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.