Karkku Camp

Alright! I finally have some time to sit down and make a serious post.

I've had an amazing week at the Karkku Language Camp where I met all the other students on Exchange here in Finland (there's about 80 total from all over the world) and I now have 80 new and awesome friends! We spent the week learning Finnish in small groups from Finnish tutors, taking saunas, getting an idea of the Finnish lifestyle and also took a day trip and tour in the city of Tampere, the second largest city in Finland with 340,000 in the greater Tampere area.

Here are some key photos from my week at Karkku: (if you have me on Facebook, I'm uploading an entire album right now!)

Sunset over the Atlantic



Here is the room where the Canadians and French were taught Finnish. My group is on the far left and my tutor is the girl in the white shirt: Suvi. She went on Rotary Exchange to Southwestern Ontario a few years ago! (don't remember the town for sure... Burlington? Hamilton?)



Here I am in the city of Tampere with my German friend Vince.



My friend Jimmy, from Taiwan, captured this amazing photograph of the lake at our camp in Karkuu in early morning.



We took a big picture of all the Exchange students and their flags, although I only have a hard copy. This is a smaller group I jumped into that posed for some pictures after the main picture.



Here I am performing "Romance" by Jean Sibelius in the talent show that was held Friday night. It was a fun night with a variety of acts from so many cultures. (*note the drums in the background! I did not play them in the show but I also performed a jazz duet on piano with my German friend David on drums, which was awesome!)



Here is the Canadian contribution to the show. These are all the Canadian exchange students staying in Finland this year (like me). I'm actually in this picture, holding the flag up behind everyone else. We recited the "I am Canadian" speech that is apparently from a commercial I have never seen...



From left: Christopher Poitras (Oshawa, ON), Alex Prinzen (Ingersoll, ON), Chet Kuchyt (Niagara Falls, ON), Victoria Symons (Windsor, ON), David Burchett (Coldstream, BC), and Anne-Marie Guerin (Calgary, AB).

So, I don't have any pictures with my host family YET! I will be posting those soon along with more information about my life here in Lahti. I started school today but it just selecting my courses... it works a lot like university - I can pick any course from any level or any year and I make my own timetable. I used this to my advantage and avoided all the early classes :) For me, school starts at 9:30am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and at 11:30am on Mondays and Fridays!

However, this is only for the first period (2 months) and there are 5 periods in the school year, each with different courses. I am taking 6 courses in the first period and the maximum is 8.

I know it sounds confusing and it took me all day to figure it out with a lot of help and it's very different from the Canadian system. Anyway, tomorrow I start my classes and will post again soon!