The beginning of 2013

The beginning of 2013 started off quick and well, with much time being spent with friends and settling into a new host family.

It warmed up a bit at the begining of January and the snow turned to slush in the roads, before refreezing again and bringing more snow with it.

My host siblings started school before I did, so one of the day's I went with my oldest host sister, Ida who is 19 and doesn't live at home anymore, her boyfriend, and my host parents to IKEA near Helsinki to pick out some furniture for Ida's new place.
Why is there a picture of meatballs if I went to IKEA? Well, IKEA is a Swedish company, and they also happen to be famous for the meatballs they serve in their cafeteria so I had to try some of them. They were pretty good meatballs.

One of the days I went out to town with one of my close friends and we had dinner at a restaurant in the mall. It was really delicious and I ate the fish of the day with veggies and a garlic potato.

Me and Ailey, my Scottish American exchange student friend who I had dinner with. The time always passes so quickly with her and she has definately become one of my best friends in Finland.

The Aussies were set to leave in mid January, so we organized a last get together with our amazing Australian oldies. The exchange students from Australia arrive in January each year and leave the following January because they are in a different hemisphere, unlike the rest of us who arrive in August and leave during June or July.
My oldies were absolutely amazing and so helpful, from left to right; Tess, Danika, and my best friend Georgia.

After school one of the days, Georgia and I made one final trip to our favorite coffee house on the harbor. We have had so many good times there over the past few months and made so many plans, so it was a bit sad to know this would be the last time there together drinking coffee and eating pulla for the year.

I've learned to cook all sorts of different things in my second host family too. One of the first things we made were homemade doughnuts. My host sister and I made the dough and she taught me how to shape the doughnuts while she cooked them in oil.

My sister Vilma, who is a year younger than me, cooking the treats. We fried the doughnuts and then rolled them in sugar.

They tasted pretty good, but looked awful because I really failed at trying to make them into nice circular doughnut shapes. In the end, they looked more like chunky blobs with holes in them. Oh well, they turned out fine.

At school our small class of exchange students got to do the announcements the last Friday before Georgia had to leave. We each had a song to reflect our country and spoke in Finnish and our native language. Our exchange student teacher played a song first and then I was the first to go.
Here's what I said:
"Hi, I'm Dana. An exchange student from America.
Hei mun nimi on Dana ja minä olen Amerikkalainen. Olen asunnyt viisikuukauta suomessa ja minä rakastan suomea." Then after I finished talking, part of GreenDay's "American Idiot" played.
In English the part beginning at "oen asunnyt-" means I have lived in Finland for five months and I love Finland.
It was so much fun working in the studio and recording everything. At my school; LYK, we have four exchange students; Mao (Japan), Emily (Mexico), and Georgia (Australia), and I.
Those were definately the best announcements all year and a great begining to January!