artic circle, or is an illusion.

Muonio is above the artic circle and there is already quite a lot of snow covering the grounds. I think it would be cool to snow shoe through the national park one day, but we were on a tight schedule, so we just went inside the see the nature center after a quick look around outside.

Inside luontokeskus, we watched a brief movie on the national park and also the wilderness up here in the Muonio area. It was interesting to hear about some of the different competitions they have involving reindeer and sleds, etc. And of course, they talked about hiking on the different pathways.

The national park has been open since before WWII, but the main resort that you can stay out was rebuilt after being destroyed during the war. There are also all sorts of little cabins throughout the park that can shelter hikers as they pass through.

The nature center itself, was very little with only about one main room. There were several different maps and pictures on the walls, and all sorts of different animals that have been stuffed. Up in Lapland, there are all sorts of predators such as wolverins, but they aren't too common. You mostly just have to look out for reindeer on the roads, because you are very likely too see several when you drive around.

There were also a lot of different birds; owls, hawks, etc. Despite protection, the snowy owl has become endangered over the years, because there isn't always enough food and resources to survive the harsh winters. Little rodents such as Norwegian mice also find their homes in the turi's, but the most common animals you will find are the reindeer. Most other animals hide among the frozen trees.

Mao (right) and I, standing outside the nature center with some Joulupukki trees. It really does feel like we are in the north pole, getting closer to visiting Joulupukki (Santa Claus).

The flag for the nature center, flying high among the blue sky, enduring wind and snow.
Once everyone was ready to go, we piled back onto the bus and drove to our next destination; a reindeer farm.

By the time we arrived at the reindeer farm, the sun was beginning to set. Half of us went to feed the reindeer and I stayed with the other half who would rope a wooden reindeer. We learned how to make the loop and then wind up the string and had our chance to take down our own wooden reindeer. I aimed for the antlers, and the loop went around them, catching the reindeer.

We then went to go feed some of the reindeer, but they had already gone away since all of the other exchange students had already come and it was beginning to get dark. The people whose farm we were at had a very nice reindeer mail box and were Sami.

The museum barn we went to is one of the origional Lapish houses that has been around for over 100 years. It was full of all sorts of different artifacts; old clothing, tools, weapons, etc. The space looked very nice and was insulated very well, which probably has a lot to do with why it has lasted so long in such a tough enviornment.

We all sat down and watched a short slide show on the importance of reindeer in Lapland. There are thousands of thousands of reindeer which wander around the forests freely, grazing on the plantlife. When winter comes all of the reindeer have to be rounded up, since every reindeer in Lapland is owned by someone. How can someone tell if it's their reindeer? There are ear markings on every reindeer. Each owner has their own design that they carve into the ears to identify who the reindeer belongs too.
Taking care of reindeer and rounding them up takes a long time, and sometimes the Finns must cross over into Sweden to pick up their reindeer who have wandered over the border and vice a versa. The insurance companies deal with a lot of reindeer too, because each animal is covered and if one is killed, a picture must be taken of the ear to prove the markings and then the owner can get money to cover the costs of the loss of their animal.

Muonio is right on the border with Sweden, so on the way back to Harriniva from the reindeer farm, we stopped in Sweden for two minutes. This is the sign you see just as you are about to enter into Finland. It was kind of interesting, because there was no security on the Finnish side. It isn't too much of a deal crossing the border, because there aren't many people at this time of year to have to worry about security and so forth.

Unfortunately by the time we arrived at the border, it was dark and you couldn't really see anything. It was very foggy on the bridge since the border is a river and we walked out 70 meters to the middle. I stood in front of a sign that said Suomi on one side and Sverige on the other and so I was in Sweden for about two minutes, even though I couldn't see anything, and really I wasn't in Sweden at all.

That night we went back to the hotel, and outside into a medium sized wooden hut for some entertainment. A Sami man sang some songs in his native tongue and told us about what his clothing symbolized. For the hat, there are several stings on one of the sides. If you have the strings on the left it means your married, if they are on the right, then you are single, and if they are in the middle then it means you are looking for company (or just wearing the hat because). They also have belts with circles on them that symbolize you are single, and if you are married then there are squares.

Since this is the last time we will see the Australian students before they leave in January, they gave us a performance. They sang and then handed out gifts. In total, there are about 140 exchange students in Finland and about 20 from Australia and 1 from New Zealand.
There is a long standing tradition that I didn't know about at all until this night. For over 20 years it has been going on, at least with the Rotary students in Finland. There are about 20 gifts that are passed down from the oldies to the newbies. Each gift is just a random item to symbolize something. For example, there is a wooden sword given to the tallest exchange student, a Finnish langauge book given to someone who really wants to learn the language, a guitar passed down to a music loving student, and a hat passed down to someone who exhibts leadership to represent all of us exchange students, etc.
There is one rule, and that is that the item must be passed down from an old student to a new one. It came as a bit of a shock, when I was given one of the items. On of my Australian oldies; Tess, and her friend Gemma, passed down the hammer of friendship to Ailey and I. The wooden hammer is given to two people who have become really good friends and our always together.
We will carve our initials and the year of our exchange among the others, and then later on in the year (usually on Eurotour), it will be our turn to pass down the hammer of friendship to two new Australian, New Zealand, or South African exchange students to carry on the tradition.

On our last day in Lapland we packed up the bus and drove a few hours south east to Rovaniemi to Santa Claus's village. We were given two hours to explore the little Christmas shops, visit Santa Claus, and also take a look around the grounds and see the artic circle.

Georgia (left) and I petting a reindeer when we first arrived. It was about -10 degrees celcius outside and everything looked so lovely. I really wish we had gotten more time to look around, because the two hours went by much too quickly.

In the center of the village is a giant tree with flags from all over the world covering it to symbolize where Joulupukku or Santa travels each year. The line in the sky to the left of the tree is the artic circle, and behind the tree is Santa's house.

It's hard to imagine this all in Finland. It was all so magical and definately filled my expectations about how Santa would live if he was in the North Pole.
One of the first things we did when we arrived was actually to go an get some food. I felt like I was in the UK, because there were so many British people there. I really wasn't expecting so many foreigners. Either way, it wasn't overlly crowded since it was a Tuesday which made things very nice.

Yes, Frosty is made entirely out of snow and is much bigger then the ones we see in the Christmas movies. I have to say there weren't too many elfs, but otherwise everything was very Christmas-y and looked and felt like a holiday and winter wonderland village.

After looking around briefly in some of the tiny Christmas shops, we went to Joulupukki's house to have a visit. Through a big set of doors we went and into to his home. There were all sorts of different letters sent from all over the world and different Christmas pictures and items.

For all of you who forget how Santa gets around so quickly, there was a diagram of the Earth's Rotational Speed Regulation too. I think a lot of us exchange students were still wondering why he uses reindeer and not huskies, since the dogs moved so much quicker, but we decided that the reindeer probably have more endurance.
I waited in line with six of my closest friends, and at last we got to see Joulupukki. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you now, but eventually some will come. We ended up just splitting a flash drive since everything was so expensive, so I just have to wait for my turn to get it so I can download the pictures. I really loved being with Santa and my closest friend's that really made the trip.

After visiting Santa, we were basically out of time to look around which was quite a shame. Here is a picture that shows the line for the artic circle a bit better. And you can see that in two hours, the sun begins to set quite quickly.

With the lights coming out at night, things look even more magical. So far here in Lahti, there aren't too many Christmas lights out on people's homes, but there are some on the trees down in the city center and some Christmas light sculpturs hanging above the streets as well.

And so if you ever visit Santa's Claus's village in Rovaniemi Finland, this is on of the beautiful sights you will first be greeted by. I had such a great time there and I would really like to come back one day, perhaps with my own family when I'm older. It is truly magical.

Now here is the proof that I really have been to the artic circle. It's too small to see but the English text says "The Artic Circle is the north of which the sun never sets for at least one day in the summer and never rises for at least one day in the winter."

This really shows the artic circle. After two hours, we got back onto the bus and drove into the center of Rovaniemi to a school for a late lunch. We ate pretty quickly and then everyone said one last goodbye and all of the buses departed on their separate ways. It was only 4:30pm when we left and the expected time to arrive in Lahti was 3am.

We drove out of the city and after a couple hours our bus's break problems returned so several times we stopped in the complete black darkness in the middle of no where to wait many minutes before we could move again. After about nine hours, we arrived in Jyväskylä and dropped some kids off. We then drove about fifteen minutes longer and stopped for our bathroom/rest break. 

After twenty minutes, we got back onto the bus and were sitting on it for a good half and hour. They couldn't start the bus at all and we were stuck. They called for a new bus and told us it would be awhile until it came. I asked if me and two of my friends could go inside a little bit instead of just sitting on the bus longer and we went inside for a little while. When we came back outside, the bus was gone. We though it had driven off without us and were quite scared, but then we saw that it had just moved to the other side of the parking lot.

At last, the new bus came and we transfered all of our luggage onto that one. The only good thing about the new bus was that it never once broke down and the seats were slighlty more comfortable. I finally got some rest and the last few hours flew bye. Before I knew it, we were finally arriving at the Lahti bus station at 4:30am.

In the end, everything worked out very well and we still have so many more stories to tell. I had a fantastic time in Lapland and can't wait to go back at Christmastime, when I journey to the very to top of Finland, to Utsjoki.

Hope everyone is having a good week! Happy Independance Day (December 6th)!