Stockholm Cruise

During syysloma (syys = autumn, loma = break) I went for a weekend cruise with my host family to Stockholm from Oct. 24th - 26th. We took a beautiful cruise boat, run by "Silja Line" and named "Silja Serenade". There's two popular cruise lines running in Helsinki, Silja Line and Viking Line.

This is the best picture I have of our boat. It's docked in Stockholm here. It's really large and was carrying thousands of passengers!



Inside, the boat was really cool, with lots of shops, restaurants and slot machines :D



I felt a little seasick on the way to Stockholm... probably because the trip was overnight, and lasted about 16 hours! In Stockholm we visited a few tourist attractions, mostly really old buildings. Below is a picture of me in front of Stockholm's main square.



The cruise was a lot of fun, and I got to spend plenty of time with my (then) new host family (I had switched families the previous weekend). Now things are going very well with my family and I don't switch again until late January.

As a general update: I've been busy lately with music! I've been practicing my piano solo, "Finlandia" for the upcoming Independence Day assembly at school (Dec. 5). In that assembly I'm also playing a few songs with some friends and our music teacher. I'll be on the drums, but we'll have guitar, bass, keyboards and a vocalist. Right now we're practicing twice a week at school.

In addition to that show, I'm playing keyboards with the same friends in a more formal event on the evening of Dec. 4th at our school. I'm not too sure what the event is but we're definitely playing more formal music: waltzes and a few pop and traditional pieces.

This past week I also participated in a basketball tournament held every year for the high schools in Lahti. I played on my school team, although we only practiced once and the entire tournament was a little informal. We ended up 3rd of 5 teams at our level and we received bronze medals :) I enjoyed taking part in this since there's no real school sports or teams here. This was more of a traditional tournament and I believe there's another one in the spring for volleyball which I hope to also take part in!

Coming up next for me is the Lapland Tour with the other Rotary inbounds! We head out on Nov. 28th for 5 day ski trip in Muonio. I posted a map of Finland showing how far north Muonio is. It's not a great map. For reference, the Arctic Circle "line" runs through Rovaniemi. Expect some great picture from that trip!



That's all for now :)

Footbag In Helsinki

Here's the story:

About a month ago, I was in Helsinki with some Exchange friends. I was walking with my German friend, David, and he paused to talk on his cell phone. Given the moment I had to wait, I thought I'd give my footbag a kick. I pulled out my yellow and blue Mr. Sandbag and hit clipper to same side osis then caught the bag and returned it to my pocket.

A felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face a man, probably about 30 years old, who spoke to me in English and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Canada and then he asked to see my footbag. At first I was cautious but he said he noticed my style as well as my footbag shoes (Adidas Rod Lavers). We started talking footbag and it turns out he's the chairman of the Footbag Association of Finland! He invited me to a training session in the kisahalli (sports hall) in Helsinki the following Wednesday. Of course I agreed! I gave him my contact information and everything worked out!

Now I am going to Helsinki every Wednesday to meet other footbag players for a good shred session. I'm playing with the best players in Finland, including previous European Champions and world-class competitors. It's awesome! Now I am practicing as often as I can, although exchange keeps me pretty busy.

Here's a video of the guys I play with. This video was taken in the kisahalli, so you can see where we practice every week. Unfortunately, I missed this session because I was switching host families. We don't take a video every week, but this shred was special since Anssi "Anz" Sundberg was visiting Helsinki from his home-city of Turku. He uploaded this video on the world footbag forums at www.modified.in.

Video credit goes to "Lauri" *The background music contains a few profane lyrics



And here's an old video of me at the kisahalli attempting to hit "ripwalk". I can do this a lot better now :)