Saturday Sunshine

Today has been really beautiful so far. These past few weeks have been full of dark, cloudy skies, and rainshowers, but today has been one of the first days this week that blue sky has made an appearance. The sky in Finland is really captivating, because the clouds move bye so much more quickly than in the US, I guess this has to do with the fact that maybe they are closer to us or that there is just more fronts here blowing through.
Even when the week is dark and cloudy, you can usually count on the weekends to turn out nice.

 Our garden this morning. The leaves are begining to fall from the trees all around Lahti, but everything in my backyard is still pretty green for the time being.

 I don't think I ever showed it before, but my family doesn't have a dryer. When we was our clothes, we usually hang them outside to dry or when it's raining then they hang inside in the laundry room to dry. It was a nice day so we took the opportunity to hang sheets outside while we can.

 Then we went to Kontti (which means container) and is a store run by Punainen Risti (Red Cross).  It is like a Goodwill store so they sell secondhand goods that have been donated and then the money raised from that goes to Red Cross to help with disaster relief, etc.  We dropped off some clothes there and looked around a bit too. They sell all sorts of things that are in really good shape, and really affordable, especially considering how much everything really costs to buy new here in Finland. Later on in the year I will probably go back and look for some winter boots, and maybe another coat if I end up really cold during the winter.

 The new period of school just started on Wednesday and I am really happy with my new classes. I'm not going to go into depth with how the school system works here in Finland, I will do this next week perhaps when I have some more pictures from classes and such.
The picture above of is for my photography class which I had last period and have once a week this period. The first Wednesday of every month there are many vendors down at the square and I was going to take a picture of the marketplace and the town hall in the distance. We made 'cameras' out of soda cans and then made duct tape covers for them and put special photo paper inside. There was a little hole for light and when you moved the cover and let the light in an image was supposed to be recorded on the light sensitive photo paper.
I sat up on the steps of the church next to our school for about fifteen minutes taking a picture and looking like a crazy person. People seriously looked at me strangely as they walked by, but I just kept on sitting there taking my picture.

 Then I took my can back to school and developed the image in a darkroom. I was so disapointed because in the end my picture was completely black and didn't turn out at all. Next time I will try again or take a picture of something else. The picture above is what I was trying to capture with my 'can camera'.

With this new schedule, I now have Thursday mornings off. But I still like to go into school at 8am and then Georgia and I meet up and walk all around Lahti. We even found where the newspaper for Lahti is printed.
Well, my host grandma is coming over to visit soon and it's too nice to sit inside infront of the computer, so I've got to go now. As they say in Finnish; "Hauskaa viikonloppua!" (Have a good weekend!)