Aussie Summer to Finnish Winter!

Goodbye Mum and Dad!- Adelaide Airport

Farewell Australia!- Melbourne Airport

These last 2 weeks have been crazy! I think my flight time was almost 30 hours not including stop overs! Our flight itinerary was in local times so some of us didn't realise how big the time differences were and what we thought was only a 6 hour flight (already long enough!) from Singapore to Heathrow was actually 14 hours or so and that was only 1 stretch out of 4! It was at this realisation that I resigned myself to death by boredom! Boy was I glad when I finally landed in Helsinki! 

It was 5pm and already so dark! It felt like the middle of the night! I had watched the sun set out of my window on the plane as we flew over Sweden and came over Finland, so beautiful! Before take-off in Heathrow the pilot told us the current weather in Helsinki… -30˚C! Luckily for us it ‘warmed up’ to about -20˚C by the time we arrived… Still a shock to us Aussies coming out of the Australian Summer! Although we were lucky that it was a relatively cool day around 28˚C when we left so it was easy to wear pants without dying from the heat.

Us Aussies arrived a day before we were due at orientation camp so Helsinki Rotary had organised us to stay with families in the city for the night. Jemima and I stayed with an absolutely amazing family! They were so lovely! That night we walked their dog with their two teenage girls, Elise and Iiris, but we were back within 10 minutes as we were all frozen to the core! The perfect night for Jemima and I to experience our first Finnish sauna! It was so nice to defrost and warm up!

A casual January day the beach...

The next day the family showed us around Helsinki which included going to the beach. For some reason I don’t understand, I knew that their lakes froze but didn’t even consider that their beaches would freeze too! We walked on the sea! There were people with ski’s there as well! It was really a weird concept for my Aussie mind but they were just as gob smacked that our beaches are always flowing, even in our winter! It was really sad to leave the family that night when they took us to the bus stop for camp. I’d had such a great time! I have a year though, so I plan to go back down and see them at some point.

A nice dip in the lake

Camp was a lot of fun. Along with about 6 hours of language lessons each day we also had the chance to do a lot of activities. Twice we went to sauna and had the chance to dip in the hole in the frozen lake and roll in the snow. We ran from the 80˚C sauna out into about -20˚C outside and rolled in the snow and made snow angels and ran down to the lake for a dip! I went in, not just once but 3 times! I’m not sure if that qualifies me as totally insane, I guess I’ll leave that up to you to decide!

Exchange student
toboggan train!

Throughout the week we went tobogganing and also played a variation of ice hockey but with half the team being pulled in toboggans by their teammates as they used the hockey sticks to try and score goals. It was so much fun! It got quite competitive! People were flying left right and centre out of toboggans and even a few people pulling them were toppled over, including me! 

One night we went for a sort of hike. We were split up into small groups and did a collection of things including cooking Finnish pancakes over a fire in a little hut and we went and met some ice fishermen who had a campfire going in the middle of the lake and were fishing. We each had a turn and used the metre long drill to manually drill a hole in the ice. It was hard work but we all managed to get there! They told us that the ice was between 60cm-1m thick! None of us campers managed to catch anything but we were all chuffed with our drilling efforts none the less!

Next stop was to eat some salmon and cook some traditional sausages over the fire with some fisherman in their open wooden type hut, it was all so nice! We also had the chance to try on snow shoes and walk on the deep snow, use a sledge and also try some cross country skiing but as I only went a few metres on them I didn’t really count it as my first time skiing, that would come in a week’s time!

Tampere Cathedral

We also had a day excursion to Tampere where we went on a bus tour of the city, went and visited a beautiful cathedral and also had the chance afterwards to have a look around and do some of our own shopping if we wanted. I think just about everyone made a visit to ‘Hesburger’, I suppose you could think of it as the Finnish version of McDonalds.

In no time camp was over and we were packing our bags once again to make another trip! Our host families started arriving and after their own small briefing, our farewell and a last lunch together we were each off to our different parts of Finland to officially start our exchange year!

I slept most of the 400km journey to my host family’s house in Oulainen, Northern Finland. We arrived at around 6pm but, again, it could have been midnight it was so dark!

My first night, after eating something, I already was out to meet some of Riina, my host sister’s, friends. I was so knackered but it was also nice to already have some contact with people here. 

After sleeping quite late on Sunday we went out to do some cross country skiing! However, what I had the most fun doing was the tobogganing! I still am yet to master the whole steering concept but I think the falling out into the snow is a big part in the fun of it all! I think, so far tobogganing is my favourite snow activity.

Emilia

My youngest sibling, 5 year old Emilia, has learnt 3 English words that she likes to use at every opportunity… The other night she came up to my room, knocked on my door and then went to me… “Emmy, let’s go eat!”

Monday was a full on day! I started school in morning at 8am. After tagging along with Riina to 2 hours of Advanced Maths and then an hour of Swedish taught in Finnish I was ready for my own timetable! I am now taking Biology, History and a final year English class. Whilst I don’t understand History at all I don’t really mind Biology because even though it is taught in Finnish I can basically follow along because all of the scientific words are fairly similar to in English and I take Biology in Australia so I understand! 

School is quite different here compared to Australia. After every lesson of 45 minutes there is a 10-15 minute break. Also, the lunch every day is a proper hot meal which is free, same as their schooling as it is all paid for through taxes. The Lukio (senior high school, equivalent to Australian grades 10-12) is really different to our high schools. Attending there feels like you are in a higher education like Uni. You have no bells and there aren’t teachers telling you were to be or chasing you up for things, you call all the teachers by their first names and you have no set uniform. Each student has to attain a certain grade in year 9 to be able to move on to Lukio so at this stage it is your education so it is your responsibility.

At lunchtime on my first day everyone was called to the cafeteria and was introduced to me. It was nice but I was keen to get out of the limelight! So many people looking at me all at once!

Oulainen famous!

That night I went to my first Rotary meeting. My host club is so friendly! I had a really good time chatting to everyone there. In the meeting they gave a little welcome in English for me which was really nice and they invited me to make a presentation about myself and about Australia which I will do on the 11^th of February. I even stared in the local paper this week!

Usually Finland in the middle of winter is too cold to make snowmen. It is so cold here that the snow is just powder and cannot actually stick together! But the last couple of days it has been a little warmer so the other night we went out and I made my first snowman! He was just the generic snowman, nothing compared to the cute Snow-Muumi made by Riina and Emilia. Muumi is a very popular cartoon troll here; you can basically buy anything with Muumi on it!

Last night I went along with Juulia and Riina, my host sisters, to their floorball game and I even played as well! I had so much fun! I had never heard of floorball before I came to Finland and no one here has heard of Netball but both sports are extremely popular and common in their respective countries. I got a few goals and had an absolute ball! They go every week and I am now going to join the team too!

These last two weeks have been a rollercoaster! Such huge changes but it didn’t take long to settle into life here and into the family. I am really enjoying myself and loving the family I am staying with! My sisters and I get along really well! They’re both teaching me Finnish and I can already see a difference from a few days ago. In class I can pick up a couple of words that the teacher says and whilst I can’t work out what the rest of the sentence means those couple of recognitions, however small, confirms to me that I’m on the right track and that if I continue to try I will get there eventually! 

Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina... Finland!!