Eurotour - Day 1

The Eurotour blogging begins! I am going to be updating one day at a time as fast as I can write them and I hope you enjoy reading them! To view only the Eurotour posts click here. I have added in a lot of wikipedia links to the countries and cities that we visited so if you want to learn more about them then you can do so that way. You can see all the photos from the trip on my Facebook so head on over and check them out. 


The first day was mostly spent on the train to Turku. I had to wake up early and Jarmo drove me to Iisalmi where the adventure begun! It was a long trip to Turku but I had a few of my favourite exchange students on the train and we all kept each other company. We got some free time in Turku wen we arrived so we wandered around the city and bought food, because what else would exchange students do besides buy food? Lewis made friends with a homeless guy who wanted money, Lewis pretended to understand what he was saying and this guy even joined us on the bus back to the port! Finally at about 8 we got to get on the boat! The Eurotour begins! After a delicious buffet dinner we gathered a huge group and went to the karaoke bar. There were other people singing too, Finnish songs, Swedish songs and English songs. No matter what language, we sung the words and danced around. It was so much fun and a really great way to start of Eurotour! I wasn't on the Russian trip so I had only met the Oldies from my district so it was nice to put faces to Facebook profiles!

Chilling by the river

Making friends

Singing Down Under

Moving families

The 1st of June was my last full day with my first family, I spent most of it with Eeva we were on women's duties and cleaned up the house and made some food. I had to pack all my things up too and that was very hard. Walking through the house removing all my things that showed I lived there and thinking about everything i'd been through in this house that I call home had me choked up most of the day. In the evening we rode to Eeva's sisters place to see her and her daughter who is so utterly adorable. We left early because there was a storm coming and we didn't want to get stuck in it. But guess what, we did. We got stuck in the most terrible storm I have ever seen! It was the first day of summer too so I had just shorts and t-shirt on! It was hilarious, we couldn't see and we were being attacked by hail! At the end of it all though it was such a funny experience and it made me realise how memories on exchange no matter how awfully uncomfortable or horrible they were at the time, you can always look back on them and smile. I got stuck in a very bad storm on a bike with very little clothes on but it was in Finland and that's what counts!  


The next day was moving day but it was also the first day that the little cows get taken in to the fields. The young cows have never been in the fields before, the cow house is all they know, so when they get to leave they are SO EXCITED, they around all YAY WE'RE FREE!!! It was hilarious to watch but then as the "little cows" got progressively bigger, quite frightening! We then had to wait for them to wear themselves out and then we coaxed them into the yard. That was bloody hard work, they are the most stubborn things! It took a long time but finally they were all out in the yard and we had to watch them for a while to make sure that they all learnt that the electric fence is actually electric and they shouldn't go near it. We had Pavlova that Liisa had made the day before and it was delicious! Then it was time to leave. I hugged everyone and then got in the car, waving goodbye to what was an incredible chapter of my exchange. I don't want to get too soppy because it just feels strange to write this to the internet but its so much harder leaving a place that you won't be coming back too. When I left Australia, I knew exactly when I was coming back, but when I left my first house I knew I would be back, but it would never be my house again. I got to my next house and I had a tour and settled in to my room but I didn't really unpack, I was too exhausted, too overwhelmed. I will introduce my new family in a later post! 

Shoving the cows out of the cow house

This is pretty much all they did and occasionally they would start fighting each other. You can hear me at the start saying ei to the cow which means no.

They were a little scared of me

Going in for a kiss. It was so sweet how much all the cows loved my host dad! 

Just waiting...

Liisa's Pavlova

The 4th was graduation day and I dressed up and went to the school to watch them all get their hats and then everyone shakes hands with them all and they get flowers and money and its so full of tradition! We watched on the live stream in one of the classrooms because we couldn't all fit in the theater. Because all the Seniors weren't really at school when I arrived, I didn't really know any of them but it was so great to see it all. I had to say goodbye to Julie after that, I was leaving for Euro-tour and she would be back in France when I got back. It was so terrible, I'd spent almost every single school day with Julie and my god I knew damn well that I was going to miss her like hell. The first few months of your exchange can be tough and confusing and I had Julie to help me the whole time, she made everything so much better and I love her so much for being there for me. If you are reading this Julie, I miss you and KIITOKSIA PALJON! To any outbounds reading this, be nice to your oldies! They will become so important to you! 

Our last photo with each other :( 

The next day I headed off for my incredibly amazing Eurotour so stay tuned for more posts! 

May

The first of May is Vappu, May day and its a really big event in Finland but mostly for University Students. I got to eat Vappu doughnuts and special drink that people drink at Vappu time. 

With May comes mothers day! Liisa made an amazing cake. 

Here it is all finished. 

The spring time is the busiest time for farm work because all the snow has melted and the fields have to be made ready for either grazing or planting. The soil is pretty rocky in Finland so every spring the family goes out and collects all the rocks from the many many fields. Off course I joined in and I actually kind of enjoyed it. It was good honest work and everyone needs a bit of that every once in a while. It was also pretty damn exhausting though, I counted up the hours we spent collecting rocks and it was roughly 18 hours all together! 

The biggest event in May would have to be the Ice Hockey World Championships! The match was Finland vs Sweden, Finland's natural enemy. The only time Finland had won the World Cup was in 1995 and it was against Sweden. We'd won 4 silvers since then and one of those to Sweden so to be honest people were not that hopeful for the game. I was though, I was so sure that this would be Finland's year because how awesome would that be, my year would also Finalnd's year of triumph! I watched the game with Antti and Ville and everyone else was asleep so when anything bad/exciting happened we just had to use our hands to show our dissapointment/excitement. First there was dissapointment, Sweden got a goal. I was gutted, I knew that Ice Hockey was like Soccer the final score can be very small at times. But then Finland got a goal, and then another and another and another and before we knew it it was 5-1 and less than a minute on the clock! Oh but whats that FINLAND SCORED AGAIN! 6-1 SUOMI!!! The crowd went wild and the news reporters are zooming in on the sad Swedish people. It was incredible! There was a big party in Helsinki the next day and its all anybody talked about for the next week at school, our English teacher actually got really mad at us for talking and lectured us about coming to school to learn and not "gossip" :P You should all watch this video of Mikael Granlund's amazing goal in the game against Russia which made the guy a legend! 
Also watch this video, it pretty much sums up how freaking excited the Finns were (well still are!)

IHANAA LEIJONAT IHANAA

Finland lost only one game the entire tournament! 

I went to Jyäskylä for the weekend with Eeva and Ville!

I met a moose!

Jyäskylä was a really beautiful city

District Camp!! 

We went to a paper mill

D1430 <3

It was such a lovely night

April

So 2 months have whizzed on by and I haven’t blogged at all! I’m sorry to all you who actually like reading my blog, April and May were very busy months and everything was normal to me that it felt strange sitting down and writing about regular day to day things. I will recap some exciting things that happened in April and May though because I want this blog to be a somewhat overview of my exchange. As some of you may know I just returned from the most amazing trip around southern Europe and there will definitely be more detailed posts about that soon! 

On the 9th of April I swapped banners with my club. My host president doesn't speak any English but he gave a little speech and my counselor said that he asked me to tell my home club that Kiuruvesi Rotary Club is the best in the world! Who ever said the Finns aren't funny! 

Pasha

We ate outside for the first time in mid-april, it was freezing but it was still nice to sit outside and sort of enjoy the sun. 

I made ANZAC biscuits!

And my host mum made delicious peach pie. When she cooks, she just goes by memory and throws stuff in, I said that it would be terrible if she got it perfect and couldn't repeat it to which she replies "I always get it perfect!" Its very true!

This same day I went on my first bike ride in Finland, I still had to have my winter coat on but it was nice to ride around the city and actually explore a bit. 

In my test week I went to Iisalmi to see my Tutor, Reeta and we hung out with 2 of her friends who were also ex-exchangers and we had a great time chatting and shopping. The roses were from one of the political campaigns going on at the time. 

Collecting twigs for some traditional Easter crafts

Ready to go!

Adding all the decorations

Finished! 

There was some special sort of "knighting" thing we had to do with them. 

If you go to a Finnish University you get student overalls that you can put patches and things on, sort of like a rotary blazer. Liisa had been waiting for ages to get hers and then they finally arrived! She thinks she looks a bit like the purple tele-tubbie, I have to agree. 

We were in Oulu for a graduation party, the dinner was in this really neat old building. 

You could really start to notice it getting lighter this month, this was taken at almost 10 at night!

Looking for eggs on Easter morning.

Sucess! Chocolate eggs are pretty serious business.

Tiina's collection

We went down to the beach in the evening and the lake has completely thawed out.

A Lada, made in the Soviet Union. 

At the end of the month Eeva dyed my hair. It was a deep sort of red colour and its so subtle you can only really see it if its really sunny.