Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thanksgiving!!
Yesterday, Saturday, was one of the first Thanksgivings that Finland has seen. It was quite a largish celebration. I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of Kirsi already preparing the pumpkin pie crust - so I hurried downstairs to help. We cooked most of the day; we stopped at about 4:30. By 5:30 all of the guests were here (almost all the exchange students in Porvoo plus some of my Finnish friends, including: two Italian girls, a Belgian girl, a German girl, a Japanese boy, a Thai girl, plus four Finns). A reporter even came from the local newspaper to ask us questions about Thanksgiving, our exchanges, and life in Porvoo. I started out by asking what people knew about Thanksgiving. The answers were mainly "Kalkkunaa, kiítetään...", "Turkey, people are thankful...". So I gave them a brief history of Thanksgiving and why we celebrate it today. Then we went around again, and everybody said what they were thankful for in their native language. Then, after a few more questions from the reporter, we began to eat. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, lingonberry sauce, salad, and a side of cooked mushrooms. For dessert we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I think everyone liked the food; Kirsi and Jari are wonderful cooks. The decorations during the meal were also quite something. Kirsi had gone out a couple of days before to buy special Thanksgiving decorations, so all of the colors during the meal were matching, with many deep reds and browns. After dinner we just chatted away for a couple of hours until everyone had to go home. It was an amazing Thanksgiving, so much more than I ever could have hoped for in a country were pumpkin puree is so difficult to find (we had to get it from Helsinki!). And much of it was due to Jari and Kirsi helping out, so I'm obviously extremely grateful to them. Next stop on the Holiday train: Christmas =D.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A Heartfelt Apology...sniff sniff. Plus some cool stuff
My family and others have pointed out (and it's entirely true) that I have been writing lots about what I've been doing on weekends (where I've been traveling and so on), but not so much about what life in Porvoo is like. The reason for that, I think, is that I am now so accustomed to life in Porvoo that I don't think about it any more. BUT now I realize that all you followers of my blog don't live here with me, and you still may be interested to learn all these Finnish cultural things that I already take for granted.
So: I will begin to write about (and take pictures of) life in Porvoo more, and will think more about my exchange, and how I felt at the beginning of it as compared to now. For now, here are some interesting facts:
Finnish toilets never have levers to flush them. Most have two buttons on the top: one triggers a large flow of water, the other small.
There are no chocolate chips in Finland.
There are no doorknobs in Finland, only handles.
Finns consume an incredible amount of potatoes, fish, milk, and rye bread.
Pretty much every person here chews Xylitol gum (look it up, it's pretty cool).
Every Finnish home has a sauna.
Most families have two homes - one in the city in which they spent most of their time while working, and another in the country by a lake to spend the summer in.
Salmiakki, a Finnish black liquorice, is really big here.
The Finns have an amazing system for their blankets and comforters. Everyone knows it's a pain to wash them (a pain to wash comforters, not the Finns). That's why we use top sheets. But I personally don't like top sheets - they come untucked quite easily and they always end up jammed down at your feet. So the Finnish system: you have a comforter-case, much like a pillow case. That way you can sleep right against the comforter and not worry about having to wash it - because Voilà! you can just wash the comforter case.
So: I will begin to write about (and take pictures of) life in Porvoo more, and will think more about my exchange, and how I felt at the beginning of it as compared to now. For now, here are some interesting facts:
Finnish toilets never have levers to flush them. Most have two buttons on the top: one triggers a large flow of water, the other small.
There are no chocolate chips in Finland.
There are no doorknobs in Finland, only handles.
Finns consume an incredible amount of potatoes, fish, milk, and rye bread.
Pretty much every person here chews Xylitol gum (look it up, it's pretty cool).
Every Finnish home has a sauna.
Most families have two homes - one in the city in which they spent most of their time while working, and another in the country by a lake to spend the summer in.
Salmiakki, a Finnish black liquorice, is really big here.
The Finns have an amazing system for their blankets and comforters. Everyone knows it's a pain to wash them (a pain to wash comforters, not the Finns). That's why we use top sheets. But I personally don't like top sheets - they come untucked quite easily and they always end up jammed down at your feet. So the Finnish system: you have a comforter-case, much like a pillow case. That way you can sleep right against the comforter and not worry about having to wash it - because Voilà! you can just wash the comforter case.
Moosehunting in the Finnish Wilderness of Ylämaa...bang bang!
So last weekend I went to my second host family's house (conveniently located but 500 meters from my current host family's), from which we drove two hours to the town of Ylämaa in eastern Finland, which is very close to the Russian border. There, we stayed with Taina's (my second host mother's) mother, but Taina's brother and sister were also very near. We got in late at night, so I went practically straight to bed for my beauty sleep. The next morning I woke up to fog and rain (boo!), and I was picked up by Taina's brother (I guess he would be my host uncle) to go hunting. We were in a small group, and we used a dog to try to sniff out the moose. There was another much larger group that lined up horizontally and walked through the woods to try to find them. My group didn't get any moose this weekend, but the larger group got one or two, so I got a largish hunk of moose meat to take back to my host family.
The woods in eastern Finland are quite different than those in Alaska. There was a lot of springy moss and extremely tall pine trees, and not much else.
Anyways, it was wonderful to see what the Finnish country life was like (it's very much like the Alaskan), becuase before this last weekend I had only been in cities.
The woods in eastern Finland are quite different than those in Alaska. There was a lot of springy moss and extremely tall pine trees, and not much else.
Anyways, it was wonderful to see what the Finnish country life was like (it's very much like the Alaskan), becuase before this last weekend I had only been in cities.
Stockholm Trip / Rotary Camp in Tammisaari (Ekenäs)
Two weekends ago, I went with my host family to Stockholm by ship! 'Twas a fantastic trip, naturally. We left from Helsinki at about 6 in the evening, bags stowed away in our surprisingly spacious cabins. The ship had lots of different types of entertainment, from shopping and dining to karaoke and dancing. After exploring most of the ship, eating dinner, singing some karaoke, and watching lots of black jack, we went to bed - and woke up just outside of Stockholm.
The area was absolutely gorgeous, as far as I could tell (it was foggy and snowing at the time). There were largish, pine covered hills with perfectly spaced chunks of granite poking out here and there, and the snow added a mystical and quiet aura to the air. After eating breakfast on the ship, we went out into Stockholm. It was incredibly beautiful (even more beautiful than Helsinki, I must admit) for two reasons. The first reason is that the city was never bombed in any war, so the buildings standing today are quite old and nice. The second is that the city has so much water in the middle of it (much of the city is built on islands), you can see across various bays and bodies of water to the other parts of the city. It was really nice to have that much visibility - it didn't feel crowded at all.
We first went to the Terracotta warrior exhibit (the Terracotta warriors from China, slightly famous, you may have heard of them). There were about 130 of the figures there. I was startled by the intricacy and detail put into them all those years ago - and by how much that intricicy has been preserved.
We then went sight seeing and shopping in the old part of Stockholm. I tried "kokosbollar", a very Swedish sweet consisting of nuts, chocolate, coconut, and some sort of cream filling. Quite tasty indeed. Then I met up with Liz Streeter, an Alaskan exchange student living in Stockholm. We had gotten to know each other in Alaska before we left for our exchanges. With her I saw some other parts of Stockholm, and then we went Fika-ing (a sort of going-for-coffee plus socializing art form...I didn't really understand it). And then it was back to the ship! Late that night the Helsinki-bound ship stopped in Ahvenanmaaa (Åland) to load and unload a few cars. Ahvenanmaa is officially part of Finland, but as it is an "autonomous region", it has its own flag, laws, and language (Swedish).
The next morning we were back in Helsinki, and I went straight from the ship's harbor to the center of Helsinki to cath the bus that would take me to the location of our Rotary camp, Tammisaari (Ekenäs). That day, the exchange students in my Rotary district (1420, if you want to know) and I just spent some time visiting, playing games, and dancing. The next morning we talked a bit about how our exchange has been going to far, and what our goals are in the near future for exhange. My main goal for now is the language. Finns do appreciate it when they are spoken to in Finnish, rather than English. I think too many exchange students in Finland don't learn even a bit of Finnish, and to me that was rather sad. Thus, it is my goal to learn as much Finnish as possible in the rest of the year.
Anyway, after that it was back to Porvoo for another week of school...which I really don't mind so much. :D
The area was absolutely gorgeous, as far as I could tell (it was foggy and snowing at the time). There were largish, pine covered hills with perfectly spaced chunks of granite poking out here and there, and the snow added a mystical and quiet aura to the air. After eating breakfast on the ship, we went out into Stockholm. It was incredibly beautiful (even more beautiful than Helsinki, I must admit) for two reasons. The first reason is that the city was never bombed in any war, so the buildings standing today are quite old and nice. The second is that the city has so much water in the middle of it (much of the city is built on islands), you can see across various bays and bodies of water to the other parts of the city. It was really nice to have that much visibility - it didn't feel crowded at all.
We first went to the Terracotta warrior exhibit (the Terracotta warriors from China, slightly famous, you may have heard of them). There were about 130 of the figures there. I was startled by the intricacy and detail put into them all those years ago - and by how much that intricicy has been preserved.
We then went sight seeing and shopping in the old part of Stockholm. I tried "kokosbollar", a very Swedish sweet consisting of nuts, chocolate, coconut, and some sort of cream filling. Quite tasty indeed. Then I met up with Liz Streeter, an Alaskan exchange student living in Stockholm. We had gotten to know each other in Alaska before we left for our exchanges. With her I saw some other parts of Stockholm, and then we went Fika-ing (a sort of going-for-coffee plus socializing art form...I didn't really understand it). And then it was back to the ship! Late that night the Helsinki-bound ship stopped in Ahvenanmaaa (Åland) to load and unload a few cars. Ahvenanmaa is officially part of Finland, but as it is an "autonomous region", it has its own flag, laws, and language (Swedish).
The next morning we were back in Helsinki, and I went straight from the ship's harbor to the center of Helsinki to cath the bus that would take me to the location of our Rotary camp, Tammisaari (Ekenäs). That day, the exchange students in my Rotary district (1420, if you want to know) and I just spent some time visiting, playing games, and dancing. The next morning we talked a bit about how our exchange has been going to far, and what our goals are in the near future for exhange. My main goal for now is the language. Finns do appreciate it when they are spoken to in Finnish, rather than English. I think too many exchange students in Finland don't learn even a bit of Finnish, and to me that was rather sad. Thus, it is my goal to learn as much Finnish as possible in the rest of the year.
Anyway, after that it was back to Porvoo for another week of school...which I really don't mind so much. :D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)