Month 8ish

So I gotta say I haven't been keeping track of what's going on so I'm going to sum up my month in a couple of sentences. I can finally see the grass outside and it is getting warm, I went to a Stam1na concert which was sweet, I moved into my last family who are really nice, Easter is soon and we get to have Mammi which is a Finnish Easter food which is basically rye bread ground up and liquified then hardened and served with cream, and thats about it.

Month 7

So, its still cold here. I'm not sure when this cold weather will let up but it doesn't seem to be anytime soon. A lot has been going on lately. I've started moving into my new family's house. It's cool cause their son is one of my friends and he speaks great english so I dont have to worry about not talking to someone. I think this will be a good family for me. So usually in America, Valentine's Day is a big thing with couples going to dinner and non-couples going to parties and everyone really celebrating the day. Not like that here in Finland. Actually the only Valentine's Day present I got was from my family in America which was a box of chocolates and some sweet tarts and other candies. They were gone within 2 days. So for Valentine's Day, instead of going to a party or to dinner, I went sledding with the exchange students and rotex (ex-exchange students) which was a lot of fun. For some of the Australians, it was still one of their first times sledding so that was fun. Then after everyone was cold and wet, we went to a coffee house and got hot chocolate. That was a good day. Not what I would have done in America but it was definitely fun. So, if you remember from my previous blogs, I said I was doing this Oldies Dance at school, which is basically Finnish Prom. The prom has come and gone now. It was a lot of fun really. I didn't get a real tux because I don't have 300 euros to spend on that for one night. So I just wore my America suit and it was fine. The dance itself was cool. We did it in another school's gym. I was a little jealous that one school got to dance in the city castle's ballroom but it was no big deal. All in all a good night. Most people went to dinner or a party after that, but I went and hung out with my new host brother and we saw some friends later. It was really cool. I am going to Sweden with my family for the next week so that will be a really fun adventure. I am just hoping to have a good time and hopefully theres someone my age I can talk to. So I went to Sweden and basically it was just sight seeing and shopping. Like thats it there was nothing really exciting. I did get to see some of my exchange student friends on the island between Sweden and Finland but that was about it. Seriously. I mean yeah there were some old churches and stuff but when you've seen Notre Dame, nothing really compares to it. I moved families finally. They didn't have a second family for me so I moved with my friends family. I enjoyed my stay with the other family and I am very excited about my new one. I think this will be a great family for my last 4 months. Wow guys, 4 months and 6 days from today I will be on a plane back to America. Crazy how time flys..

Month 6

It was a party for 6. The going away/birthday party was today. 3 people turned 18 and 3 people are leaving. Among the 3 leaving is Australian Matthew. This yeah, Matthew has been my mentor, my teacher, and my good friend. I realized that night that all good things eventually do come to an end. It is only a few days left until he and all of the other Australians leave for home. Though I am very sad to watch them go, I know I will see some of them again. I do not know when or where, but I will. The party was alright. It was a dancing party with some little games planned in but I'm not really a party kind of person so I mostly just talked with friends and hung out. My parties are people hanging out and talking, I've never been into dancing really. I prefer a campfire and a guitar and 5 a company. Those are the best. Today they left. It was a very sad day. I went to the airport to see them all off. At first I was with a couple of other newbies but they all had to leave after a while. I hung out with Matthew just talking about stuff and the year and the future. After a while Ashley came. Then Jade. Then all the rest started pouring in. We went to the terminal and I said goodbye to everyone and went home. I had stayed up all night with them in the airport. It was a very sad day. Mia's birthday was today. It was the first party I had gone to in a while and I was glad to go. Mia is a Finnish girl who came on exchange to America last year. So I got to hang out with her and Alex (from Florida) in Tampere which was really nice. So then on Wednesday we finally got to meet our newbies. I cant really say how that was. It was great having newbies but at the same time its sad because now I only have 5 months left on exchange. It's amazing that these 6 months have gone by so fast and so much has happened, even though it feels like I've been here for a little more than 2 weeks, if that. The newbies though, they were cool. It's kinda hard still because I compare them to my oldies and it's impossible to compare to them. So I guess in time I will come to see them not as taking the oldies' spots but as making new spots for themselves. I can't believe I'm an oldie. It really just doesn't feel right. I really have been opened up to the world this year through the eyes of my fellow exchangies and through the people I have met along the way in Finland and before and most definitely after. I have so many plans to go to so many different places all throughout the world before I die. I have a list of some 30 countries I would like to visit. I will visit many of them in Eurotour this year so that will be nice. Also, I applied for this University in Australia which I am almost accepted into. I just have to give a verbal interview and record some original music and send it in to them. I really hope I get in. I've always wanted to do music and now I have the opprotunity to do so on an international level. So when you go on exchange, no one tells you that you will enter a sublevel of poverty... seriously, I'm so broke. I have been sick for the past week. It sucks. But ice cream and coffee will get me through. So I can officially say I know how to Polka, Tango, Waltz, and a couple of other dances. We do them in our oldies "prom" dance class. It's quite fun I must say. I have started recording my songs at school now so I can go to Uni in Australia. I hope to have three songs done before I leave. Hope you enjoyed this.