hyvää joulua!

that's a merry christmas to all of you.

right now my floor is shaking with the bass of Michael Jackson's greatest hits. my host family is obviously wayy past the whole Christmas thing, been there, done Michael Bublé and consumerist extravagance yesterday. in finland, the 24th is the real Christmas and the 25th is leftovers day. so here i am. 


Christmas Eve Eve is the official decoration day, so we woke up early to tinsel the banisters and light the tree. finns love candles almost as much as they love complaining about how dark it is outside, and my host mum set them up on all the flat surfaces she could find. after a lazy afternoon of watching the Grinch with Finnish subtitles in our fuzziest socks, we met up with some other families for a glögi evening (a traditional hot christmas drink, mixed with wine for the adults, with raisins and almond slices sinking to the bottom). late that night, my host parents slipped a Santa sack into my room, which I filled with my horribly-wrapped presents - when the kids opened them the next day my host brother hollered to my host sister "I think Santa got a little tired with these ones!". 


the next morning I dipped the ladle into the white-rice porridge, hoping - but my host dad got the lucky almond in his bowl. the cemetery might have contained more breathing people than gravestones when we arrived there midmorning...the Finnish tradition of tending the ancestors' graves on holidays is alive and well. candles at the foot of each grave lit the faces of the stone angels and the little kids bundled in their winter jumpsuits. the air was grey and the grass was dead, but it was beautiful.


on the way home, my host parents remarked "if by any chance Santa had told us when he was going to show up, we would probably remember it as around 4.45". Santa-ing actually turns quite a profit: the single men buy red robes and false beards and hire themselves out for 100 euros per 20 minute visit. the kids obviously didn't know this, so we played Harry Potter trivia games that couldn't distract us enough. they fidgeted through two christmas specials and half of a lame Sting concert. My littlest brother dashed to the door every half-hour or so, insisting he'd heard bells. And then finally, finally, boots stomped on our doorstep and in he walked, wooden staff jingling with little silver bells. My host dad towed sacks of gifts to the livingroom like a balding reindeer as Santa made himself comfortable in the leather armchair. Then the joyous ripping and tearing began.

post-present-opening stupor.

there were about 6 different kinds of pâté at Christmas dinner, as well as some interesting carrot-oatmeal casserole and cold turkey and colder ham and little kaurelian pastries. kaapo kept leaping up from his seat to blind us with his new camera. my host mum kept swiping at tuomo, who was putting all his old numbers into his iPhone under the table. we finished off with pipari, gingerbread with a little extra cardamom, and then everyone retired to the floor of the living room to play with all their new toys. since the most toy-like present i received was a bathrobe, i spent the rest of my night quite happily with alan rickman in Love, Actually.yes michael, i've been hit by a smoooooooooooooth criminal. i mean, look at this guy.

to those of you on the other side of the world who are still lazing about in pajamas and suffering from your post-stocking chocolate binge: try to enjoy it while it lasts. i have to go finish all this leftover joulukinkkua (christmas ham).

lappi

that's Lapland.

the 2 to 1 ratio of reindeer to inhabitants in the north-most part of Finland creates the "lapland silence"... travelling there with 150 other exchange students meant that I didn't experience any such silence. the whole trip was loud.

sixteen hours on a bus that smelled like tuna fish and lack of sleep...the australians got on the bus at 1 am and held a two-hour singalong to celebrate how awake they were. when the buses finally arrived in muonio, the excitement and noise were at a fever-pitch.

then we went sledding/skiing, which was loud with the sound of breaking bones. people who have never seen snow before have difficulties balancing on it, and six exchange students ended up at the hospital.

sauna time involved a lot of shrieking and swearing. my friends and i threw snowballs back into the sauna to drive the other girls out of the best bench spots. this worked well until we became the new targets.

the next morning's reindeer-farm presentation was loud with snores. we only woke from our stupor when the translator told us that until recently, reindeer herders castrated reindeer with their teeth.

our "cultural presentation" night naturally involved a booming stereo system. all the kids from the spanish-speaking countries danced like professionals, then the canadians presented a choreographed version of "Baby" that involved pretending to throw a baby. based on applause, the cultural lesson here is that hip gyration beats wordplay.

the husky farm was understandably loud in more than one way - even the frozenness of the ground couldn't lessen the odor of dog-piss, 300 strong, and the dogs only stopped howling when they were pulling the sledges. the puppies were ridiculously cute though.

ice sculpting = roaring chain saws. we were stuck with regular saws for "safety reasons"... they sure didn't look all that safe, and hardly made dents in the ice. the chainsaw man ended up having to stomp up and down the row of ice blocks carving whatever we demanded (my group fancied a giant ice cube, which is more difficult than you'd think when you start with a cylinder).

the santa claus village in Rovaniemi jingled with silver bells and profiteering. despite being a blatant tourist trap (santaland is basically an expensive post office, a santa-greeting platform and then dozens of overpriced shops), it was sort of magical. the snow was falling lightly and christmas carols were being piped from every lamppost and everyone was running around with shopping bags, grinning.

then the bus motors rumbled once again for a boisterous ride home.

 i did not end up sitting on santa's lap and telling him what I wanted for christmas.
that's alright. i already have all i need. :)

muutos

that means change.

i arrived at the mäki house in august with two large suitcases, a violin case and a heavy rotary blazer. i left it today with two large suitcases, the blazer, two backpacks, five shopping bags, a sack of shoes, a violin case and a bicycle. and i haven't even been here four months yet.

i already miss my first host family. the cooking was incredible. they didn't mind that my room was always messy. they brought me back little presents from their business trips and helped me read finnish news articles, even though three columns took half an hour. they made me feel at home, in their house, in finland.

the organization of this picture took five minutes of
 adjusting light fixtures and  windows. perfectionism has become almost endearing.

my new room's kickin' clock.

but my new family is lovely, they didn't even laugh at me when i staggered up their steps with all my luggage. not to my face anyways. my little brother kaapo moved in with my little sister jenni so that i could stay in his room for the next three months. they are eight and eleven and thick as thieves. thus far neither of them have spoken a word to me...whenever i come unexpectedly around a corner they jump and run out of the room giggling. tuomo, my other host brother, is a very tall fourteen. his main interests are soccer, looking sullen and texting his girlfriend.

my life on a bookshelf. this
kind of organization is not going to last long...

the house is a lot more american-style than my last...the basement is vast (most finns don't have basements, much too expensive to heat)*** and the dishes don't drip-dry over the sink. the decor isn't geometric in shades of white like most of the finnish homes i've seen. it's also much louder: my host dad is a stereo-system junkie and the pool table outside my bedroom door is always clacking. i sort of like the feeling of activity, you can feel everyone's vital signs.

tomorrow i bike two minutes to school - a great improvement on the thirteen-minute commute from the last house. i will then start my third jakso (school semester) out of five. my time here is already feeling too short.

***all my finnish friends would like you to know that most of them do have basements. apparently only the new houses don't have them.

juhlat ja jäätynyt

that means parties and frozen-ness.

all the puddles froze on Monday and haven't thawed yet. the sun is gone by 3.30 PM, so to banish the darkness my host mother has gone on a decorating spree. candles and wreaths light every window and most flat surfaces. my social life has lit up as well.

i became a cat for a Halloween party hosted by one of my exchange friends. unoriginal, yes... but the tail was only four euros and looked desperately hairy, like no one else would buy it from the costume shop if I didn't. halloween isn't a holiday in finland...the college kids didn't even party on october 31st until about five years back, i'm told. we carved white pumpkins - the first pumpkins most of the guests had ever stuck a knife into - and ate salmiakki spider cupcakes. then the other exchange students and I danced wildly to bad pop music, black icing at the corners of our mouths. the Finns sat around the perimeter of the living room and watched us quietly.

a week later, i became the hostess. improvised s'mores with "original Amerikkan marshmallows", gourmet Finnish chocolate and digestive cookies. none of my friends had ever heard of such a thing, but novelty made them even more delicious. it was a lucky warm night, so our coats padded the benches around the firepit. we took turns threatening to throw each other into the moon's reflection in the middle of the lake. and ate our way through the whole bag of marshmallows.

the next weekend i went to a Finnish dance party, strobe lights and all. i finally saw Finns dance (no doubt their shyness was helped by the cloak of fog-machine fog). the music was American and very loud. i guess J.Lo bypasses all cultural differences. making finnish conversation is extremely easy at parties, because the bass levels are enough to drown out my mistakes....my friends were suitably impressed.

the ground is freezing but these days i'm feeling pretty warm.

syysloma

that means autumn holiday.

at the start of the break, I escorted my host counselor's twelve-year-old daughter to a concert in Helsinki. over the course of the evening, the only complete sentence we spoke to each other was an exchanged "What's your favorite food?" (she said cookies, I said strawberry pancakes) It was a good show, though our nosebleed seats didn't allow for our bones to rattle with the bass. I had forgotten how much twelve-year-olds roll their eyes.

on the monday, my host mother, her sister and i took the bus to Helsinki's harbour, where we boarded a massive cruise ship. there were hundreds of people on that boat and we were all unleashed upon the tax free shop at 5 PM. mobs hungry for discount perfume and chocolates...terrifying. eighteen hours and a magnificent buffet later, we were in Stockholm. tuesday became progressively rainier through our exploration of Stockholm's old town, the tour of the royal apartments and a below-average romantic comedy. walking back to the hotel that night, all three of our umbrellas were snapped by the wind and joined the other umbrella carcasses on the wet sidewalks.

yeehaw, or something.

despite being waterlogged, stockholm was a beautiful city - all cobblestoned streets and lakes between the different neighborhoods. they call it "the venice of the north". the shopping could only be called beautiful as well....swedish high street stuff is great. i also stumbled upon a "western store" full of leather saddles and confederate flags, and a shop entirely dedicated to peikot. yes, trolls. when we boarded the boat back to helsinki the following day, each of us was several shopping bags heavier. no trolls though.

and there were more, too.

wednesday i learned that Finns don't need excessive amounts of alcohol and peer pressure to sing in front of strangers - they love karaoke. they practice their favorite numbers at home. other than the one girl who butchered avril lavigne.

on thursday I had a dream that I was able to roll my rr's in the Finnish way. i woke up excited...but i still can't.

on friday i serenaded my host sister and her boyfriend on their romantic date on the castle hill, overlooking the lake. it would have been made more romantic by a space heater...the temperature definitely dipped below freezing and joonas was shivering in his white suit as he lit the candles. my violin rendition of "my heart must go on" was a bit less schmaltzy than it should have been, probably because i contracted minor frostbite in one of my fingers. it's okay, it's on my bow-hand.

sparkly.

on saturday i spent two hours translating my friend's baby sister's disney magazines. Sinäkin voit olla prinsessa! (you too can be a princess!) they promise. false advertising. i learned that i have an ariel personality type.

sunday i went to an "american diner" with some friends. they were disgusted by my sweet-potato fries ("orange like oompa-loompas!"). the hamburger is a great american contribution to finnish society, though, so they forgave me for my order.


i've been neglecting my google-translate tab, but our love affair rekindles tomorrow when school starts up again.

lista

believe it or not, that means list.

Eight things the guidebooks didn't tell me about Finland:

1. Mocking Canada and Morgan Freeman jokes are universal sources of amusement. (thanks, South Park)

2. The word kebab does not mean "delicious skewers of meat" here. Dinner at a kebab place means handing over 7 euros and watching in horrified fascination as they shave the meat-on-a-spit into long strips with what definitely looks like a beard trimmer. and serve it on top of french fries. Delicious, as long as you know where to go (some of these places have been caught putting catfood into their meat...)

3. The Finnish musical scale goes A H C D E F G.

4. The bathrooms at home have heated floors. If I could live in my bathroom I completely would, but I think my host brother wouldn't dig that so much.

5. Their ice-cream comes in blocks, so you can fold away the cardboard wrapping and slice it with a knife. Much more efficient than scooping. If you want icecream at McDonalds, well, Oreos don't exist here. But salmiakki McFlurries are SO GOOD.

6. The language is very blunt - extraneous please's and thank you's just don't happen. They see no use for euphemisms, either. You wouldn't say "I'm afraid this wasn't your best test grade...". It would be "This was lousy." Taking offense seems to be an unnecessary American invention.

7. Wearing dresses over jeans isn't a nightmarish tween fashion choice that will haunt you until your early twenties, it's completely acceptable.

8. Spitting in public is constant. Little girls, teenagers, business-people, elderly men. No matter who they are, Finns spit whenever and wherever they feel like it. My theory is that all the 200,000 Finnish lakes are just good-old-fashioned Viking spittle. By the looks of it, the college kids in my neighborhood are trying to create a minor pond by the bus stop.

tasapaino

that means balance.

In the last few weeks, I have:

--gained a working knowledge of underwater rugby. in short summary, it's basketball on the bottom of a 4-metre diving pool, augmented with bruises and incredibly dorky helmets. the team is fourteen mismatched boys and girls, ranging from age ten to age twenty. i don't understand a word of the coaches' instructions, so i thrash about and adjust my snorkel a lot.

--lost my breath. just thinking about slipping into that pool makes my lungs contract a bit, but you bet i'm going back next week.

This is the gist of it. Most players don't stare so lovingly into each others' eyes though.

--obtained a black leather jacket, so i am three and a half steps closer to being a european teenager.

--misplaced my only hoodie, which means i am rained on at least twice a day. on the rare afternoon that I come out of class and it isn't drizzling, i swing my legs over my bike to go home and suddenly the clouds condense. finnish autumn is lovely.

--found a dance partner for the vanhojen tanssit, or old dance. in February, the 2nd year students kick the third years off school grounds after their matriculation exams, and celebrate their ascension to senior royalty by holding a traditional waltz-and-tux ball... with the entire town watching on bleachers around the dance floor. traditionally the girls ask the boys, so i walked up to him by the paper cutter in our art class. he accepted, didn't even cut my finger off.  

--parted with far too many euros for a dress for said dance. if you were wondering, it's blue.

--gained an appreciation for reindeer meat. it's excellent with black-currant jam.

--lost all respect for Finnish candy manufacturers. anything remotely spherical is labelled "balls". these aren't innocent cinnamon fireballs or jawbreakers. We're talking "Donkey Balls -- super sweet, double trouble!" or, for a touch of the exotic, Camel Balls. 

"Extra Sour and Liquid Filled". Appetizing.

--broadened my Finnish repertoire of greetings and swear words to include grammar points. did you know the verb "to have" doesn't exist in their language: you simply modify "to be"? No, really though, my Finnish is getting better every day. 

--wasted three hours every week in Finnish for Foreigners lessons. at the speed of two pages per 1.5 hour session, we have just made it through the letters and numbers. Once we get past words I learned in March the class will be fascinating...but until then, I read the posters of Justin Bieber facts on our classroom walls (Finnish for Foreigners is held in a middle-school English room) and try to make my Canadian friend giggle disruptively.

She holds it in, mostly.

I really think my gains outweigh my losses.

kolmekymmenta

that means thirty.

it's been a whole month since I got here.

every time the sun comes out, the Finns shake their heads slowly and say "This will probably be the last time you see sunlight until the day you leave this godforsaken country." Inevitably, the sun rises the next day, just to spite them. This sort of sums up the Finnish view of the world...

the leaves are already crunchy. on the days that the school food is truly horrible, my friends and I go out to the grocery around the corner. we walk back eating cream cakes and sit by the bike racks and watch the boys by the smoking shed. i try to speak Finnish. the chilly air makes the sugar taste even better.

i get fewer questions about my name and why the hell I would ever choose to come to Finland, but more about things like chocolate pizza and prom dresses. "tell me the finnish words you know" is a common request, too. whenever this happens I can only come up with French. when I've awkwardly ducked the language questions and small talk about being an exchange student comes to a close, Finns often gesture back in the direction of their house and tell me their sauna is waiting, like it's an impatient toddler.

the language now sounds like words, but I can't string any of them together. I have learned many other things though: old navy flag tshirts and crocs have definitely arrived in Finland, but ranch dressing hasn't. at all times here you should carry an umbrella and possibly a towel. Jean Sibelius borders on an obsession for these people (understandably). political correctness is neither required nor particularly respected. public noise, however, is unforgivable. the most important thing i've come to realize, though?

my head is too large for the average moped helmet.

if i am unable to get this off and come home still wearing it, I hope everyone will understand.

lammas

that means sheep.

There's a chicken-wire pen at the edge of the development. Lovely view of the lake. A little lean-to for the lambs to huddle under when it rains. All summer, the people in the neighborhood bring the lambs stale bread and the little kids learn all about how wonderful (stinky) farmyards are and the precise sound that a sheep makes. Finnish sheep do not have any noticeable accent in comparison with American ones.

I was told that we would have a lamb party. Here I was, naively thinking that this was just a strange celebration of sheep. Perhaps we would make a circle around their pen and sing them Finnish lullabies, or see how the Mäkinen family down the street taught the black one how to tap dance. I mean, the Finns are a bit funny about animals and nature and all that, it wasn't all too implausible.

Then on Thursday I was invited to the lamb party preparations. I peeled a mountain of cabbage leaves and chopped onions til I cried, along with six other middle-aged women who seemed impervious to the onions. And then I said something really stupid - "The lambs don't like loud music, though, do they?"

They all turned to look at me. "It doesn't matter much, since we're eating them..."

Oh.

Note the ski goggles.

cute, hey?

What followed was a massive block party. They buried the meat and let the fire on top of it burn for a day or so, then the whole neighborhood got together and they lifted it out with great ceremony. There were approximately fifty small blonde children milling about (they had been told that the lambs had gone away for the winter and would come back next year). Fresh blueberry pies and little pine-cone-lamb table decorations and heaps of rye bread. Trays and trays of lamb. Boxes and boxes of wine. It was a veritable ancestral Viking feast. 

Somehow I doubt the Vikings had karaoke though. As the evening wore on, kids on the microphone were replaced by teenagers on the microphone were replaced by rather drunk adults all over the microphone. This was pretty entertaining, but also sort of shameful - because even inebriated people and five-year-olds can sing in Finnish. I cannot. Yet.

The party hadn't ended when my family and I sloped home at 12.30 am. Who says Finnish people are closed off? They sure know how to have a good time.

Rakastan suomalaisia ​​kaloreita

that means "I love Finnish calories".

This week is "American week" in the school cafeteria. Today I ate familiar gluey mashed potatoes and "chiken" nuggets. Tomorrow is hot dogs and gravy, and Friday promises "Mama's Meatballs" with a side of "Big Apple Surprise". Everyone is looking forward to the end of the week, mainly because Mama's Meatballs is a fun alliteration and a distasteful joke all in one.

Shitty school food feels like home...if American kids were forced to eat the usual cafeteria food here (water, boiled potatoes, roasted meat and dark rye bread) they'd probably riot for their right to processed sugars.

Pulla

Sweet Finnish specialties are definitely around, though. European candy bars? Killer. Last week, a friend and I made lettu - basically Finnish crepes - and managed to finish off a box of icecream in the process. The next day, I went berrypicking with some Rotarians and filled a very large bucket with punaherukka (redcurrants). My host mother makes a mean red-currant pie...it disappeared extremely quickly. Luckily, she thought this was a compliment and not evidence of American greed. She has also promised to make pulla (sweet coffee rolls) with me in the near future.

That brings us to the most misunderstood Finnish culinary celebrity: salmiakki. It's everywhere. At ice cream parlors, next to the chocolate syrup and caramel sauce stand big bottles of "salty liquorice topping".  The sweets come in portable little boxes like this, and I've already fallen into the habit of popping a few every couple hours. (I guess I like to think I get Finn-points for that.) If you don't take your salmiakki straight, perhaps you'd prefer ice cream with sumptuous salmiakki swirls or salmiakki-filled chocolate bars. Okay, so it's an (extremely) acquired taste. I think this sums it up nicely. The first half is foreigners, the second, natives.

It is my new personal mission in life to introduce banana bread to Finland....it may end up being an invasive species though. The one I made last week was briefly exclaimed at (my host parents have never seen chocolate chips) and then even more quickly devoured.  I've also got 3 boxes of Duncan Hines Double Fudge Brownie Mix, just biding their time....


P.S. In case you were wondering, I have not eaten reindeer. Yet.

koulu

that means school.

but the school i'm attending is actually referred to as a lukio.

Finland is not this foggy, my host father just didn't have his contacts in yet.

I was a bit terrified about my first day of school here, because I've heard so many things about Finnish people's recalcitrance around strangers. The language camp even suggested using a clever ruse to get conversation started - purposely spell a Finnish phrase incorrectly, then go ask whoever you want to talk to for help. This sounds like an inept pity ploy to me, but who knows? Maybe the Finns really like dumb Americans who don't know how to use a Finnish dictionary. (Luckily, it has not yet been necessary for me to exemplify cultural stereotypes.)

I biked in early this morning to set up my school schedule...the Finnish education is number one in the world and all, but their scheduling system is massively confusing, and all written out by hand (for me, anyway). Eventually I worked it out so that I'm taking Music Appreciation, Art, Sport, French and an advanced English discussion class. Classes are 75 minutes long, with quarter-hour breaks in between each. Today, the breaks were painfully long, but I am confident that they will shorten when people stare at me less and talk to me more.

The music class was so full that I had to sit on an extra piano bench. We seemed to be learning how to sight-sing. I can already do that, but not in Finnish.

In art I have an assignment - to create a small project denoting the most important place in the school. Art, like many things in Finland, is rather liberal: the teacher suggested that I find pieces of trash in the street and arrange them artistically in the school, or have someone take a picture of me sleeping on the school floor. Since at that point, I'd been at the school less than three hours, I spent most of the class talking to a girl who had been best friends with last year's American exchange student. Contrary to popular belief, some Finns actually do talk to you first.

I'm taking a third-year French course, so I already know all the French, and can focus on translating back into Finnish. For some reason, I never thought about how people in other countries don't go from English to French, but learn from their own language. Random piece of culture-centrism.

For lunch, I met up with some girls who had been assigned to me (hey, in the staring traffic-jam halls I'll take all the "friends" I can get) and we made awkward small talk about my hobbies and pets while in line for our potatoes, rye bread and meatballs. Since I am still a novelty, they didn't seem to mind, but it's pretty obvious to me...I have to learn Finnish fast. As an exchange student, people want to talk to you, but not if they have translate every word.

As to the Finnish teenagers themselves...well, H&M is obviously their temple of worship. There

is an inordinate number of blonde heads swirling through the halls. I have never seen so many cinched-leg sweatpants in one place, either. Also, those Zoppini bracelets that everyone had around 7th grade? All the rage. Collectively, they could be champions of staring contests worldwide. The people I have talked to say that this is just because the majority are shy and wish they could talk to me... but it feels like I'm wearing a scarlet F for foreigner. The kids at my high school work a lot, too: there are study areas everywhere in school, and they're actually used. Even from a total outsider's perspective, they are definitely the same species as the American teenager - though with less making out in the hallways.

hey, I'm not complaining.

uusi

means new. everything is new here.

I don’t think there’s any way to really be prepared for exchange. You don’t really comprehend what you’ve done until you’re on the plane.

Frankly, what I signed on for back in January (when none of this was real) suddenly seemed like a horrible idea twenty minutes into my first flight. I ran into some more kids in bulky Rotary blazers at Chicago-O’Hare, and it made me feel even less sure of myself. But 12 hours later, ready or not, I landed in Helsinki.

There are 120 kids here at language camp in Karkku to study Finnish: dominantly from the Americas, with a scoop of Japanese-speakers and some Europeans sprinkled in. Four days into this, I almost always have someone that I can sit down with if I arrive somewhere alone. Rotary kids are generally interested in making connections. Or at least getting rid of some of the damn Rotary business cards weighing them down – I was given 500, some people have even more.

This place is beautiful. The air already feels like late fall, but the trees are still alive. I went swimming in the lake today under rainclouds, and watched two rainbows hit the island out in the middle of the water. Direct quote: "Wow. Shit. This is Finland."

Lessons are going slowly, because pronunciation is hard. Written Finnish is also quite different than spoken Finnish. I can say some of the longer words by now though… try "Aamupalaverihuone" and laugh. The camp has also given us useful instruction on what to do when we are attacked by bears. Note the “when”…not “if”.

I just had my first Finnish sauna experience and, well, there’s no wonder these people are so good at everything they do. I feel fantastic right at this moment...and lots of Finns sauna every day, even for business and political meetings! If saunas weren’t limited to Finland and remote Vermontian cabins, I feel like there would be far fewer problems in the world. Wouldn't it be nice, hey?

nastat

that means pins. (but that's according to googletranslate, so who knows, it could be diaper-pins or slang for legs for all i know)

but yeah.

"this is such a clare move, waiting til the day before she leaves to make 150 pins."

my friends know me well. luckily, they're also pretty crafty. despite my mother's skepticism, we churned out some killer pins in a few hours. materials included rotini pasta, mosaic tiles and a nose-shaped pencil sharpener (someone reeeally special is going to get that one...). i will also probably be forever known as "the tassel chick" by all the rotary kids in my district. make of that what you will.

my girls won't be forgetting me anytime soon, either...we all sustain significant hot-glue-gun burns on our fingers. suffering for beauty of a well-decorated rotary blazer and all that.

...i s'pose it's an acquired taste.

Lähtö

that means departure.

over 4000 miles from home. over 2000 ways to modify every Finnish noun.

I'm excited/terrified/trying to pack a year's worth of Reese's candy into 2 fifty-pound bags. (I hear Finnish people don't have peanutbutter).

I leave in 2 days. That's a woah feeling if there ever was one.

Terve

that means hello.

I'm Clare. I'm a musician traveller nail-chewer cake-baker Rotary exchange student. I have messy red hair and blue eyes and wear three rings on the middle finger of my right hand. No one really understands why I chose Finland for my exchange year, including me. It was more than a whim and less than a definite feeling in my gut.

It's going to be tough. Finnish is one of the hardest languages to learn, and I'll have to make friends in a stereotypically "shy" culture. I also want to keep up my violin playing, and I don't know yet how to make that work (I hope to head for a performance degree post-Finland). But I believe things will fall into place. If not, I'll find a new place.

Hit me up in the comment boxes and share this year with me!