cold. that about sums up what its like here. no snow, just rain. and cold. LOTS of it. but i like the cold so thats fine. at the request of my host dad, i have started to try and teach my host siblings how to speak english. it is going ok. my 4 year old brother has a speech problem and cant pronounce S's and some other letters so it is not as easy for him as my 6 year old host sister. we took 2nd at the rugby tournament. that was really cool. then after the tournament we got to see Finland play Bulgaria in the first professional rugby game I've ever seen. Though Finland lost, it was still cool to see the game. Exams were this last week though I didn't have to take any besides english. I got to see the best drummer in Finland do an expo at a local place. He was advertising a new drum pedal but we just went to watch him play. It was really cool to see someone with that kind of talent play. It snowed for the first time today. It's not going to stay but I think that there will be lots more to come soon so that will be good. I've lately been getting a lot into The Doors as my choice of music. I'm not sure why cause no one here listens to them but I really like their stuff. My host mom really likes to make food from the things she grows in her garden. Today, we had rubarb pie and ice cream (ice cream not home made) which was really good. I think I should write down some of these recipies to take back to america with me. I have taken to going to sauna almost every night. I really enjoy it and it gives me a good feeling of peace during and after. I live it so much in fact that for my 18th birthday, I have asked my parents to buy me the supplies to build my own sauna back in America. I've done some research on them and they are a lot easier to build than one might think. I really hope I can build one. This last weekend I was at the summer cottage with my host brother Jolle and the rest of the family. We went fishing and caught one fish which was a pretty good sized fish I'd say. We spent the rest of the night playing Halo and eating chips and candy. It was quite a fun weekend. I made American pancakes for breakfast the next day and they all really liked them. I only wish I had made more because they were all gone very fast. It has been quite a quick month. It seems like just last week I arrived here and now I'm 3 months into this. It's been quite an adventure so far.