Post Helsinki

Ok,I think it's time I just lay it straight and say I doubt I will ever make timely and regular posts. I will tr, but im sure you can empathize with how busy I am. Right now, I am on my last day of Autumn Break. I spent my past week with no school in and aound Finland's capital Helsinki. I wish I had some pictures to put up, but I'm afraid my camera has no battery left and I have found it absurdly difficutlty to find a power converter. I am currently awaiting one in the mail, once I have it, expect more pictures. Anyways.

Helsinki was pretty amazing. I dint realize how much I missed the sea until I breathed salty air. Damn. Well i have the lakes here, but there is soething about the sea isn't there. Well Helsinki was a ctually a lot like Seattle. Kind of. All of the new buildings are SO much like Seattle's. Also the size and population is equivilant. Plus it's a port city. The big difference was in the old buildings and the cobble stone streets. It is pretty much a European version of Seattle. This isn't a bad thing at all, I think Seattle is an incredible city. Helsinki is better though haha. It was cleaner and safer too. One thing I loved, the thing that really reminded me that I was in Europe was how many languages I heard. In my short time, I heard German, Finnish, Swedish, French, English, Russian and some balkan languages. It's pretty incredible to be in the middle of all of that.

Life in Finland has been good to me. Finnish is finally starting to catch. I can almost always get my point across when I want to say something. I can engage in decent small talk with my host brother and father. Sometimes, I even surpise myself. I have a lot more confidence that I will really learn in whilst I am here. Living among so many languages makes me feel really dissapointed to live in the USA. There, we exposed to maybe two languages. It's considered a feat to speak more than one. Here, everyone speaks at least Finnish, Swedish and English near fluently. I really wish my parents raised me bilingually.

A few weeks ago I went hunting with my host father and although I wasn't with him as it happened, he and his brother caught a moose. It was crazy. I had to help them drag it out to the road to be butchered. It was enormous. Apparently, when a hunter makes his first kill, he is supposed to drink the blood of the moose, kind of like a coming of age thing. So next time, if I am there as it happens, I will probably have to glug some moose blood haha. Well, when in Rome I guess.

I'm still waiting for Winter to really hit. It snows almost everyday, but it's juuuuuust to warm to stick. It's about +1 C so we're on the balance point. All it takes is a little bit more cold and we'll have some serious snow fall. I really can't wait. I'm just waiting for the day I wake up with a turly white morning.

Until then, I have little more to say and no pictures.

Kiah