My Year In Finland!!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Winter's Approaching

With winter approaching it gets very dark very early. Early as in 4:00 pm. I am not used to this yet and it is very hard to figure out what time it is because my internal clock is so screwed up. It has snowed a few times already but not much is on the ground yet. I leave for Lapland on November 30th which I am very excited for. I can't wait to go skiing and hopefully see the Northern Lights again.

Newbies Arrival

On Januarry 20th the new exchange students arrived in Finland. Apparently since I have been here since August I am now called an Oldie and the new students are called Newbies. I really thinks is a dumb name so I'm not the one that came up with it. haha. So on the 23rd of Januarry the "newbies" go to the city of Tampere from the language camp for the day so some of the oldies and I went to meet them for the 1st time. Its a pretty good group of kids most of which from Austailia and some from South Africa and Argentina.

Thailand

On December 18th 2007 I left for Thailand with my host family. 1st we flew to Bangkok where we spent 4 days seeing the sights and sitting by the pool. Then we took a bus to Pattaya where we spent the rest of our stay in Thailand. We stayed at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort where you had the choice of lounging by the pool or hanging out on the beach. We also got to do a lot of shopping (my host mom's favorite part). We went to a water park and i tried to go bungie jumping but the place was closed. I bet my parents are glad about that. All in all it was a great trip and probably(hopeully not) a once in a lifetime trip.

If the pictues are to small please go to www.picasaweb.google.com/caseives

Lapland

On November 30th all the exchange students in Finland and Estonia went to Finlands famous Lapland. We stayed well into the artic circle. We did things such as downhill and cross country skiing, dog sledding, and snowshoeing. We also got to feed raindeer, get pulled in a sled by raindeer and also eat raindeer. mm mm good. We had a lot of fun seeing all of eachother again since its the 1st time since Karkuu Language Camp in the beginning of August that we were all together again. We also were able to meet the exchange students that came last January from Austrailia and South Africa that were'n at the language camp with my group. In exchange student lingo they are called the oldies and my group are the newbies.

Here is a slide show of my trip. if they are to small for you then you can go to www.picasaweb.google.com/caseives

Jokela Shooting

Estonia

We went to Estonia for District 1420's district conference. We went a few days early to see the sights of Estonia. We got to travel all around Estonia on a bus for 3 days before we went to the conference. We went to castles and got to see the Russian border as well as very old estates. It was a lot of fun.

To see a full slideshow of the pictures i took in Estonia click on the following link or just watch it below. It's kinda small so if you would like to see it bigger click on the link.

www.picasaweb.google.com/caseives

p.s. If the link doesn't work then try copying and pasting because somethimes the link doesn't work. Thanks.

Karku Language Camp

When we arrived in Finland we were immediatly taken to the city of Karku where we stayed at a Finnish boarding school and recived Finnish lessons from teachers and student tutors. The camp lasted gruling days of classroom instruction and fun and games with the other students. We had a blast and it was really nice to meet all the exchange students for the 1st time. We went to sauna for the 1st time, played soccer, swam in the lake, and most of all, learned Finnish. The best part of all was meeting the other students and finding out which one's live close to you and you finally got a glimpse of what your life might be like for the next year.

To see my slide show from Karku Camp click on the link below. If you want to see the pictues in a bigger slide show because there really small. Sorry

picasaweb.google.com/caseives

p.s. If the link doesn't work try copying and pasting it because sometimes it doesn't work but the pictures are still there. Thanks