Rotary Meetings

Here I have posted pictures from the 2 Rotary meetings I have attended at my host club: The Lahti-Vesijärvi Club. There are 10 Rotary clubs in Lahti and my host club is the newest one. Club meetings are at 7:00 AM on Friday mornings. Nice and early :)

As you can see, Rotary meetings are a somewhat intimate affair. Some members were missing from this meeting, however, since it was held in August when many Finns are still living at their summer cottages.



On my left is my current host mother: Riitta and on her left is my YEO Virpi Mäkelä.

Below I am making my first presentation to the club. This wasn't my slideshow, just a few words to say about myself and my Exchange. The man in the foreground is Markku Moisala, the principal or "rehtori" of my school and also an active Rotarian.



Rotary Exchange students are usually given a banner representing their sponsor club to bring to the host club in exchange for one of their banners. Here I have exchanged banners with the president of my host club. The slideshow in the background was the presentation given that day by Tiina Lehti about her recent exchange to Brazil. The Lahti-Vesijärvi club sponsored her for her exchange last year.



The second meeting I attended in September was held on a boat! How cool is that?! Very Finnish too. The former navy ship is owned by a member of my host club. (The man in the blue jacket).



Inside the boat we had breakfast and a presentation about the boat's history as part of the Finnish navy. The boat has a comfortable living area and serves as a small tourist attraction in the harbour area, right beside Sibeliustalo.



I plan to attend another Rotary meeting either this Friday or next Friday. Credit for all the above photos goes to Niko Niemi of the Lahti-Vesijärvi Rotary club. Thanks Niko!

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!