School

Every day I go to school its a new adventure. My school is called EYL or Espoon yhteislyseon lukio high school - I'm still working on how to pronounce it! We live around 2km away from EYL so i ride my bike there everyday. 

My timetable is not that busy, as you can see below. In total I only have four subjects: English, advanced English, swedish and sport. I thought, okay, this is easy, english will all be in english... but I was wrong. In english class I don't understand a thing except when we practise pronouncing words like 'photography' or when we sound out words that are quite similar like 'vet' and 'wet'. One lesson the teacher told me at the beginning of the lesson that he was going to give a lecture in finnish and he would tell me what he said at the end. After 75 minutes of trying to stay awake and resorting to google translate to translate random words I heard, he finally finished and came over to explain what he had just said. He said one word, competance, and then the lesson was over. 75 minutes of talking in finnish just translated to competance in english? Advanced english is much better as most of it is in english. It is quite weird and awkward though when you have to put your hand up and correct the teacher because they are pronouncing the english words wrong. Swedish is imposible. I dont know how they expect me to learn swedish when I don't even know finnish and all the translations are from finnish to swedish... FInally, sport requires a lot of guessing what to do but is the easiest to follow as i just copy everyone else. Sport would have to be my favourite subject. 

In class

Sometimes we have tests in english and we have to wear these headphones and press the correct answer on the machine. The instructions and all the test questions are in finnish so I never have any idea what to do. The recordings however are in english, so i will hear a completly random english sentence like for example "The favourite cookie of Arizona is chocolate chip however California prefers smartie cookies" and then a whole lot of finnish will follow and we are suposed to press a button on the machine to answer the questions asked. I am pretty confident I failed all these tests as I ended up pressing every button on the machine as I couldnt understand the questions. 

This is where we eat lunch everyday. It is very american and we get a tray and go along and choose what we want to eat. Every day is a little suprise of what there might be to eat as the menu is, of course, in finnish. Some days there is really good food but other days the food is not so good. For example last week we had fish and potato soup. I was hungry that day.

There is another exchange student in my school! This is Fiona and she is from Germany and she speaks very good english. I was so excited when I found this out as it is so nice having someone else who doesnt understand a thing, we often just stare at each other in class and laugh. She has become one of my close friends. 

This was my english homework. Confused... I was too... none of it is in english? I quickly messaged Elli for a translation and she just replied its about health. I didn't do my homework that day. 

One day when I was riding home from school I had to screech to a stop as something was running across the road in front of me. When I looked up I saw a squirel running madly around! A squirel! That is something we don't see everyday! 

There is a corner shop on my way to school and I often stop to buy delicious finnish chocolate for the days the school lunch is not so good. 

Linnanmaki

On saturday my host family, their family friends and I ventured off to Linnanmaki (an amusement park) in Helsinki. It was about a 20 minute train ride into the centre of Helsinki and then a 15 minute tram ride to Linnanmaki. It was all very new and exciting for me, being my first time in Helsinki, beside the car ride tour on my first day. Travelling arond Finland is very different to Australia. There are no gates at the station where you insert your ticket to get through. In Finland everyone has a travel pass which they upload money onto and when you board a train, bus or tram you just swipe the card and enter where your going. 

When we arrived at Linnanmaki, rides loomed before us and we couldnt wait to get inside. 

This was one of our favourite rides. You sat in the carriages and it started off just going around in circles but gradually tilted utill it was verticle and you were going all the way upside down. 

My host brother and sister and their family friend, Dormous and I waiting patiently in line.

The mirrors were very entertaining. My host sister, host mum and I spent at least 20 minutes in front of the mirrors enjoying being fat and short. 

This was my host brother, Akseli, after he came out of a haunted ghost house. He was very proud that he conqured it and he had a huge smile on his face for the rest of the day.

In the middle of the park there was a sightseeing ride which took you high up into the sky and you could see an amazing view of the whole of Helsinki. The whether was perfect which made it even better. 

After an hour of my host sibblings trying to explain what this really good thing to eat called hattara was, we went to the eatery and i discovered they were talking about fairy floss. 

The two photos above were taken at 7pm and it was still that light till 10pm! It was a long exhausting day but it was well worth it as we all had a great time and didnt want to leave!

Sailing day trip!

After only 4 days in the country, my host family were very eager to show me their sailing boat. On sunday morning we drove to the Espoo Harbour and boarded the Silver Girl ready to spend the day sailing. The weather was beautiful, getting to around 24 degrees with blue skies in the afternoon. On board there was a small kitchen, a bathroom and two beds. We sailed for around 3 hours, drinking cups of tea and snacking on biscutis and finnish chips (which looked like pasta but tasted like patato) untill we reached our destination, a big island. 

When we got to the island we went straight for lunch at a restaurant right on the waters edge with a beautiful view. The only option to eat though was creamy salmon soup...

While we were eating a beautiful big swan came to say hello. This is Finlands national animal. 

After lunch we walked around the island as the island was having a special day and was displaying many traditional finnish things. We saw fish skinning, paint making and old houses filled with special types of chimneys used to grill fish.

We then walked for about 1km through forest to the centre of the island to a beautiful big lake. On the way there was many blueberry, raspberry, cranberry and strawberry bushes. My host sibblings just picked the berries of the bushes and ate them. I thought this was very strange but by the time we got to the lake all three of our mouths were blue from eating so many berries. They were the best berries I have ever tasted and I have decided Australia should follow Finland and have lots of wild berry trees everywhere that we can just eat from. 

When we got to the lake we went swiming. The water was freezing and my host family joked that now i have officially been baptised into Finnish culture. 

Bon Voyage

The day I had been waiting for, for over a year, finally arrived! The long journey to Helsinki, Finland began on Tuesday 13th August. My plane left at 3:50pm from Sydney that afternoon and I arrived in Singapore at 11:50pm that night. On the plane I sat next to an old man who turned out to be a priest for an Anglican Church. Lets just say he liked to talk and I didn't get much sleep, let alone get through a movie. After an 8 hour flight I was glad Singapore airport was one of the biggest in the world as it meant it took me 30 minutes to walk to my next gate, and a long walk was definatly needed to stretch my legs. As I was walking throught the airport I discovered that Singapore airport is no ordinary airport, having gardens every 10 metres on the inside and a pool on the roof. I boarded again at 2:35am Australian time. I remember dreading the 12 hour flight ahead. This time I sat next to a little Finnish girl who slept on me the whole way. Most of the people on this flight were Finnish and tried to talk to me in Finnish multiple times. I just smiled and nodded and hoped they weren't asking me a question. When I arrived at Helsinki airport it was quite deserted compared to Sydney and Singapore and most of the people on my flight were getting on a connecting flight. I made my way through the securtiy checks by myself and then I was greeted by my host family! They gave me a big hug and even made me sign! When we walked outside I discovered it was raining and 13 degrees. Finnish people call this summer but to us Australian people its more like second winter season. As soon as we got home I was feeling the exhaustion, not having slept in over 30 hours by now and it was only 6:30am in the morning, Finnish time. My host family somehow kept me awake all day, taking me on a car drive tour to the capital, Helsinki that night. The city is so beautiful and very green compared to Sydeny, having parks or ponds everywhere. I also saw the harbour in Espoo (where I live) and Helsinki and moored there was the families sailing boat. My host family also started to teach me a bit of Finnish and I helped them with their English. We got post it notes and stuck them on every piece of furniture, writing both the Finnish and English names on them. My host families English is very good but there are still times when I have no idea what they are talking about and they result to explaining it to me in Finnish with hand jestures, which doesn't work at all, although it is very entertaining! Tomorrow I might be visting Selma's and Akseli's (My host sibblings) school and I start my school on Monday. I am very excited for the months ahead and so far It has been great!