A Few Small Adventures

Well my friends, the past few weeks have been pretty crazy. Not everything's been good, but not everything can be. Rather than talk about the bad things, I want to focus on the good things. AND THERE'S A LOT OF THEM!

First off, I saw the northern lights. THAT'S RIGHT! A large solar storm made it possible to see the Aurora Borealis in almost every part of Finland. Seeing the Northern lights was my exchange dream. I had started to think it wasn't going to happen, but then the world surprised me! They weren't super strong, but they were still absolutely magnificent.

A nice, shitty picture of the Northern Lights

Just a few days later I was able to experience another worldly wonder. A solar eclipse. In Lappeenranta, the eclipse was about 80% which is pretty good! I had these special SUPER nerdy glasses so I could stare at the sun for an hour. My art teacher (who is super cool) let us stay outside for the whole class so we could watch it! I was able to take several pictures by holding up my camera to the nerdy glasses to show the progression of the eclipse.

Nerded- Out

My last little adventure was a trip to the Russian border. I didn't cross it... yet. I did visit the border (I could have jumped to Russia, but I decided not to illegally cross that border). I learned a lot about the way customs works. Most the borders in Eastern Finland are pretty important as they are European Union borders as well as Finnish borders. I forgot my camera for this trip, but hopefully soon I will get some pictures.

Tomorrow, I will embark on the adventure of a lifetime. A four day Rotary trip to Saint Petersburg. Russia here I come! Check back soon to see more :)

Oulu!

I once again had one of the best weekends of my exchange! They just keep getting better and better. This past weekend took me to Oulu. A city a bit bigger than Lappeenranta and much farther north. It took me about 11 hours on a train to get there! 

A Map for those of you with no knowledge of Finnish Geography

One of the best things about Rotary is having this huge community of people all over the world you can visit. In Oulu, I stayed with a Canadian Exchange student. I'm pretty tired from my long train ride home, so I'll just leave you all with some pictures and captions.

There are a bunch of little statues in front of Oulu's city building.

Some are so detailed!

The front of Oulu's City Building

A Church

It had beautiful stained glass windows, but they didn't show up in the photos :(

Oulu still has quite a bit of snow while most has melted in Lappeenranta.

A little market square complete with the best pancakes ever

Tori Poliisi- A pretty famous statue from Oulu

Just some reindeer meat for sale. Typical. 

I'm in love with colored buildings. 

Finland's version of the brownie <3

An American, a Canadian, and 2 Finns try to play Ticket to Ride. The American did not win.

We also played (and won) some laser tag.

A cute little cafe

Cute little cafes make life better.

One of Oulu's main streets

A Brazilian, A Canadian, and An American

A little river that runs through Oulu

Trying to take flag pictures. Its WAY harder when windy.

Riding Pigs. Nothings changed :)

We walked to a cute little island.

It was picture perfect.

The bridge leading to the island had locks all over it <3

I also managed to do quite a bit of shopping! :) I loved Oulu, and I hope I get the chance to go back sometime.

In other news, I was featured in the paper today! I am very exciting news

SVERIGE!! (A.K.A. Sweden (A.K.A. Ruotsi))

The past three days I had the amazing opportunity to go on a cruise to Stockholm, Sweden. It was some of the best 3 days of my exchange! The trip started on Monday when we drove to Helsinki and boarded a pretty big boat.

It wasn't quite as big as the Disney cruise,

but it was still really nice!

There was several stores to shop at on the boat too!!

The weather was really great all three days!

 The cruise traveled overnight to Stockholm, so on Tuesday we spent the whole day in the city. We dedicated most of our time to shopping, but we did have a chance to walk around the old part of Stockholm.

Most of the buildings are this pretty orange color.

Stockholm is, apparently, known for really narrow streets. 

This is definitely true. 

It is a gorgeous city, nonetheless.

Our next stop was the coolest Urban Outfitters ever. I didn't even know Urban exists outside the USA, but it does. AND it is so cool. It was built inside of an old theater and they tried to keep as much as the theater atmosphere as possible. 

The sign reminded me of the Buskirk Chumley in Bloomington.

Wendy, You would have LOVED it :)

We also bought some chocolates before heading back to the ship.

Here is a mixture of the rest of the pictures from the trip.

These lions are all around Stockholm.

The bright star is Jupiter or so I was told.

MEEEEE!

The sea is pretty cool.

 SO as you can see I had a really wonderful trip. Thanks so much for my host family for taking me!! It was a great way to spend my winter break! Also, a thanks to Stockholm for making it such a great trip. I hope we meet again.