Rotary District 1390 Conference in Jyväskylä

I have just returned from my weekend in the city of Jyväskylä, 2.5 hours north of my city, Lahti. I attended the Rotary District 1390annual conference there, along with around 24 other exchange students from the district and at least 100 other Rotarians. Although it lasted only a little over 24 hours, it was a great conference and I didn't get ANY sleep overnight. Perhaps a little during some of the Rotary presentations though.

I didn't take any picture with my camera at the conference, and will therefore be relying on Facebook to find photos to post here. Those will be posted later. I currently have 2 that are quite amusing! Credit to Sun Wu Yang (Taiwan) for these photos!

These are from the "Governor's Ball", a fancy dinner with a live jazz band put on by the mayor of Jyväskylä for Rotary. Below you can see some of the Rotarians during one of the speeches that night.

Later, a cake was brought out for desert. Things got a little crazy! You would think Rotarians would form a orderly, straight line, and wait their turn. This was the most hilarious moment of the weekend: the Rotarians were almost fighting over the cake! It was made all the funnier by the band, who was playing fast-paced music with a prominent saxophone melody. It was chaos! I will post some more pictures from this event later.

In other news...

Wednesday April 29th: The official Steak Club!: Finland meeting. Steak Club! is from Stratford, Ontario and all members meet to eat steak every Thursday. I am bringing this tradition to Finland, and will feast on some meat with my Finnish friends here. Some of the Stratford members have donated money to support our meeting, due to the high price of steak in Finland. Thanks again!

Friday May 1st: The 1st of May is known as "Vappu" in Finland, meaning "free". It is a national holiday and Finns celebrate it in a variety of ways, mostly dependent on age. Anyway, it's a very important day for students: as far as I understand it, university students who are graduating, or possibly new students, wear some sort of white hats and parade around the town. More information on this ritual to come.

Saturday May 2nd: I depart for St. Petersburg, Russia with Rotary and about 70 other exchange students. We will stay there until May 5th and do mostly sight-seeing, including a ballet.

The weather in Finland is finally starting to warm up! Last Monday the temperature was only slightly above freezing, but this weekend has brought 20+ Celsius weather. Breaking out the shorts at last.

Things are all great with me here, I'm truly enjoying every moment I have left in this country! More photos to come this week.

The Home Stretch: New Family, Drum Festival and Finlandia

The Home Stretch: 75 Days left in Finland.

I moved to my 4th and final host family this morning. They have one daughter but she is a lot older than me so I'm living as an only child until the end of the year - this is the first time I've been without a sibling in my life so far. I guess it's only fair, I left my sister sibling-less for the whole year (although maybe that's not a problem for her!).

I've had another very busy week. One highlight was the Drum Festival I went to yesterday (Saturday, April 18th) with my friend, Pauli. It was a small festival, spanning a few days but on Saturday there were 2 drum clinics. A drum clinic is where experienced, sometimes famous drummers perform, answer questions and give advice to the audience. The first clinic was done by 2 Finnish metal drummers. I enjoyed the second clinic much more: 3 Finnish drummers playing some with fantastic co-ordination! (below)

Although, the metal drummers had more impressive drum kits.



I got the chance to play a "Kumu" drum kit. Kumu drums are Handmade in Finland, and they were celebrating their 25th Anniversary at this festival. The drums were great to play! Thanks to Pauli for this picture, and for bringing me to the festival!

Immediately after the festival, I had to run home and get dressed up to perform Finlandia at a biology teacher's conference at my school. The biology teacher from my school, Mrs. Heino, was organizing the conference and asked me to perform. There was about 30 teachers from all across Finland. I spoke excellent Finnish as I introduced myself and played a very good performance of Finlandia. I then answered questions in front of everyone about piano and my exchange, all in Finnish, all without any problems! I felt really good about that.

After Finlandia, I played background music for about half an hour while the teachers socialized (I assume this was before the real 'conferencing' began!). They then held a toast for me, my piano playing and my Finnish skills. I've been told that I speak better than most foreigners who have been in Finland for 3 or 4 years, but the teacher giving the toast said I spoke better than people who have been learning Finnish for 6 or 7 years!

As a thank you gift, Mrs. Heino gave me a beautiful book of Finnish landscape pictures, with the photographer's signature on the inside - thank you again!

Now, on to the family, The Seesvaara's. I now live within walking distance from my school and the downtown of Lahti, which comes as a great relief, since I've been riding buses everyday since I came to Finland. I don't mind the bus ride so much, but now I will be able to meet friends, stay in the city and drop by home with ease.

And, as always, here are some pictures from my last host family's house (no host family picture, I hope it's coming soon though!) Below is my room (messy yeah, but it was right before I started packing) *note the electric drums on the right!

The kitchen.



The dining room/living room.



The cat, Lilli. (we also have a cat in my new host family as well)

That's all for now! Next weekend I'll be in Jyväskylä (city 3 hours from Lahti) for a big Rotary district conference, so expect some pictures from that next Sunday!

An Awesome Birthday Week In Finland

or Hyvää Pääsiästä in Finnish.

Since my last post, I've had a simply fantastic week here in Finland! Unfortunately I don't have many pictures to show from it... I was too busy to take them!

Monday, April 6th: My 18th birthday - I received lots of birthday greetings at school, and some really special gifts! 2 of my friends, Jenna Ojala and Simo Loikanen, had a hoodie made for me with the logo of an extremely popular game, "Mousehunt". The cheese is also linked to Mousehunt and was from another friend, Kasperi Jaakkola.

After school, I had the chance to play basketball with some friends in the school gym (something I haven't done since leaving Canada) so that was like a gift in itself. Afterwards, I went for kebab with two other friends, Otto Köylijärvi and Patrick Tamminen and played some Super Smash Brothers (game) with them, something else that reminds me of home.

Wednesday, April 8th: The last Finnish lesson of the year! It was special but also a little sad. Since September, I would meet Marja Liisa and Elli Fiedler (two German exchange students) at the Finnish lesson and we would hang out afterwards. Now that's come to an end as I reache the home stretch of my year...

Friday, April 10th: From 5:00PM to 2:00AM I was at a Halo (Xbox game) party with 7 other Finnish friends. That was something else I had not done since leaving Canada, so it was really special for me... and a HECK of a lot of fun!

Saturday, April 11th: My family had gone to a nearby cabin on Friday, so I met them at the cabin after a one-hour bus ride. We grilled sausages, took the sauna and played with the dogs outside. The dogs were pretty tired after running across the lake all day! Below is Buddy (big guy) and Elvis (little guy).

We came back from the cabin today (Sunday) in the afternoon. The picture below shows the view of the lake from inside.

... and now it's Sunday night. The past 168 hours have been some of the greatest I've had in Finland so far, and I'd like to thank all the people who were part of them for giving me a great birthday week!

Coming up next Sunday: I switch to my fourth and final host family. That means I'll be posting some more pictures of my current host family of course, so stay tuned!

The Spring Post

April has arrived and with it the warmer weather, sweet sounds and annoying allergies of springtime. *sneeze*

As I enter the final 3 months of my year in Finland, I can really look back at how much I have accomplished. Yesterday (Saturday, April 4th) I completed my official Finnish test. It was 5 hours long and included writing, listening and speaking components. It's an official test throughout Finland that all of the Rotary Exchange Students take at this time of year. If I pass, I receive a certificate confirming my basic Finnish language skills!

When April comes, so does my birthday! I turn 18 tomorrow, April 6th. Today I went for a birthday lunch with my host mom, Sonja and host sister, Sussu. Here we are at the restaurant in Lahti earlier today:

It's only one more month until I leave on the Rotary trip to St. Petersburg, Russia! It will be from May 2-5 and there's about 60 Rotary Exchange Students from Finland going.

Here you can see St. Petersburg is quite close to the Finnish-Russian border, directly to the right of Helsinki. (ps my city is Lahti, right above Helsinki)

After the Russia trip is Rotary Eurotour starting on May 31st and ending June 17th! Below is the map of our route:

Also coming up in April:

April 10-12th: For Easter, my family is taking me to a cottage 1 hour north of our house. In Finland, it's typical to spend all your holiday time at a cottage!

April 18th: I am performing 'Finlandia' and playing background piano music at a teacher's conference at my school (more details on this later...)

April 19th: I switch to my 4th and final host family. They live close enough to the city that I can walk to/from school, which is very nice. I've been taking the bus everyday since I came to Finland.

April 25-26th: A huge Rotary conference in Jyväskylä (city 3 hours north of Lahti, my city) for my Rotary District. There will be a lot of Exchange Students there and I'll be travelling to the conference with the president of my Finnish Rotary host club.

And to finish off this post, here's a picture I took of our 11-month old cat, 'Lily' and the bigger of our two dogs, 'Buddy'.

That's it for now! Next Sunday I'll post some picture from the Easter cottage trip.

"Finland Fun Fact": On Palm Sunday, Finnish children dress up like witches... well here is a description from a website: (obviously translated from Finnish)

"On the days leading up to Palm Sunday, children all over Finland, begin to prepare for the day by collecting willow twigs full of willow catkins, which are then decorated with colorful strips of crepe paper and feathers. On Palm Sunday the children then dress up as witches and wizards, and if you should hear your doorbell ringing, behind the door you will find little witches and wizards with there baskets, pots and willow twigs, ready to tell you their magic verse; "Virvoin, varvoin, tuoreeks, terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks, vitsa sulle, palkka mulle". With this magic verse they wish you and your household good health and a good year. They will then hand you a willow twig, and as a little reward, they expect you to put a few sweets, little Easter Eggs or a few coins in their basket or pot.

In olden times the reason for using the magic verse was to chase away demons and the rhyme varied from area to area. In the countryside children could say; " ...and if you don't promise me eggs, hawks shall take your chickens". In those days children got real eggs for Easter and they did not receive them until Easter Sunday."

And to think they don't celebrate Halloween! :/