Ice Fishing

Today a member of my Rotary club here in Finland took me ice fishing on the lake next to our city! We fished from 10AM to 4PM (with a long lunch break). It was pretty snowy weather but the lake was still busy with other fishers, skiers and snowmobilers.

The lake is named lake Vesijärvi which translates to "water lake". My city, Lahti, is situated right on the lake, but most people fish a few kilometres away from the city shoreline.

I can say now, that ice fishing is not easy! First you must drill a hole in the ice (which was about half a metre thick).

Scooping the ice out of the hole makes it easier to hold the fishing line steady.



Then, you wait! Actually, you should give the line a small vertical jerk about every 5 seconds, so you can't just sleep until you feel a fish.



The Rotarian I was with, Heikki Niemi, caught about 10 small perches (ahven in Finnish) but it took me until 4PM to catch my first fish! I guess I'm just unlucky! Anyway, we were the last people on the lake while I desperately tried to hook a fish. When I finally got one, it turns out the fish hadn't even bitten the lure! I simply hooked into the side of it as I pulled upwards. Oh well.



Here you can see that it wasn't exactly a clean catch but I think that makes it even more special. Heikki and I had a good laugh about it anyway.

Ice fishing is truly a Finnish tradition and I had a great time on the lake today. It really was a lot more fun than I was expecting! I will post a picture of Heikki and me later on.

Things are going very well right now, my Finnish language skills are at an all-time high! I can speak quite comfortably and make myself understood almost always. I still use English with friends, since truly expressing myself in Finnish remains difficult. I receive compliments on my Finnish from almost every Finn I meet, since they are used to foreigners speaking only English. Most people who come to Finland have lived here for years without having to speak Finnish, since almost every person here can function in English.

My 18th birthday is coming up in a couple weeks (April 6th), making me a legal adult in Finland. I'm still not sure how I will celebrate but my friends have suggestions although I'm not really thinking about it right now. I'm focusing on attending school, practicing footbag, playing music and learning Finnish.

Skiing World Cup

This weekend I attended the Skiing World Cup that took place in my city of Lahti. This 3-day event was the real deal, all sorts of athletes from all over the world competing in nordic skiing (sprinting/distance) and ski jumping from Lahti's famous ski jumps (below).

These jumps are huge!



The nordic sprints were thrilling in particular. I'm not sure about the results in each event, but Finland finished third in Women's sprint.



A great action shot.

Despite being a "World Cup", this was a distinctly Finnish event. All sorts of vendors were selling the traditional Finnish sausage ("makkara") and the cheers for the Finnish athletes were sometimes overwhelming! There were many foreign spectators, especially from Poland but even some from Japan. Oh, and the few Canadian skiers didn't even qualify for the final rounds... not that they stand much of a chance against these Scandinavians, Austrians, Germans, Swiss and most... other countries.

I don't have any great photos from the ski jumps since the skiers are almost too small to notice. On the Saturday I went with my host family to watch but today (Sunday) I met 3 German Rotary friends and a Brazilian friend to spend the day with. I will post some pictures of us later.

Another week of school ahead. Spring is already here in Finland, as the snow is melting quite quickly. I hope it doesn't come back, I've had enough of this dark, cold Finnish winter.

Family Trip To Levi

We arrived home last night from our week-long vacation at the Levi ski resort in Lapland. We stayed in a cabin near the hill, along with thousands (literally) of other tourists during southern Finland's winter break from school. The trip was fantastic and I went downhill skiing almost everyday and also got a bit of cross-country in as well.

Here are some pictures from my camera. There will probably be more later from my friend's camera as well.

I have countless beautiful landscape shots from the hill, but here are two of my favourites.

Levi is actually a world-class downhill skiing location, and there are world-level competitions held there every year. I skiied down the official "World Cup run", which has a gondola lift of course. The run is renowned for being difficult but I mastered it before the week was up!

There are many lifts at Levi, and it's possible to ski for hours without going up the same lift twice. I hardly ever skiied down the same run twice in one day, and I went skiing for 6 hours at a time! For a map of the runs at Levi, check out this link.

http://www.panoraama.com/levi/

This is a shot of the Levi center at night from the main run.

There were two other exchange students in Levi for the week as well: Juan from Mexico and Kathleen from America. We all shared a cool 'Mexican night' with Juan and his family in their cabin and I spent a lot of time on the slopes with Kathleen, who was snowboarding.

Here I am with Kathleen outside one of the cafes on the hill.

This is me posing on the hill. At Levi I met a girl named Heini as well, who is from my school in Lahti. The guy in the photo is her brother but I'm afraid I can't remember his name!

Below is a shot from the back porch of our cabin. Here you can see all the other cabins packed in around the hill. They are organized into neighbourhoods and there are ski buses running to the lifts for free.

A regular task in my current host family is walking our 2 dogs. I took them for a walk in Levi and got a cute picture of them. On the left is Buddy and on the right is Elvis. It looks like Buddy isn't much bigger than Elvis, but he is A LOT bigger. It looks like something caught their attention!

This trip to Lapland was a very memorable one. While the skiing was amazing, I also got the chance to meet my host grandparents, who all live near Levi in Lapland. My host mother, Sonja, brought us to her parents place. Her mother made me some mittens and socks and served us a moose that her husband had killed earlier. We also spent time at their cabin... which they built themselves! My host dad, Olli, has parents who grow/harvest most of their food themselves! (This is true Lappish living!) I also performed Finlandia multiple times for all the grandparents and some family friends.

Now I'm preparing for school tomorrow while students in northern Finland enjoy their winter break off school. I can't believe it is already March, only another month until my 18th birthday! Then I will be a legal adult in Finland... not sure what I will do to celebrate yet though!

Keep watching this blog for some more Levi photos as well as footage from the vanhat tanssit! I will post that as soon as I acquire the dvd.