Saint Petersburg Trip

(travel video at the end of this post)

Rotary gives the exchange students the opportunity to participate in three different trips; Lapland Tour, Russia Tour and Eurotour. I was able to sign up for all of them. After Lapland in November the next tour on the list was Russia. It always seemed to be so far away. End of April, End of my exchange. When it was time to pack for Russia I felt it, I felt the end of exchange waiting around the corner. So far exchange felt like someone pressed the fast-forward button on a remote. Everything goes by so fast and there is not enough time to process. No pause button, no opportunity to slow it down. I can’t believe I’m writing this blogpost already. I can’t believe it’s only a few weeks until I pack my things to attend eurotour.

Previously…

A month since my last blogpost and I decided it’s time to give another life update. You’re very welcome.

Wanhat

Everyone knows the importance of the prom. It plays a role in every cliché american movie and every little girl, living in america or not, dreams of her perfect princessy day. The finnish version of the prom, which is a lot fancier, is Wanhat (translation: the old). The second grader of the upper secondary school dance it to celebrate that they’re now the oldest students of the school.

Koli

When you type in “Finland Winter” into google you’ll see pictures of beautiful forests and  incredible landscapes with trees that carry meters of snow, you’ll see huge frozen lakes and northern lights. When my host family told me we would go and visit Koli in the winter break, I googled it and such pictures came up, I didn’t really think that I would experience that. Too good to be true right? False. We arrived on the first day and drove up to the national park, we had to park our car in a parking lot and when we stepped out the little gondola I saw the trees just like on the photos. It was at night time so I couldn’t see much but what I saw made me incredibly excited for the next few days.

Everyday Life

15.01.2018 – 21.02.2018

I filmed a week in my life here in Finland and put it together into this video. It’s quite long, but it represents my everyday life here well, so if you’re interested watch it til the end.

Christmas, New Years and Missing Home

I’m a little bit lazy when it comes to writing blogposts. So this will be a summary of things that happened since Lapland Tour that were originally supposed to be separate posts. Basically a short Update in life and emotions

Moving families

Lapland Tour was over on Wednesday. Moving day was Saturday. I still suffered from withdrawals and was emotionally not in the best state. But the second of december was the day they decided it to be, so that would be it. The first chapter of my exchange ended. I would need to get used to another family. To another environment and other people. New rules, new feelings, new everything.

Lapland Tour

Where to begin? It has been 14 days after this trip ended. And I can just tell you that it was one of the best experiences in my entire life.

100 days

Today marks exactly 100 days since I went on a plane and flew to Finland. 100 days of experiencing exchange student life. 100 days of not seeing my family and friends in Germany. 100 days of having a different life in a foreign country with a foreign language… A third of my exchange is already over. And I can’t believe how fast that happened. Only three more weeks until I’ll pack my stuff again and move into a different family. Only two weeks until my first trip with all the exchange students. It’s unbelievable how time goes by so fast and still feels like slow-motion. In honor of that 100 days I’ll give you a little update.

From missing hugs and Salmiakki

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.”

Coming here was a good decision. And arriving here was, unexpectedly, very easy. I didn’t have a big culture shock, in fact; I didn’t have one at all. But even tho it really is similar to Germany, there are still some smaller and bigger differences, I just wanted to mention.

Time flies

Time flies.”

This is a term many people use. It’s a thing that you get told a lot in your live. And I’m absolutely sure everybody knows what it means. Yet I’m writing this and can’t believe how two months gone by in a blink of an eye.

A mökki experience

24 hours of nature.

Last weekend my family decided to show me the Finnish mökki life. With no flowing water, no normal toilet, no make-up, no good clothes, no heater, no wifi. I was pretty excited. On Saturday we were supposed to leave. In the morning it was raining really bad. But my host family decided to go anyways. We first drove an hour with the car until we reached a very small bay. We put our rain clothes on and waited for their grandpa to arrive. He came with a little motor boat. It was still raining and the sea was kinda rough. We put all the food and clothes into the boat and started. I didn’t watch the clock but I would guess it took 40 minutes to get to the Island. The waves were not really big, but still rough.