Back to school

So the Summer holidays are now over, and now we're back to school!
The rest of my summer was spent around either Oulainen or Oulu. My second family has an apartment in Oulu so I had the chance to go with them and stay there and explore the city.

One afternoon spent at the Botanical Gardens
of Oulu with my host mum

The weekend before school started I moved to my third and last family; I will stay here until the end of my exchange. 

6 months of stuff... oops! :/

I cannot believe that I am over the 7 month mark! The 'oldies' have all left and now I, along with my fellow exchange students that came in January, have become the 'oldies' as our own newbies have arrived! This year is flying by and I cannot believe how this has crept up on me!

It's weird to be back at school, it feels quite different to the last school year. I had the chance to get to know people better over the summer and now that I am living in the township it is quite different being able to just take my bike and go instead of running on a bus schedule. It's nice! School is still very much over my head, my understanding of the Finnish language is still only when people speak one-on-one with me and slow down (some miming also tends to help!) The Finnish language is quite complicated and especially difficult when it is a group of Finns speaking together; they speak so fast and with a lot of slang that I can't keep track of the sentences yet. But I still have a bit of time left! I'm studying hard so hopefully I'll get there by the end! And I sure will be trying to keep learning once I leave because I really want to be fluent in a second language and, despite many people's opinions on the language, I actually really like Finnish! 

Learning to play golf with my new host dad in Kalajoki,
a seaside town around 50kms from Oulainen.

The second weekend of August I spent in Helsinki, in the south of Finland, and went to Weekend Festival (a music festival) with some friends from school. It was a really good weekend and a lot of fun!

Cheek- popular Finnish rapper

Far East Movement

David Guetta

Calvin Harris

My friend Mapu and I

Mapu, Niina and I

The weather has been consistently really good the last couple of weeks especially. It's not normal to still be warm and sunny in Finland at this time of the year, I've been told that usually it is actually quite rainy and rather miserable weather. I've been spending my evenings walking, running, or bike riding and taking advantage of the nice weather before the Autumn and then ultimately, the winter sets in.