First Couple Days

So, after about 9 hours flying time, I am safe here in Karkku Finland at the Language/Orientation camp. As I was landing on the plane and driving from Helsinki to Karkku I realized how much Finland looks like Canada. It's really humid here too but I love it already. 

There are about 130 people here, all inbound to Finland with about 6 that are inbound to Estonia. It is so crazy with the number of languages being spoken all around me.. Finnish, Spanish, French, German, Japanese .. And those are only the ones I recognize. There are people here from Mexico, Germany, France, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, the States; it's amazing how many countries have come together in this place.

I am rooming with a bunch of girls also from Canada and one of them is also going to my district. We have language lessons every day and it's great to have the Finnish language explained simply for once. As they say, "it's not bad, just different." ... I learned today that the longest acceptable Finnish word is 61 characters long ... and pretty much impossible to pronounce. There is a trip to Tampere on Wednesday, but other than that, it's a whole lot of Finnish language learning. I can't wait for Saturday, when we get to meet our first host families. Oh, it turns out that people wear bathing suits to the sauna at this camp :)