Finnish thawing

WATER,YEAAAAAA

Yeaaa, impossible – I can see grass! Well, it’s still the old one and only on very few places (where isn’t over a meter of snow still), but it IS grass. Organic thing, not this whitish form of H2O! And yes, when I wake up, it’s already light; when I go from school it’s STILL light. I have never thought this could happen in Finland, after almost half a year of permanent snow cover and weeks when I saw the sun just at weekends… Anyway, so many exciting events have been happening lately.

Another family – AGAIN???!!

With Veronika in Moomin museo

Yes :D But not permanently – my host-family left to Mexico for 2 weeks to visit my other host-sister who studies there. And I was put into another family (in Tampere, yipeeeee!!). I totally enjoyed it there, because these people were just so great, friendly and I liked them so much. One of these 2 weeks was so called skiing holidays when everybody leaves to Lapland or some European country to ski. And I was in Tampere -> F.U.N.. None of my friends was there! I really thought I would die from boredom and annoyance of not-skiing, but in the end it was just great relaxing week! My temporary host-family took me to museum, theater; Veronika came for visit (omg, I will never forget this eating orgy in Rax pizzabuffet! :D), then I spent day by snowboarding on a 300m long slope, met my support person and finally… fell ill! Huuray – just a week before the long-awaited trip to Lapland!

YFU trip to Lapland

Some random Lappish people

Unforgettable thing, really! It started with Beatrix coming to Nokia to stay overnight and continued with 8 hours ride which ended with horrible headache. Probably everybody knows that I suffer from German-language aversion and even 45min lesson is enough to ruin my day, so just imagine how I felt like after so long bus ride with Germans behind me who constantly talked. Thanks god, exchange has taught me to tolerate other cultures and languages so I didn’t jump out of the bus’ window. We came to Lumi Nenä holiday resort late in the evening and headed to our cottages. Ours was the most international one I guess – Beatrix and Julia from Germany, Yukiko from Japan, Veronika from Slovakia and Teris and me from Czech (oho, Czech mafia is back again!). We did so many great things during the week – I went snowboarding for 3 days and on Searching for Aurora trip (no, we didn’t find nor see any during our stay in Lapland :/) and we all rode Husky- and Reindeer-sledge, saw some kind of shaman show and just had fun together. It was also amazing to meet 3 newcomers who stay in Finland just for half a year. And of course meeting again so many people, some of whom I haven’t seen for 7 months; also talking in my own language (usually during night :D) with those jokes that only we can understand! I got new friends there or  just strengthened my friendship with some people. I simply loved the time there even though it was too short and I didn’t see the Norther lights. Which sucks. A lot!

dreadlocking

Ah, those exchangers…

Do you know what happens when Memo visits Tampere? A lot of things. Like our Tampere area’s YFU exchange students meeting. Memo, Koutarou, Lars, Linda and I spent some time in café and then just spontaneously decided to go to Lars’ place and make Mexican food. It was an amazing afternoon full of fun which I will never forget.

yamiiie

Another event was organized by my YFU sister (yeah, I’m so proud that MY YFU sister is the only one ex-exchange student in Tampere who arranges these fun-meetings!) – laser shooting. Unfortunately only Linda, Felix and I came, then of course Sonja and Anna, but it was amazing anyway – we just had to play with a big group of small aggressive kids who enjoyed standing in front of you and shooting you even though you were “dead”. How sweet. It was the first time for me playing this and I, surprisingly, totally loved it!

yes, WE :)

Turning 18 –> great clubs' opening

I’m so old now! I’m adult, huh – horrible thing, isn’t it? I celebrated my birthday at home by few hours call with my family, then continued in restaurant with my host family and ended in club(s). My Russian friend agreed to take care of me, but then she had to go to work so she called her friends to do a little baby-sitting. It was just an amazing evening with them, they really made my birthday! Only one a little bit disappointing thing was that nobody asked for my ID although it’s done thing in bars/clubs in Finland.

Week later I went to other place with Fernanda and her friends. It was so great to meet that many new friendly people, dance, talk and so on whole evening. I will miss that sooooo much when I have to go back to Czech, aj.

Me and Alexander II.

From the city to the countryside

I love traveling and I love my friends – therefore I decided to make a trip to Helsinki to visit Nele and to Alavus to visit Beatrix. My plans were almost ruined when YFU told me “NO” three times, but luckily I have my guardian angel aka support person who called them and suddenly I could go. Nice to see how much worth is exchange students’ voice comparing to adult person, hm? But anyway, I’m happy that I was allowed to go in the end. It was my first time in Helsinki (shame – I live just 2 hours from it) and weather chose to be spiteful – there hadn’t been such a bad day for so long! Anyway, I enjoyed my Helsinki walk with Nele and stay with her wonderful family. Next day we went to zoo where was hardly any animal, but common – better than nothing. Then was time to say bye-bye to Nele and meet my Czech friend who came to Helsinki to compete on Synchronized skating world championship. And I finally saw Helsinki in sunshine!

After that I spent a few hours on a train to Seinäjoki from where I went to Alavus. I was picked up by a tractor (hahaa) and spent a few days in a riding school with Beatrix. It was such a cool place, really! We spent days and nights by being with horses, talking, eating and watching movies. I also visited Beatrix’s school, which is way more amazing than mine because it’s so small and more school-like.

So that’s my life now – so much fun!! Tomorrow starts the last period of my Finnish school – sad. But I keep on smiling!

...smiling just like them:)