To the Far North of Finland: Utsjoki

Early Saturday morning on December 22nd, I was up early with my host family and in the car on the way from Lahti in southern Finland to Utsjoki in the far north.
It only takes about 14 hours to get there from Lahti, which means it only takes 15 or maybe 16 hours to drive the entire length of Finland north to south.

We stopped about every four hours for something to eat and to stretch and use the restrooms, so we left around 7am and got in around midnight. I slept most of the car ride on and off, but when the sun was up, I did my best to try and stay awake, since the time is so short for that.
Lapland is the darkest place in Finland since it is so far north, and the previous day (the 21st) happened to be the darkest day of the year.

For dinner we stopped in Ivalo a couple hours down the road from Utsjoki and ate used the bathroom for the last time, because after that, there is only one more city a few miles up the road, and then nothing until you reach Utsjoki.
I ate a greek dish with all sorts of veggie-like toppings and meat and sauce inside a pida bread bowl. It was so good, but so big, and quite difficult to eat too.

The sign above is a logo for things made in Finland. Finland has two official languages, so the top two words "Hyvää Suomesta" is in Finnish, and the other words "Gott Från Finland" is in Swedish. "Hyvää Suomesta" means "good from Finland". Adding an "-sta" to the end of a word means "to come from" because there are no articles such as "the, from, a, etc." Esim (example): Minä tulen New Mexicosta. This means; I come from New Mexico.

Here is a picture of the place we ate at for dinner. There are many pizza and kebab places here in Finland, so that is where we went to eat. It was quite an interesting place, because the decor was a bit random, we were the only ones there, and there was a Spanish guy who ran the place and he still couldn´t speak too much Finnish. It was nice though, and the food was great.
Outside it was about -22 degrees celsius (about -8 degrees fahrenheit), so everything was in and out very quickly.

We left Ivalo and drove the rest of the way to my host grandparent´s home which is actually a bit further out of Utsjoki, up around the west on the boarder with Norway. It was completely dark when we arrived, so we unpacked our things relatively quickly, showered up, and went to sleep for the night.

On the 23rd, we spent the day making some preparations outside and getting settled in a bit more. After lunch and everyone was up and ready to go, we then decided to drive somewhere to get a tree.
This picture is looking out from the driveway, south to the hills right across the road from their land.

In the distance, you can just make out a darker colored building which is the sauna house. We trudged out through the snow to the sauna house to look around and get some exercise too.

The sun is only up for about three or four hours, starting at noon. This means that everyone is up and ready to go outside to enjoy things while it is light out. As we started our drive west further along the border, the sun was already begining to set. I wish I could capture the colors even better, because they are absolutely stunning. Everything is so much clearer in Lapland and there is no light pollution in Utsjoki.
There is only one road up to Utsjoki and one that goes along the border as well. On one side of the road is Finland and on the other, to the north is a river; the Utsjoki ("joki" meaning "river" in Finnish), which naturally divides Norway from Finland. Those hills on the rightside are all part of Norway and just behind those trees is the Utsjoki.

We drove down the road for a good 40 minutes and then pulled over to the side and parked, so we could visit a cemetary where my host grandma´s parents are buried.

Just a note, when visiting lapland, you expierence a new feeling of cold, because immediately you feel a difference when you breathe and it tends to tickle a bit and the air feels a bit thinner too. Also, any liquid freezes, so if you have exposed hair, it will freeze from the precipitation that comes from your mouth when you breathe.You will most definately expirence the inside of your nose freezing too, that is the first thing you notice. Just how cold does it have to be for this to happen? Usually around -20 C (-7 F) or a bit less. How cold was it when I was in Lapland? The warmest was -22 C, but most days it was -28 C (-18.5 F), and even -30 C (-22 F). Quite cold.

It was pretty cold in standing ourside and I had several layers on. We lit some candles and walked around a bit, before getting back into our cars and driving back towards the house. Looking around at the tombstones, you mostly see the same last names, because there aren´t so many people living in Lapland (only about 5,000 spead up amoung the entire top of Finland in the Utsjoki region), and many of them are the Sami people, speaking their own language.

The views in Lapland are amazing. My host grandpa paid 5 € to the forest survice, so we were able to cut down our own tree from a designated area, and luckily I could take some amazing pictures from where we stopped.
There are no real mountains in Finland, but the hills in Utsjoki, go on much higher than they appear and you really feel like you are out in the wild.

Dressed in many warm layers, it´s easy to be outside for quite a long time, no matter the cold. But you need to watch out for your hads and face, and limit your time outside. It really doesn´t feel so cold, except when the wind blows, and it was pretty windy while we were there.

We walked up out of the road a little bit to look at some of the different trees to try and scope out the right one.

There were quite a lot of different trees, but many of them were too tall, despite being shorter in comparision to the trees down south, because the growing season is so short this far north.

When we finally picked out a tree, it was sawed off and my host uncle carried it down to the road, so that it could then be loaded into a car and taken home.

My host uncle, Helmi, and I, after getting the tree. My camera lense was frozen, so that´s why the image isn´t entirely clear. The tree was then loaded into the trunk of my host grandma´s car. It was quite a funny site to see the tree sticking out of the back, because it was so tall, but it made it home in one piece.
It was a very good first day in Utsjoki, but then on the 24th, the Christmas celebrations began at last.

Australian Cooking & Wintertime

Just before Christmas break, it was time to finish up baking all of the Christmas foods and goodies, and getting all of the decorations up around the house

A few days after we picked out our tree, we brought it inside and put some ornaments on to it. There weren´t too many ornaments to hang on the tree this year,  because things are more "styled" and have less than more. I miss putting so many ornaments up onto the tree, because I personally love having all sorts of ornaments, covering the tree almost entirely.

My school here in Finland had a special ceremony in church on Saturday for Christmas and then Christmas carols back at our school afterwards. Sometimes here in Finland, there is school on Saturday´s to make up for getting other days off, and so this was one of those rare Saturday´s. I was a bit sad though, because I didn´t get to go, because I was on my way to Utsjoki.
Anyways, the night before, I went over to Georgia´s house and she taught me how to make a traditional Australian treat; rum balls.

The rum balls are really easy to make. All you need are cookie/waffers to crush into little pieces, condensed milk, coconut (but you hardly notice that, whether you like coconut or not they are very tasty), and of course some rum for flavoring.

You can´t really seen the rum balls in this picture above, but oh well. They were so tasty and something I will make again in the US for sure.

A snowy picture of the Lahti history museum. The city looks absolutely stunning covered with snow. During my freetime, I spend quite a lot of time outside in the fresh air, just wandering around and enjoying the scenery.

Picking Out A Christmas Tree & Ice Skating

In the middle of December, I went with my host dad to pick out a Christmas tree for our house.

 It had been so cold that pretty much all of the trees had frozen. It was quite sad and funny, since some of the trees were so skinny and squished down.

 At last we found a tree to get. The trees look different from the ones we have here in America. They look a bit more cactus-like here and don't smell at all. Maybe they do smell at some point, but it disappears when frozen. Either way, that was a bit of a disappointment.

Georgia and I went down to kisapuisto, near our school to go ice skating a couple times when we didn't have class. I borrowed some hockey skates from our school and could hardly move, because they were so lose around the ankles. It was fun, but quite hard to move.

Lahti's history museum in the distance. I still need to go there to visit one day. (As seen from kisapuisto. "Puisto" means "park" in Finnish).

A view of my school during the wintertime. It looks so nice covered in snow, but there are also some enormous icicles hanging from the roof in some places. I sure would'nt want to get hit by any of those.

---
Just a note:
Sorry I've taken so long to update, I have been incredibly busy this month (January/Tammikuu), but I will get everything caught up when I can. Starting with all that happened in December (which is quite a lot), and moving up to the present time. Kiitos

Christmastime & A Surprise Party!

Christmas is in the air! Or, at least it was in December.

At the beginning of December a small Christmas market opened up down in the town center, with different handy crafts and treats for sale. It was nice to walk around and see some of the different things and handycrafts.

It was nice to see the nativity scene and giant Christmas tree in the center. It really has looked like a winter wonderland, but hasn't felt too much like Christmas at all, because there are hardly any decorations up around town. The tree is actually still up in the square even though its already January.

It snowed and snowed in Lahti. I woke up to even more snow coming down, which was interesting considering that I had to go out to town a bit later in the day. My friend had spent the night, because we had been babysitting for someone. It was my first time babysitting, so it was really cool and the baby and his parents (an American mother and a Finnish father) were so nice. It was just volunteer work, but it was really a rewarding expirence.

After running around town and buying some things at the grocery store, Ailey (right) and I (middle) went to a building to do some volunteer work. A bit afterwards, Georgia (left), also came to help out. We wrapped tons of presents for kids. It was cool, because we would get a list of a particular family with the age of their kids and gender and a gift the kid wanted, and then we would go into a room and pick out something close to what they hoped to get and then wrap it and put ribbons on it.
It feels great to help people out and I just felt so nice imaging the kids reactions when they open up their presents on Christmas.
Either way, it was a lot of fun and I wish we could have done it even longer.

That night I went home and made some traditional Christmas cookies with the ingriedents I had bought at the store. It was a bit hard to make them, because I couldn't quite find everything I needed and I don't really know the messurments, so I just eye-balled everything.

In the end, I dyed sprinkles red with food coloring and alas, the holly cookies were complete. I think they turned out fine; they tasted good....but I will have to admit that I put way too much butter, you could even feel the butter which isn't too good. Don't think about the butter when you eat it and there is no problem at all.

The next day I had arranged for a surprise going away party for Georgia at my home. The idea was for everyone to bring something from their own country. Ailey brought Digestives (cookies from the UK), Mao made sushi, and I made the cookies and some fruit salad and different things.
Mao came early and helped me set up, then I went to get Georgia from the bus stop and when we got back, Mao jumped out and surprised her. Later on Ailey arrived.

It was so much fun and we ate all sorts of different things and then watched the hunger games. During the movie, out final special guest arrived. I had recently discovered (thanks to the bus), that a certain someone lived quite close to me, so I ended up inviting them over and it worked out so perfectly, because Georgia was so surprised and happy.

That was such a great day! Georgia leaves a week from today, and I am going to miss her so, so, so much!

Back to December; A Birthday Party!

December 21st my youngest host sister's 12th birthday! Paljon Onnea Lotta!
About a month ago, we had our family over for a shared birthday party for Lotta and I. For the party, my host grandparents on my dad's side, several host aunts and uncles, and a host cousin came to visit.

For the party, we ate dinner and then had desert. My host sister; Helmi, baked a few delicious cakes to eat. Then my host grandparents also brought a cake for me (the red and white one on the left), and a cake for Lotta (not pictured). So we had lots of different treats.

 

Everyone sat and drank coffee and chatted and ate cake. It was a good time and nice to see everyone again and see some new faces as well.
Two of my host parents friends spent the night because they were visiting from Kuopio while their son had a hockey game in Lahti. We were up till about 2am playing a card game called Sanghai. It is so fun! You have to make different pairs 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 3-3-3, 3-3-4, 3-4-4, 4-4-4. The pairs of 4 have to be four numbers in a row. Ex: 10, Jack, Queen, and a King, or 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Joker cards are magic cards, so they can be anything. For a 3 pair, you just have to have three of the same card, such as three 8's of any suit. It is so much fun and so hard. You need to have all of the parts before you put you cards on the table and play. The person who runs out of cards quickest wins and the others add up the amount of cards still in their hands when the round ends. There are many parts to it, but it is a lot of fun!

Some of my new gifts that I got. Everyone has been so wonderful and generous to me, I am truly blessed.

I am a bit behind with my blog, so I don't remember too much else of what happened since it was on December 10th or something like that.