Off To Finland: Day 5 and 6 of Karkku

Day 5 of Karkku

Same as always 4 hours of lessons broken up by a cool Finnish dance called Letkajenkka (click here for a video because its too hard to explain), kahvi and lunch. We played fruit salad with Finnish fruits and we got to colour in! It is nice being back in reception :P After we were all finished for the day Sophie, Lewis one of our tutors Linda and I went out in search of my first Finnish cache and first cache ever for the others. It was only a 200 m walk but we had to swim through the snow for a little bit of it. When we arrived at GZ, Sophie went straight to one of the caches and Linda went straight to the other one! There were two of them because the first one is in the base of the tree and had there been any more snow, it would have been very hard to reach! The winter version was hanging a tree and we all signed it and then headed back. I was very happy that id found a Finnish cache because I didn’t think I would be able to for a month at least because there aren’t a lot of caches in my city. We had a talk on a summer language camp that happens in Turku, it is a camp for Finnish student to learn English and each year they take on a few exchange students as tutours because it helps the Finns with English and also the Aussies with their finnish. It sounds like fun but it has a focus on drama and I suck at drama and I think there are other people better suited to teaching than me so I didn’t apply. After tea we had a break so we all played British Bulldog which is an intense game! It is like all over red rover but there is a bulldog in the middle who, when the people try to run across, has to cacth them and lift them entirely off the ground. The girls were caught pretty easily because they are pretty light and one guy could pick us up but for the guys sometimes we need 4 or 5 people to hold them down and then try and pick them while they are still trying to kick and squirm free! Click here! The last variation is what we were playing. Afterwards we all walked about 50 minutes to Karkku church and it was FREEZING! By the time we got there I could not feel the backs of my legs and my nose felt like it would snap off. The service was really nice we sung 2 hymns in English and one in Finnish. Our Swedish teacher gave a short little sermon and one of our tutors did a bible reading. On the way back I talked to our Swedish teacher about uni in Finland and what kids do after they finish school. I also saw my first Finnish train on the way to the church which I thought my dad might like. :)

Playing a game, clearly Maddy is interested...

hahahahahaha You have to plug your car in so it doesn't freeze!

First cache with Sophie and Lewis

The Karkku church

Day 6 of Karkku

Today in lessons instead of a game we had to write a letter to our future sleves about our fears and hopes for our exchange and we get to open them on Lapland tour. I was very unimaginative with my letter because I have tried to have no expectations and focusing on a fear sometimes makes you fear it more so I was finding it hard to find things to write. After lunch we had our last Karrku lesson :( We got chocolate for the lovely reeta and we danced to mikä boogie and we all got diplomas! Yay! A bunch of us went sledding after this and the amazing Ana managed to get a photo of me on the sleds! Thank you Ana!! We tried to make a train at one point but no matter who tried to “drive” we kept running in to the snow and piling up in a big heap of limbs, sleds and snow! Afterwards we played floor ball with sleds! It was so much fun! I paired up with Christina and we were a super team! We scored 2 goals! Our team; Team poro (reindeer) won 4-0! :D This was also an intense game and there were quite a few pile ups and me being me I managed to get in the middle of one too. Afterwards we had a talk form Paavo, one of the rotary representatives; it was really about the rules we have to follow etc etc. They are a lot stricter with travel than I expected so the possibility of maybe going somewhere else but Finland with Jenny may be a bit hard but I don’t care because there is plenty to see in Finland alone! I got to talk to dad for a little just before the talk and the weather over there is crazy! Nippers and a carnival had been cancelled because it was just too hot! Glad I am in Finland and not the 40 degree heat!

We had our cosy night which was really funny Kim did an awesome Aussie rap, Laura and Miki played the piano, Eamon did a Finnish poem, Constance and Christine did a new Zealand chant dance/song thing, Eugenia showed us this strange game that I was hopeless at and the tutors did a funny skit. We also played the strangest game I have ever played in my life it was called “if you love me will you smile?” or something like that. It is very hard to describe but there is a person in the middle who goes up to someone in the circle and they have to say to them “if you love me, you will smile for me” and they can touch their face or their hair or whatever they want and its supposed to be so ridiculous that the person smiles or laughs and then they are in the middle. If they manage to keep a straight face long enough they say; “I do love you but I can not smile” at the start we all thought it was the most hilarious thing ever because these people that we barely knew were trying to seduce us into laughing so everyone laughed at the start. We broke for tea which included a staring contest between Alpi and Miki and Miki own! We played the game again and because everyone had gotten over the initial shock of it we all had to start being a little more creative and it got very creepy! After we stopped playing some stayed and just hung around and I went and had a shower and went to sleep! I also posted my first Finnish facebook status that day which was a detail about my family and the ages of all my brothers and sisters. I was pretty chuffed with myself but in truth it was pretty basic there were like two conjugations in the whole thing so it was really just vocabulary.