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. 

Ana, me and Karkku!

Aaron and I about to collide, I fell of seconds later! 

Testing it out, I wasn't brave enough to go from the top. 

I love this photo! You can't really see it here but we are all mid way through crashing XD

WHEEEE! 

The cool kids group

Reeta and I

Kiitos Reeta!! 

I have a big head.....

Dancing, hahahaha Linda! 

Our Finnish teacher Anni

Day 4 of Karkku

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY! 

This morning we were up early as usual and we had 3 hours of lessons, during our lessons the sun came out! The actual sun was shining! :O We all went out and took photos and it was nice to have some sunlight! We played lots of games in lessons today and we learnt how to tell the time, the weather and some pieces of clothing. After lunch we had a big cake that Eugenia host parents had sent to camp for her 18^th birthday! After that we got on the bus to head to TAMPERE! The trip took about an hour and was pretty boring but it was exciting when we got there because it was our first Finnish city because Helsinki doesn’t really count because we only saw the airport. First up was a tour on the bus and it was really interesting, we stopped at two churches and also a park right at the top of the city and the view was pretty speccy. It was a really nice city but it was freezing, It got to about -20! After the tour we went shopping! Our first stop was H &M, a few of our tutors said it was the best store ever, i'd only heard of it because of CS. Anyway I got a beanie that was only 5 Euros and when I went to pay the lady said something which I thought might have been do you want a bag so I just said joo, which is yes and so then she said something really long and fast at me and I just had to nod my head and give her my money! We went to this huge department store, like Kmart but with EVERYTHING! We stopped at Heseburger for some noms and the burger was pretty good but it didn’t taste that different to McDonalds but I know there are Finns who will disagree with me here!  After that we hopped back on the bus and headed back to camp were we were treated to a lovely performance by the Karkku church band. We played some more strange games which included Finnish bowling and that was really awesome! I will have to buy a set of those pins and ship them home. 

The sun! 

Playing spin the pencil

Happy 18th Birthday!

Pretty Stain-glass in the first church

Creepy painting in the church, it has a nice meaning behind it though, something like the skeletons are tending to our souls before they go to heaven. 

The view from the park

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!

The organ in the second church. 

Day 2 and 3 of Karkku

I am in Kiuruvesi now! I had a wonderful first night and also first day and there will be a longer post about that later. Here are just some quick summaries I wrote up a few days ago. 

Day 2 of Karrku

In the morning we had our first Finnish lesson, it was very good and the Finnish language is very logical so once you understand it, you just need to practise a lot to remember it all! We played a small ice breaker game where we had a finnish word with the same letter as our name and I was Joulupukki! SANTA!!

Sometime between the end of our first lesson and lunch it started snowing again so we all went outside and danced in the snow and took some pictures. The next lesson was on the alphabet and the different sounds that all the letters make, I was pretty stoked with myself because I can roll my r’s! Its one of those things some people just can’t do, like folding your tongue. Our teacher said that the Finnish president can’t roll her r’s! Kahvi and pulla time as usual and then out onto the soccer field for some snow soccer!! It was great fun but a bit slippery! There was a bit of dispute about one of the goals but our team definitely won ;) I got into a snow fight with Jooel but he is much stronger than me so he just threw me into the snow, which was good fun!

We had a quick presentation about Sauna after that and it was very interesting! One thing all the Finns told us was that we had to jump in the lake, It is a finnish thing and everyone does it! The lady giving the talk said only about 20 percent of Finns actually jump in the lake so we’d all been tricked! I don’t really see why they are so scared of it. I was talking to my host sister and she was surprised that I had actually gone in the lake because she had never done it hersef, I thought that was pretty funny.

I had my first clueless encounter with a finnish person today, I was going to the office to get my laptop and a little girl who looked about 7 looked at me and jabbered something at me and I just smiled and nodded at her and she giggled at me! There are two little girls that are sometimes running around the rooms, they sometimes come up to us with their wrists stuck together with tape, giggling their heads off , they are the cutest! I skipped sauna today because I was feeling a bit sick and it was also especially cold. When we went down to the sauna lounge we played this strange clappy game that I was really bad at and we all watched multiple people try to beat beth at speed, it got pretty intense while Lewis was playing because he almost beat her at one point!

Fast Finnish Fact # 1: There are more saunas’ in Finland then there are cars.

Joulupukki: Santa

My first snow!

Playing soccer

Go light coloured jacket team!

A cool shot I got of the trees

The weird clappy game

Karkku day 3

Today was amazing! Plain and simple! In the morning we had lessons which included the months, the seasons and also numbers. At the start of lessons we did this hilarious song and dance which basically documents the life of a banana including being digested and then being popped! We play the strangest games here! When lessons were over at about 3, we had a slideshow presentation about life in Finland which included all the holidays and what sort of things the Finns do during the year. It was very interesting and we learnt a few funny things about the Finns but I can’t remember any specifics right now. We also learnt all about Christmas and joulupukki and who should turn up as were talking about him but Joulupukki himself! We all sat on joulupukki's lap and he gave us finnish lollies. We had a delicious dinner then we all went and got rugged up for our wilderness training! There was this beautiful husky dog that went with one of the groups and while we were waiting we all fussed over him.

Then we split into groups and I was in the bear (karhu) group, our first activity was finnish crepe pancake things which were called lätty, We cooked them on a fry pan with a really long handle over the fire. We ate them with jam and sugar and they were delicious! After that we had a shot at cooking some finnish sausages or makkara, ou cook then on a long stick like a marshmallow, so not straight onto the fire but more over the coals. We went for a short walk down to the ice cave which was like an igloo but its just snow compacted together, it was so awesome! It had two chambers and you had to slide under and then slide up into the main chamber which had a hole in the bottom for our feet. It was really warm inside; we were all sweating by the time we got out. We learnt about how to make them so that they’re safe and you have enough oxygen! We had a quick shot at this weird spear thing that you sort of throw with this weird pole thing but we didn’t stay long because to do it you had to have your gloves off and the temperature was down to about -18 so it was freezing! We had try at the snow shoes and they were really fun! I stopped to take a picture of Sophie and then she said she’d take one of me and I stepped backwards not knowing the snow sloped and I fell straight in and this was almost waist deep snow so I had to get pulled out :P After we had all had a shot we trekked about halfway across the river to where they had a fire set up and some ice fishing! Lewis got to pull the line in and it actually had a fish on it! We got to try digging the hole which includes drilling the holes and then cutting the rest out with a funny scissor/ spear thing. We also tried the salmon that had been cooked on the fire and there were some ice sculptures there that a famous ice sculptor had made! He let us ruin them though by having a shot at the carving. We all joined up as a big group now and by this time most of us were freezing! We went for a short walk back to the campsite but halfway through our leader told us to stop and be really quiet and not use our camera flashes. I looked over and there was this big brown shadow curled up beside a tree and a lot of people were OMG its an actual bear!! The nature guy threw a snowball at it and it didn’t move and then he threw another and it got up and started running towards us! It was obvious as soon as it stood up it wasn’t an actual bear, I think if I had actually thought about it, awakening a real bear in front of 30 exchange students should have seemed a bit suspicious! That concluded our wilderness night and we all went inside and got a diploma saying we survived the finnish wilderness! Yay!

Makkara : Sausage

Lätty: Pancake/Crepe

Karhu: Bear

Joulopukki! He looks an awful lot like Jooel... hmmm

Husky!

Cooking our lätty

Group shot! 

In the ice cave!

Christina, Eamon, Me and Sophie's glove

The fishing hole

FISH!

Drill that hole!

Carve that ice!

ARGGGGHHHH!! BEAR!!! 

Day 1 of Karkku

So I am going to try very hard to make myself update my blog, I really love it when I have a completed post but it is a bit of effort to sit down and write them and get the best pictures and then upload all the others but I will try for you all!

So for those that don’t know all the southern hemisphere inbounds for Finland all go to an orientation camp for the first week and we learn Finnish language and culture and do Finnish things! The camp runs till Saturday and then our host families pick us up!

Day 1 of Karkku

We were awoken to one of our tutors banging on the tour telling us to wake up or we will miss breakfast! Breakfast was rice bubbles, rolls with ham, cheese and tomato and two types of porridge. I accidently put buttermilk on my rice bubbles and all the tutors laughed at me! After breakfast we had a bit of time to our selves so Ana, Miki, Sophie and I went for a bit of a walk around the grounds and to take some photos. Everything is so magical here, it is just so hard to explain and my pictures really don’t do it any justice. The snow is the brightest white and the trees are amazing, as most of you have probably heard me say already! We had a quick intro session and we met all the Tutors, most of them are past exchange students so they know exactly how we are feeling! They are all really nice and my groups tutor is Reeta and she went to Germany for her exchange. Then straight on to kahvi time which is coffee for those non-Finns out there. kahvi time is actually in our schedule everyday, kahvi and Pulla is a very important time of the day for Finns. Pulla is a bit like a cinnamon scroll except not quite as soft and much yummier! I love kahvi and pulla time!

TREES!

Camp

My First Photo in Suomi!

Kahvi and Pulla (also chocolate cake)

I got to talk to dad for a bit and sent some emails and photos home, to me it felt like I’d only been gone a day but it was more like 3 especially with the time difference! After computer time we all had a shot at trying the pulkka which is Finnish for sled. This was insanely fun! At first we were just going down the small driveway into the forest but then we moved on to the main driveway into the camp and you actually get quite a bit of speed and it is great fun! Unfortunately I didn’t really get a picture of me on the Pulkka but someone else has one and when I find out who it is, I will post the picture here! So I thought that nothing could get anymore awesome than sliding down the snow on the pulkka but after tea we had to get ready for Sauna! Pronounced Sah-oo-nah by the way, it seems the western world stole the word and then decided they didn’t like how it was said! Anyway Sauna= AWESOME! You get in the sauna and at first it is a bit unpleasant because it is really hot and I mean really hot! We averaged at about 65 degrees, the whole time, after a while it actually feels really nice and you slowly work out how to breathe properly and the feeling that you are being cooked sort of goes away. After you’re all warmed up, you pull your socks on and make a mad dash down the steps and wait your turn to go in the lake. This is outside in the -5 degree cold with only our underwear on! Anyway then you go down the ladder into the lake and just sort of wade around for a bit until it is just way to cold and you scramble out and run as fast as you can back into the sauna to warm back up! The first time I only got up to my knees in the water because it is freezing! Your whole body goes numb! The second time I went all the way up to my shoulders which is as far as you should go because the cold water is very bad for your head. That time felt much nicer because your body is cooling and heating up at the same rate. Hmm I’m not explaining it very well! After a bit somehow we all managed to start a snow fight inside the sauna because there is a bucket of snow that you can rub on yourself if you get a bit hot. It was so fun but very un-Finnish! Saunas are for deep thinking and reflection on the meaning of life, not snow fights and giggles! We all had a good time so we can be proper Finns later!

Towards the end a few of us decided to jump in the snow right after the sauna and that was even colder than the ice because the snow sticks to you and it is a lot more sudden too because with the lake you have to lower your self down whereas the snow is just boom! I think I enjoyed that a bit more than the ice but maybe that’s because the sauna was a lot closer to get back inside afterwards!

The Sauna

After everyone had enough Sauna we all piled into the lounge room and played a few games; Mafia, Charades and wink murder. Then it was off to bed! That night I woke up at 5am because I was still a tiny bit jetlagged which was very annoying but I decided I would use that opportunity to write in my journal so I came out into the lounge and it was snowing outside!!! Only a tiny little bit but it was the first time I’d ever seen it snow, I was a bit devastated though because by the time I’d walked the 10 steps to my room to get my camera, it had stopped! :(

Anyway thus ends my first full day in Finland and was it one of the best days of my life? Yes, yes it very much was!

Day 2 to follow soon!

Some Finnish words you should have learnt

Kahvi – Coffee

Pulla – Finnish Cinnamon Scroll

Pulkka – Sled

Going for a walk

More Trees!

The lake we jumped into

Snow Angels!

So beautiful

Delicious Lunch

Pulkka!

Happy Australia Day everyone! We are going to Tampere tomorrow for shopping and a bit of sights seeing! It should be awesome but I doubt it will beat the awesomeness that was tonight. I will post about it soon, I am exhausted! I will probably not get any of my photos uploaded until I get to my host family because the internet here is very slow!

xx Julia