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! :/