Counting Down the Days

In just one day I leave for the one of the most excited trips I have ever been on. Five days in the arctic circle. Be on the look out late next week for a blog post with all the details. :)

Where Ill be headed soon!

Until then, here's what I've been up to the past week!

The past weekend I went to a District camp with all the Exchange students in District 1430. We all had a great time hanging out. We made ginger bread cookies and drink Glögi (A Finnish Christmas drink that is basically hot juice).

Santa Claus visited us!!

I got an Advent Calender. Almost everyone has one here.

Our "Oldies" (Exchange students from the Southern Hemisphere who come in January) decided to do a sort of initiation. Since they will all be leaving soon :(, we will soon become "Oldies". We had to run, crawl, and do all sorts of relays. Of course it had to be in the middle of the night with two inches of snow on the ground. I was frozen by the time the "Oldies" were finished with us!

A Few of my American Friends

I have made it through my second term of Finnish school, so this week was another exam week. This meant a lot of free time for me :D! I enjoyed  a lot of relaxing time and even got  massage. On Tuesday, I decided to visit a friend in the nearby city of Imatra.

Some Finnish Graffiti in Imatra

Imatra reminds me a lot of Nashville, Indiana (Only people from Bloomington will understand this). It is a fairly small city, but attracts a lot of tourist. It has water rapids, a castle, and a lot of cute shops and restaurants. I have officially finished my Christmas shopping.

Imatra had a really nice art mueseum

It had some really cool pieces!

I hope everyone back in America is enjoying Thanksgiving! I hope to have some great stories and pictures newt week!

Presenting some Fun Trips

The past couple have weeks have been action packed to say the least! Filled with trips, presentations, and a lot of fun. The next few weeks are filled with trips, presentations, and even more fun. Everyday, it gets harder to believe just how fast time is going by!

This past weekend I went to Helsinki and Järvenpää to visited a Canadian friend, Liz. I was luckily able to get most of my Christmas shopping done in Helsinki! :D

America and Canada ( Thanks to Liz's host-family for the socks!)

Liz's adorable host dog!

Järvenpää Train Station

The Helsinki train station had the cutest police officers (I'm talking about the horses ;) )

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a middle school in my city. I was able to present to a bunch of English classes about the United States. It was fun and interesting to see what the younger kids thought of my home country.

Mandatory Flag Photo with one class I presented to!

I have realized that while I post a lot of pictures of my trips and adventures, I don't often talk about the everyday things. My normal day isn't too interesting. School, free school lunch, and then maybe coffee after school with friends. A few weeks I took pictures around my city when I had some free time, so here they are!

A water tower near my school

A street I walk on everyday

The Library

The Central Park

Sculpture in the Central Park

I believe this is some sort of war memorial.

The market square

The Market has some of the most random items for sale.

My city has a large amount of Russian tourist so a lot of things are written in Finnish, Russian, and English.

Seal Statue. The Saimaa Seal is a severely endangered animal only found in this area of the world.

This street would be Bloomington's equivalent of Kirkwood

Finland's Starbuucks

Found this cute sign :) (Lontoo=London, Riika=Riga)

The Lake is starting to freeze

Just another Path

I took this on my bus ride home

Another Adventure

My most recent adventure was this past weekend to Hämeenlinna. Hämeenlinna is a small town that took 2 trains and 3 hours to get to. The purpose of this trip was to visit one of my exchange friends. We visited a castle that was built around the 13th Century. It was the first castle I have seen in Finland!

After seeing the castle, Several exchange students and I went to another hockey game. We hd a blast, but didn't pay too much attention to the game. It was so much fun to spend time with people I hadn't seen in three months!

EXCHANGE STUDENTS

A selfie featuring a Canadian and a flying fish

HOCKEY

I spent the a lot of the weekend doing some shopping at HUGE newly opened mall. In Finland, I had never seen this many people in one place!

It was a really nice weekend and I hope I will get the chance to visit Hämeenlinna again!