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!