Finnish Hedgehog Sighting

I saw a hedgehog today while walking home from my bus stop. It was walking across my path so I got a great look at it. It froze when I came closer but I was able to crouch down an arms length from it's prickly back. It was pretty cool and I decided to check out the hedgehog wikipedia article when I got home...

...because there aren't wild hedgehogs in North America... right? I don't know, it's not something I ever really thought about, although I've never seen one in the wild before :/ It looks like they are only native to Europe, Asia and have been introduced to New Zealand. There are no native species in North America although they make good pets! But make sure it's not against the law: it's illegal to own certain hedgehog species in some areas in Canada and the US!

Out of interest... you can't own a hedgehog as a pet in California, Georgia, Hawaii or New York! In the province of Quebec in Canada you cannot own a European hedgehog but African Pygmy hedgehogs are legal.

I can see it now: an epic adventure movie where a boy meets a European hedgehog and brings him back to Quebec but finds himself desperately fleeing to the Ontario border with his illicit friend.



The hedgehog in this picture looks almost exactly like the little guy I saw. I also found this picture on a flickr album by a Finnish person so I'm assuming it's the same species :) There's only 16 different species of hedgehogs so there's a good chance this is same kind that I spotted!

Anyway, I was quite thrilled with this sighting. This kind of thing just excites me - now I can classify hedgehogs!

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Erinaceomorpha
Family: Erinaceidae
Subfamily: Erinaceinae

Hooray for taxonomy! I'll keep you up to date with every new sighting of exotic Finnish organisms. Now I just need some camo and binoculars...

Lappeenranta and Sibeliustalo

I had a very busy day yesterday! In the morning I travelled with my host parents to Lappeenranta, a city of 60,000 people 2 hours east of Lahti. It's only about 50 km away from the Russian border! My host brother Simo had a few hockey games there so I tagged along. I met my friend, Suvi, in the morning. She was at the Karkku language camp and went on Rotary exchange 2 years ago to Cambridge, Ontario! We met with 3 other exchange students for lunch as well.



From left: Gabriel Leca (inbound from France), Augusto Rocha (inbound from Brazil), Suvi, Me and Jessica Cha (inbound from America). We had lunch at "Rosso" a popular Italian restaurant chain in Finland.




Playing some footbag with Gabriel and Augusto at the train station! Oh yeah, I grabbed a train back to Lahti. I had to go back earlier than my family because I went to a concert in the evening at Sibeliustalo! My Rotary student counsellor/date for the 'old dance' in February/good friend Tiina Lehti asked me if I wanted to go with her family. It was my first time inside the auditorium at Sibeliustalo and it was great!



This is the main 'reception hall' area of Sibeliustalo. It's location is great: right on the harbour with the lake Vesijärvi serving as a fantastic backdrop. It was really dark in the auditorium and I snapped a quick picture before I found out you aren't allowed to do so... but it didn't turn out well so I won't post it. But here is a shot of Tiina and her family who brought me to the show:



Front left: Petteri (Tiina's brother), Tiina's mother, Minna(?) (Tiina's step sister), Ville(?) (Tiina's step brother), Tiina.

Middle row: Me, Tiina's aunt (who is also my biology teacher at school)

Back row: Tiina's step father, Tiina's uncle.

The picture was taken on the stairs leading to the second level of the auditorium. Oh, and the show we saw was "Semmarit". Here is a link to their website in english.

http://eng.semmarit.fi/

Click on the 'choir' tab to see their names and photos. It's a very entertaining show, focusing mainly on vocals but also including some guitar, percussion, great lighting and backdrops and humor.

Overall, it was a very busy day! I'm just relaxing today, the past week in general has been pretty full.

Keep checking in to see some pictures from my host family's house as well as my outlook on my Exchange after 2 months in Finland!

District 1390 Conference

I attended the Rotary District 1390 conference this weekend. It was held at a recreation facility known as "Pajulahti" which is located only 3 minutes from my home. About 20 Rotary exchange students in District 1390 participated, coming all the way from Tampere and Jyväskylä. It was a fun weekend, organized mainly by Rotex students. We played sports and games and took a sauna of course :)

I didn't take any pictures but my American friend Kathleen uploaded some on Facebook.

Below we are playing a friendly game of football (we're in Europe, remember?). I think we spent more time getting the ball out of the lake than playing the game. I'm in the orange sweater and jeans!



Here we are playing a game with Finnish words to improve our language skills. It necessitated rows of seated people.



We had a campfire and made "lettu", a traditional Finnish "iltapala" (evening snack) that is basically a pancake with jam on it.



All in all it was a fun weekend with some of my exchange friends. Now there are no more organized Rotary conferences or trips until the Lapland Tour starting November 30th! Until then, look forward to some pictures of the Penttilä residence (they are coming I swear).

2 Trips To Helsinki

I made 2 trips to Helsinki this weekend!

On Friday night I took the train from Lahti to Helsinki (one hour ride) to meet some other exchange students for a dinner, chilling, and a fireworks competition. We had a great time and also did some sightseeing...



This is one of the main attractions in the city: Helsinki Cathedral. In one of my earlier posts on this blog I detailed some of it's history and as you can see, it's very impressive!

In the above picture (from left): Anna Dorra (Finnish rebound who went to Japan), Gabriel Quin (Inbound from Australia), Elli Fiedler (Inbound from Germany), David Jakob (Inbound from Germany), Me.

And of course, my footbag is always on hand... or in pocket!



Unfortunately I didn't take any (good) pictures during the fireworks! But they were great, there was a lot of people there!

Today (Sunday), I went into Helsinki with my host father, Hannu, and to meet Barb and Harry Norris (family friends who are on a European cruise) but first we went to Suomenlinna (translates to "Finland's Castle") which is a series of islands in front of Helsinki. An extensive military outpost was built there in 1748 by Sweden in response to Russian expansion and has played a key role in defending Finland in times of war. Now there are 850 people living on the islands but it still serves as an excellent tourist attraction.



BOOM!



Hannu and I met Barb and Harry at noon at the Cathedral. They also brought some of their friends from the cruise and I got to see a teacher from my elementary school, Mrs. Templeman, which was a cool surprise! The stuff in front of us is my tennis racquet, shoes, books and stuff from home mom sent with them, thanks again guys for carrying my stuff all over Europe! And thx mom <3



Here's a great shot of Harry, Barb and me in front of Helsinki Cathedral.



I had a great weekend and Helsinki is an amazing city. Since it's only an hour away from Lahti by train, I'll be travelling there often with my families as well as with other Exchange students for Rotary-organized events.

Coming up: pictures from the Penttilä residence (I promise!) as well as from the Rotary Finland District 1390 conference happening on Friday and Saturday.

Blazer Update

A shot of me in my post-language camp blazer. I just took this picture now and it's almost 11 pm so I look a little tired.




Remember back in July when I posted the picture of my blazer after the Grand Rapids conference in Michigan? This is what I said:

"I also participated in the pin exchange - take a look at my blazer now!"

And here is the photo:



Definite improvement!
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Short post for today, but tomorrow night I'll be in Helsinki with a group of exchange students for Finland's national fireworks competition! Look for photos to be posted this weekend!