March Already

My last post was over 100 days ago and I have no idea how to catch up on every amazing thing that has happened. I have been to Lapland (land above Arctic Circle) twice; once with Rotary of Finland and Estonia and once with my host family for Christmas and New Years. Up there, I have eaten reindeer, downhill skied, reindeer and husky sled rides, 9 minutes of daylight each day, quick trip to Sweden, learning to lasso reindeer, and enjoyed the land that looks like Narnia.

Then in January, I switched host families. Rotary Organization gives every student 2-3 host families, that way we get to experience multiple perspectives of life in our home country. It was sad to leave my first family, but I love my new one a lot, so everything is fine. It has just been a lot of fun getting to know my new family and doing family activities with them. This is me walking the dog across the frozen lake with my brother.

February was a great month, and started out great with my birthday on the 1st and my brothers on the 2nd. We had a small celebration at home with cake that looked like American Poptarts and relatives coming over. One big event was the Wanjoen Tanssi, the large formal dance in Finland. I danced with my partner and it was a great time! Many practices and time looking for a suit, but everything turned out well and it was a great evening. We also had a week off of school so that the country could have a skiing holiday. We went to central Finland to Grandma's and skiied and skiied and skiied. I was even able to go down all of the black levels and do jumps and land them! Not bad for my 3-7th days ever skiing! I also did some cross country skiing across the lake by our house.There are no pictures of me skiing on this trip, but I have plenty from other trips. To get there we had to pass over a lot of lakes and bridges.

March so far has been fantastic. I have started up a new hobby: Ice Swimming. Yep, every Tuesday and Thursday I go ice swimming (and sometimes bring along friends) in the lake with my host father. I was the kid who swore to my parents I would never do something so 'dangerous' as that, but who would have thought it would be so relaxing? Swim for a bit ( 5-15 seconds) and then go to sauna to warm up, and repeat. One evening was fantastic and great, because as we swam a herd of swans flew onto the lake and were swimming in part of the whole with us. Then they got out onto ice and i saw them run across the runway, the icy lake and then take off, just like an airplane. Its also so quiet and tranquil and that is another reason why I like it. We also had a Rotary ski trip, which my brother was also able to go to. It was a fantastic day. Also I went to a great TPS-Pelicans game with the Turku Exchange Students. Everyone thought that the highly ranked Pelicans would beat TPS, but we came through with a 4-2 win! It was incredible!

There have been so many other fantastic things that have happened; classy movie nights, sledding days, great days at school, rotary presentations, snow snow snow and -25ºC weather, but there is no way I can explain it all on a post. Stay tuned for my next post!