Exchange Students to Pajulahti

On Friday afternoon, it was time to meet up with all of the other exchange students in district 1390 at the Pajulahti sports complex in Nastola, Finland for our first district weekend together.

 I was really looking forward to getting to see farmiliar faces from Karkku and meet all of our oldies (the Australian exchange students who have already been here for six months). Georgia and I were the first to arrive and didn't really know what we were going to be doing or where we would be spending the night.
The bus of all of the other students arrived and then it was time to get our room keys. There was two rooms per every bathroom in a room (if that makes sense), so it was Georgia and I in one room, and our friends Charlotte and Ailey in the other room.

 The sää (weather) was pretty good for us to be outdoors, and not too chilly either. That night after dinner, we walked out around the lake a bit to a campfire spot. There was a full moon and the lake was covered with fog so everything looked very eerie and mystical. We got to cook our own crepes over the campfire in little pans and then put strawberry jelly and sugar on them. I love the crepes so much and they are so easy to make.
A few hours passed by, and then it was time to either stay at the campfire or go to sauna. About ten of us girls including the three Finnish Rotex students who were there to lookout for us came too. It was so much fun! I really love sauna, especially how clean you feel afterwards, how everyone talks so freely, and how it feels swimming in the lake afterwards. We went swimming in the lake about five times that night. It was so hard to get in from the cold, not to mention you couldn't see anything. When you got out of the water you would have goose bumps everywhere, but then you would want to got back into the water again and then to the sauna. I really can't wait to see how ice hole swimming will go.

The next morning all thirty of the district 1390 students ate breakfast and put our luggage down in a room in the sauna and then went to the auditorium to do some bonding activities. We threw balls at each other to learn names, sat on each other to tell expirences, and worked in groups to complete certain tasks. After that, we went outside and played frisbee golf. Then it was time for lunch and going down to the sauna room and just talking and playing around. We talked for a long time and played truth or dare and all sorts of different things. It was so much fun!
I can't wait till we all meet again, this time in early December for the Lapland tour with all of the other exchange students.

After camp, my host family took me to Vantaa which is just outside of Helsinki, and we went to my host cousin's 8th birthday party. It was so nice to meet some more of my extended host family, everyone is so friendly and reminds me so much of how my own extended family is.
We ate all sorts of delicious dishes and then there were three types of cake too; molten chocolate cake, cloudberry cake, and cheese cake. We also got a little puppet show presentation from the birthday girl, Ada. It was a really good night and I got to practice my Finnish a lot too.
I also got a Finnish name; Taina Terävä! In suomea, terävä means sharp, and Taina is a Finnish girl's name, somewhat close to Dana. It is also kind of funny because it makes me think of Dina, who would be my third sister's name if I had one. haha
Things are going great here in Finland! :)

Let the Ice Hockey Season Begin: Pelicans vs. HIFK

Hockey season started here in Finland a couple weeks ago and now you can expect to catch a game on the television just about every night. Each team usually plays a game two or three times a week, and the fans travel and do what they can to follow up with their teams.

On Friday night I got the opportunity to watch a hockey game in the real season. Tickets were sold out on Monday, so we were quite lucky to have scored two standing tickets. I went with the exchange student from Japan (who had never seen a hockey game) and we had an awesome time at the ISKU Arena here in Lahti.

 The seats, really weren't seats, because we were literally standing, but even that worked out because you could see everything pretty well and at some points you felt very close to the action.
The Pelicans (blue jerseys) went down a point to HIFK (the really popular team from Helsinki, who had a large and very strong fan base at the game, in the white jerseys) very early in the game.

 Time and time again we tried to score and didn't succeed, as two periods came and went. In a hockey game there are three periods and two twenty minute breaks between the periods too.

 The third period rolled around and the 18 minutes on the clock started to wind down and down. The Pelicans held HIFK from scoring more and worked to score themselves. I believed that they could come back and still win even as the final minutes came.

 We played without a goalie in so that we would have an extra man to help try and score and the pace of things was really picking up. Then at last everything payed off! You should have seen how almost the entire stadium stood! No one could believe that we would have scored, but we did it! The Pelicans were still in the game with 23 seconds left to go. That was an exhilerating moment, because there was still a chance that we would win the game.

 As with every hockey game, the 1 - 1 tie led to overtime and five minutes was put up on the clock. Unfortunately with a couple minutes until a shoot out, one of the players on HIFK snuck the puck into the net and ended the game. A lot of the Pelican fans left dejected while the Helsinki fans cheered and chatted.

It was a great night and a lot of fun, even if our team didn't win. I really hope I can see another hockey game this season too. At the end of the game the players shook hands and it made me think of a question I was asked last month about Finnish hockey teams and fighting. The players here fight no where near as much as in the US, they may get into a breif fist fight or argument, but nothing too bad or frequent. It's more about the game then seeing who can throw a punch here.
Anyways, best wishes & GO PELICANS!

The Beautiful Fall Colors Around Lahti (Photos)

Chances are if you see me on the street I am carrying my camera. I even take it with me when I go jogging, because you never know when something magical is going to happen. I think it's probably safe to say that the beautiful orange, yellow, and red leaves that paint the trees, and the fast moving clouds in the sky are very magical, creating a lovely (kaunis) autumn.

 In the evenings when I have langauge lessons I pass by the Lahti Teatteri or theatre. I think it's pretty safe to say that there are some beautifuly colored trees and sculptures outside of it.

 When my language lessons end I head back towards the square of town, taking my time and usually following a scenic route near my school that has all sorts of statues and trees.

Each day the courtyard at my school; Lahden Yhteiskoulun Lukio is full of bicycles. There are two buildings the new school (where there are middle school aged students) and the Museo (the old part of school built in the late 1800's, where all of the high school students study).

 This picture is from when I went orienteering on Friday at Urheilkeskus. It was such a beautiful morning looking down over the stadium of FC Lahti and back at the rest of the city.

The ski jumps were looking better than ever on Friday morning. Skiers actually practice going down them even when there is no snow because it is slick enough.

 In the morning when I wait for the bus to come (metro, not a school bus) to take me to town, I am always captivated by how beautiful the sunrise is. Finland is so far north that the clouds move so quickly, they are gone before you know it, replaced by new ones.

 My house is just at the end of the fields, the green one which is a bit hard to see, but at the end of the pathway (by the looks of the picture). The farmers have finally begun to cut down the wheat before winter comes, and by now there is nothing left there.

 The weather can be kind of dark and gloomy on occasion, but for the most part it has been nice. Perfect for getting everything ready in the garden in preparation for winter.

 When I am out walking our dog, there is sometimes a very dark, scary looking sky, but even still it is light and captivating.

 Another beautiful morning after some rain in the night; waiting at the bus stop.

 A statue just across from the town square, which I see everyday while I am waiting to take the bus home.

 This is the school for adults, where I take my langauge classes at night on Mondays and Thursdays. They also offer many art classes, handycrafts, sports, dance, music, and all sorts of other cultural classes, so maybe later on in the year I will take some other different courses there.

 It's been said that when there are lots of berries in the trees, it means that there is going to be a rough winter. Whether or not this is actually true, we shall see. There have been many of these berries in the trees all over town. And no, these are not the tasty edible ones that can be found in every forest.

 Earlier in the month, Lahti had a special art thing going on down at the square. This is a picture I took of one of the art arches with the church next to my school framed in the background.

And here at last is the square. Each day there are people there selling their wares; fruit, mushrooms, leipa (bread), kahvi (coffee), sweets, etc. Every first Wednesday of the month also happens to be a huge day with so many more vendors (it's just a tradition that there are more vendors then). I love being at the square, it's also very nice, because I go there almost everyday thanks to my bus stop.

There are so many pictures and things to do and see here in Lahti. I hope you enjoyed getting to see a brief look at some of the things I see on a daily basis, and some of the beautiful changes associated with the season. Kiitos ja hyvä päivä!

Wandering Through The Metsä: Orienteering

Today our PE class met up at Urheilukeskus (the sports complex where the big stadium and the ski jumps are) and we had suunnistus (orienteering).
For those of you who don't know what orienteering is, it's when you have a map marked with all sorts of geographical formations; rives, bridges, hills, paths, etc., and you go around the forest (metsä) trying to find certain points. At each point there is a sign hidden somewhere with a marker on it that you must find. We had a map with five or six checkpoints and worked in groups of two going around the forests surrounding Urheilukeskus, searching for the markers.

Suunnistus is actually quite difficult, because you have to have a really good sense of direction and knowledge of where you are. My partner and I misjudged where the first marker was because the paths marked on the map were in reality a lot shorter than they appeared to be.  

 In the end we only found two of the markers, but it was so much fun and there will be another opportunity to find more when our gym class returns to the forests again on Friday.
As you can see it was a bit of a magical morning with the fog. I have PE first thing at 8am so sometimes it's a bit chilly, but the weather was perfect today, even the ski jump stands tall through the fog.

The picture above shows the stadium where the ski jumps are, and the stadium in the back is where there are track and field competitions and home to the soccer team; FC Lahti. I really enjoyed not only getting to see where a lot of the huge sport competitions are held, but also getting to just explore the surrounding forests without too many people around so it was a great opportunity.

Hopefully next time you see a picture of the ski jumps they will be covered in snow and a skier will be flying down them in a huge competition.
Urheilukeskus is a beautiful area which I would love to see more of and really had a great time getting to explore today.

Sometimes You Have to Just Try It: Blood Pudding

Before I arrived in Finland there were a few foods I expected I was going to face before the year was over, some not all too frightening such as reindeer (which is really tasty). One of the scary foods I had heard about was blood pudding or blood pancakes.

I decided to ask my host mom if it was true that they ate blood cakes and then later on we decided to buy some at the store to try. Here in Finland they also eat blood sausages, but we'll save that for another day.

Just thinking about the idea of blood as I type this is scaring me a bit and I feel quite weird.

 At the store when we decided to pick up a package of the blood pudding to try I was a bit optimistic and so nervous that my feet felt a bit off balanced as we walked to the checkout with the blood cakes.
As you can imagine after dinner when it was time to eat the blood pudding I was a bit giddy about it and had to remind myself that it would be okay to try and I had to eat it. There are some things that are frightning and in this case almost a bit sickening, but you have to at least try it.

We heated up a slice of the blood pudding and put some lingon berries with it to eat as a side. At last I took a deep breath and cut a piece and ate it. Blood pudding itself isn't too bad, it doesn't have a strong flavor but what you do tatste isn't too bad. I only had one piece though, because I was so shaken from eating it. In fact I couldn't sleep for the longest time later on because I was still so weirded out by it.

What I learned from trying blood pudding? Well, sometimes you just have to go for it and try new things even if they aren't the most appealing. And ultimately I learned that blood pudding isn't too bad (but I don't know that I could ever manage to eat it again, maybe I shall try). Now I just have to try blood sausage next. Yum.

If you ever go to Finland, just ask to try some verihiutaleiden and you too can try blood pudding.
Since I am talking about food, a quick thanks (kiitos) is do to my mom;

Kiitos for all of the suklaa (chocolate)! Everyone loves the suklaa and we are doing our best to save it and savor it. Kiitos paljon Mom!

A Day in the Capital

Saturday was all blue skies when we woke up early to head to Helsinki for a few hours. It seems like the weekends are nice, reminiscent of summertime, which is a great thing here.

We drove an hour or so towards Helsinki and stopped at a mall to park the car and then we would take a subway into the city center.

We stopped at the mall and looked around a little bit, because it was so deserted even though it was about 9am. After that, we went down to the metro/subway station and took the final ride into town. It took only a few minutes to reach where we wanted to go.

Our main purpose of going to Helsinki was because of an exhibition going on in Helsinki, but first we took a short detour around the streets and had a snack in a coffee shop before going to the museum.

 The Ateneum Museum of Art in Helsinki is currently having a huge exhibition with over 300 works of Helene Schjerfbeck. Who is Helene Schjerfbeck? She is one of the most famous women artists from the 19th century and Finland's most profound, well-known artist.
There were so many people there in the exhibit that it was pretty hard to get a good look at things unless you wanted to stand there for a long time. We moved pretty quickly through her works, glancing from afar and saw her most famous paintings so that was really cool.
Unfortunately everywhere in the museum, photos weren't allowed so I can't post any pictures of the paintings. We also looked at the other collections of which were all from other Finnish artists.
I saw Ferinand von Wright's famous painting "Taistelevat metsot" and works by Hugo Simberg (the same artist who painted the Tampere Cathedral), including his famous painting "Haavoittunut enkeli." One other artist I really took notice too was Akseli Gallen-Kallela. As it turns out, he was part of the Taos community of artists for several years and thus there were even some pictures of his which were of the Taos Pueble. It was really unexpected to see and read that he had gone to New Mexico. Small world, right?

The museum was pretty nice to see and I especially enjoyed getting to see some of the other collections. After that we walked around the city a bit more and then a few streets ahead the white catherdral that overlooks the bay in Helsinki came into view and that was when I really knew and felt; this. is. Helsinki. 

We walked around the square and harbor before having lunch and returning home. It was a great day in the capital with fantastic weather, too bad it couldn't have lasted longer. Now, until next time.



My Berry Picking Adventure + Jam Making

It was another beautiful morning so after eating breakfast we decided that today we would go berry picking. Once everyone was ready to go, my host parents took me and our dog Laku out to their special berry picking place, in a more rural forest.

 As soon as we walked into the forest we found tons of Puolukka (Lingonberries). The season is over for blueberries and raspberries, although there still were lots of blueberries (Mustikka), but they no longer taste very good because they have gotten too much water (vesi).
I had a little container which I filled several times over from picking berries with my fingers, but my host parents are berry picking pros, so they had tools to help pick berries much quicker and in about five minutes or less they areadly had the amount that would fit in my little container.

 Lingonberries are quite sour and mostly eaten with meat such as beef and reindeer. But of course you can also make hillo (jam), puuro (porridge), mehu (juice), and all sorts of other dishes with them too. Haha, I like to give the information about things as I hear it, so I feel the need to also inform that they help with bladder infections, etc. (Sorry, too much information I suppose).

 We were in the forest for about three hours including a coffee break and mushroom hunting time too. Just look at how many berries we got! A huge bag and several big containers full. Most of the berries will be frozen and taken as needed throughout the year, but some of them will be used to make puuro and hillo.

 I was so excited to get to make jam! It is actually a really easy process, but it takes such a long time. First you have to get about 4 kilos of which ever type of berry you want to make the jam out of, in this cas lingonberry. We cleaned the berries off and I made sure there weren't a lot of twigs, and I took out the bad berries.
After that was done, we got out the bag of hillosokeri which is jam sugar (jam = hillo, sugar = sokeri). On the back were some directions to make the hillo.

 First you need to warm up the lingonberries. We put them on the stove at the same time we were boiling some of the mushrooms we had found and also making puolukka puuro (that's right, lingonberry porridge). Also, add 1 deciliter of water to the berries. 

 Next step is when the berries have begun to warm, add the entire bag of hillosokeri. I was quite surprised when I found out the whole bag was to be added, quite a lot of sugar, but you have to remember that puolukka is quite sour and that sugar is a great preservative for something like jam.

 I mixed the sugar around quite a lot and made sure that it got on all of the berries, then it was time to mix and wait for the berries to boil, and mix again.

 The sugar dissolved pretty quickly and then all that was left was to wait fifteen minutes or so while the berries were still boiling and being mixed. You don't need to crush the berries to make jam, because they break down a bit more with the heat and it's alright if they are still whole somewhat.

 After the jam was done, I tasted it to make sure it was okay. Whew! It was sure overpowering. I'm not too fond of lingonberries, but the more I ate the jam, the better they began to taste, and sure enough it was delicious. After containers were done being cleaned and everything had cooled down a little bit, I scooped the jam into some containers and then cleaned up the mess.

It takes a lot of time to make jam, but in the end I think it is worth it more than buying jam from the store, and it also gives you a new appreciation as to how people do make it.
Today was a great day and I am so glad I learned how to make jam! It is a great gift to give, delicious, and now I can cross that off of my list of things to learn to do here in Finland!

Seasons A Changing

It's started to get cold lately and the seasons are definately beginning to change. It is no longer summer, but now autumn here in Finland.
This morning it was very nice and sunny, so beautiful that I even decided to go jogging. In yesterday's gym class we ran the 1500 around little Vesijärvi and now I just really want to run and run. Speaking of yesterday, I also saw my first Finnish movie at Finnkino. It was pretty cool how the movies work; you choose your seats when you buy the tickets instead of going through the theatre trying to find a seat like in America.

After my run this morning I rode my bike to a nearby store and helped my host parents out with a huge flea market that happens on rare occasion. It was my first time seeing a flea market, so that was kind of cool. Not everything being sold is junk. After a few hours it started to get dark so I decided it was time to head home and just in time because it started to sprinkle.

I ended up going down to the city center today too and it was pretty dark. It rained on the bus ride there but only sprinkled when I arrived. On my way back to the bus though, it began to hail. That's right, it was so cold that it started to hail.

 I was about 25ft away from my house when it started to pour down rain, so I had perfect timing. It has stopped and started and stopped again today. Raining is just a sign that autumn has come, as is the cold. Only about 40 degrees fahrenheit most mornings.

After the school the other day, I bout some beautiful sun flowers. Even when it's gray outside, they can light up a mood and turn a day around. Everything is going well here and beautiful and bright out as well, and even when it's not. I have some beautiful flowers on my desk at home to cheer me up. Have a good weekend! Hyvää viikonloppua!

Mushroom Picking Time

Last weekend my host parents took me to a forest not too far from where we live, and we picked lots of mushrooms.
So how exactly does mushroom picking work? Well, in Finland you can go on any land so trekking through a forest and picking mushrooms is very popular. There are hundreds of different mushrooms, some poisonous (don't eat the bright red ones), some that need to be boiled, others that are just okay cooked or put in salads. When you find a mushroom that looks good, you pick it and use a knife to cut it in half. It is always a race against the worms because you find hundreds of worms. If the inside of the mushroom is white and free of worms, then you've found a good one.
Like berries, mushrooms grow every couple of days in moist areas, but not overlly wet swamp-like areas.

 Our dog Laku came around for the trip too, but he isn't trained to find mushrooms yet. Tatti mushrooms are brown and can be found almost anywhere. They are very good for sauces.

 The pathway behind our house is rich with mushrooms. Some of the mushrooms are huge, this one which is a different type of Tatti is even bigger then our special mushroom knife.

 The yellow chanterelle is one of the easiest mushrooms to recognize, but not always the easiest to find. They are also very good in sauces and when your wandering around a forest near autumn time, they look a lot like fallen leaves on the forest floor so they are a bit hard to spot. I ended up finding an area with about twenty of these chanterelle so I was very lucky.

For lunch we made sauce with the chanterelle and then I helped to make real, homemade, mashed potatoes, and we had reindeer. It was my first time eating reindeer, and it is so tasty! I love reindeer! Yum. We ate the reindeer with lingon berries and it was very good.
Today was a lot of fun and we found tons of mushrooms too that we didn't pick and made some delicious food too.