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.
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