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.