One Month !? What ??

I looked at my calendar to realize that on Friday I will have lived in lovely Helsinki for ...wait for it ... One month!? How did this happen??

 I assure you this will be the last post of its kind expressing how fast everything's going -as it's not the happiest thing to write about - but it's not an exaggeration to say I blinked,  and whoops August slipped from my fingers! Now I'm clinging to September like a prized china doll. 

But at the same time so much has happened it feels like I've lived here a life time! 

My Second Week of School...

Is now just a blur, but I do remember on Tuesday we had student elections for class government, and I had no idea what was going on because as one of the candidates phrased it: " I'm here to represent everyone who can't understand what the hell is going on, because it's all in F$&@ing Finnish " 

Needless to say , Suomia on vaikeaa. 

(Finnish is difficult) 

I was still feeling like a tourist then, so I didn't feel too awkward about taking some sneaky pictures :) 

We received these cute little Snoopy papers to vote for people on 

Yay! Finnish! And paintings! 

More Finnish! Maybe someday I can translate for you ... (this will transition to my next update but first ... ) 

The hour or so election process ended with some creepy grandma singing happy birthday to us, what?? 

Like. What??

-Exchange Students probs - 

My Finnish Progress 

Right now I'm in Geography class and I don't feel the least bit guilty for blogging in class because the teacher lectures the whole time in Finnish, and I notice things like:

-Finnish words are really, really long . Like. Really long. 

- When words have a lot of vowels (they always do) it looks like they're kissing the air when they talk.

- The only words you really need to know to speak Finnish are " niin" and " Oi"

Oi - when you bump into someone 

Niin- to say everything else 

I also really like the word Jaksaa ( Yahk- saa) 

Which doesn't translate exactly but it's kind of like, " I don't care to do something" 

It's really fun to say, say it a few times and then you'll understand :) 

🎶Jaksaa, Jaksaa , Jaksaa 🎶

After School

One of the great things about living in the center of Helsinki is literally, if you can not see Jäätelo (ice-cream), just walk two blocks any direction and I personally guarantee you will find some, it's everywhere !

It's really good but it doesn't taste like American ice-cream at all ... Actually nothing tastes quite the same as in America, except maybe Bananas. 

For example one day after school my friend Johannes and I baked...

American Cookies 

With Finnish ingredients 

They were yummy, but didn't  taste like they do when I make them in America. I'm actually starting to forget what some American foods taste like!! Just that they're different!

My friends and I ate them before I could take a picture of the final product, but this is what they looked like just before going  in the oven: 

Kamppi  

(and I don't remember if it has two mm's or two p's so I apologize if I've failed at spelling)

Kamppi is sort of like a shopping mall, where my friends and I like to hang out. I say "sort of a shopping mall" because it also has a subway station, and a bus station, and there's always something interesting going on! 

One day there was a really good band playing in the middle of the mall! 

And on different days I've received a free smurf cookie and a balloon! 

And just recently there were giant inflatable hockey players in the middle of the courtyard. I don't know why. There just were. 

(Although to be honest, I rarely know exactly what's going on - sometimes I just appear at museums, or people's houses, or movie theaters.. ) 

Some days after school I go to a park with a friend or friends. There is always a performer of some kind, and some are more eccentric than others. I've seen a tight rope walker, a glass-jug-music-maker, really-good-piano-players, and some random guy who just stood there in a creepy wolf costume -- just to name a few. 

Here are some pretty boats... 

Last Friday night I went to the Helsinki zoo (which is on an island) with my host family. It was open really late for a special "night of the cats" thing. 

There were tigers, leopards, lions, and much more! It was a really lovely zoo and I purchased my own tiikeri (tiger) to take home :)

I'll just touch on a few things from school

One of these things is not like the other...Moomins (white hippos) are everywhere!! 

For art class the teacher made me the model and everyone had 5 minutes to draw me, the drawings were all really good - here's just one of the better ones :) 

Class ends in 4 minutes so I'll tell you about orientation later - and probably elaborate on this post but .. Above is my lovely roommate Hermanni <3