Kuopio

Saturday 19^th of February

I was up super early today because I was catching the train to Sillinjarvi to meet my oldie, (It’s a rotary thing) Josh. Antti drove me to the bus stop but we waited like 20 minutes and the bus never came so Antti had to drive me to Iisalmi. We talked about living in the countryside on the way there because he lives in a big city now. Everything is a lot more untouched in the countryside compared to the big cities and the light pollution isn’t really a problem so the stars are a lot brighter. You have to pay to use the toilets in the train station! So weird! The train ride went really quick and Josh’s host dad picked me up when I got off, we had kahvi and cake and just chilled out and then we drove into Kuopio and we watched the Ice Marathon for a little bit but it was boring and kind off cold so we didn't spend long. We just walked around for a while and went in the shops, mostly to get out of the cold because it was freezing! We decided to see if we could find a cache but I only had one battery and when we went to find some the automatic doors closed on my face, it was so embarrassing :P It was lucky that when I turned on the GPS there was a cache only 40 m from us so we wandered over but the GZ was fenced of by a sign saying “don’t cross because of falling icicles” being the Aussie and determined cacher I am, I stepped over the fence and grabbed the cache in a few seconds. It was Josh’s first cache and I think he was pretty impressed. We had lunch after that at a Chinese place and it was good, although very spicy which is strange for Chinese food.  We walked to the sport hall after that and it was SO COLD! The sport hall was really cool, it had a small soccer pitch in the middle, a climbing wall, a running track, a volleyball court, a gymnastics area, high jump, long jump and even pole vault! We messed around with Hula hoops and played volleyball until we had to leave. Back at home we watched a documentary on strange foods and it just so happened the guy was in Australia for this episode! Can I say coincidence? We cooked tacos and spaghetti after that and they tasted good even though our pasta sauce was a bit runny. We played cards after tea and I taught Josh speed and Canasta. We played this cool game with his host sister and her boyfriend where you have to build trains across America. I came second. His host family had this adorable old dog that would come up to you and stick its head between your knees and demand pats, he made me miss my Clayton :( It was Papa’s birthday today as well and he was in my mind a lot. I am glad he isn’t sick or in pain anymore. Happy Birthday Papa, I miss you.

Coming down from that tower is a ski jump thing! 

The cool game we played. 

                            

Sunday

Didn’t have to get up so early today, we had brekkie and then I got dropped off at the Train station. It was really great to spend time Josh and his family but I found myself missing my host family which made me smile :) On the train there was a girl with a beanie that said “bad hair day” which made me giggle because that’s really not why you wear a beanie. I’d want one that said “I like warm ears” :P Antti, Liisa and Tiina picked me up from Iisalmi and we drove straight into the city were another minister person was a doing a speech. It was a sort of rally for support thing I believe. I pretended to know what was going on and tried to count the number of words that I understood and I only counted 9 which I felt was a little low. We went shopping after that and drove home and cooked dinner and Antti and Liisa told me all about the Finnish Army and it was very interesting. Ville and Antti were both in the Army and Pauli is now. It is compulsory for all men up till a certain age and if you don’t go you do a different sort of service and if you don’t do that you can go to jail. Liisa said I may get to go to Kajanni where Pauli’s army training is which would be pretty interesting! After lunch Antti and Liisa left and I played with Tiina and talked to mum.