Month 1, complete!

It's been exactly one month since I arrived. August 8th... That seems so long ago now, but I'm not sure exactly what I've been doing in the last two weeks to fill up the time...

I sort of have a daily schedule, which pretty much consists of school. Rotary meetings are held on Tuesdays, I have language classes on Wednesdays, possibly followed by coffee with the exchange students, and another language class is going to start up on Monday. There is also dance on Sundays.

I had the flu for a couple of days, which was not so much fun but my host parents were wonderful taking care of me and I'm feeling much better :)

I also had my first Indian cooking lesson, which was pretty cool. Yes, I am in Finland and learning how to cook Indian food. It's fantastic :) I can tell that I'll be cooking a lot more when I get back to Canada....And I'm pretty sure that mom is enthusiastic about this. Also, Amar Jit said he'd try to teach me Punjabi too, which means that this year I will be learning how to speak Finnish, Spanish, better French, possibly Swedish (though probably not) and Punjabi.... Good think I like languages??? I don't think it's going to happen though. I'll probably lose my English, knowing my luck! :)

Last Friday marked only 100 days of school left for the 3rd year students (I'm pretty sure they get time to study for their final exams or something like that). Every year in Finland, the 3rd years celebrate by dressing up and basically terrorizing the school. There were about a hundred pirates screaming and running around with lipsticks, drawing on students' and teachers' faces, interrupting classes, the whole bit... It was funny until I had to leave the school to go to the bus stop in the absolute middle of the city, with people everywhere.... haha at least I wasn't the only one with lipstick all over my face. It happens in every high school (lukio) apparently and again, even bigger and louder in the spring when there are just 10 days left.

I also tried lettu on the weekend which is a thin crepe-like pancake (I think we might have had them at Karkku too, actually) that you eat with jam or berries. I brought down my maple syrup for everyone to try, but to be honest, it tastes better with the jam! Maybe I'll have to find waffles or make pancakes Canadian-style for everyone to fully appreciate the maple syrup.

I got out the shell for my winter coat the other day too. It's getting to be near the freezing point at night and I'm noticing that the days are already getting shorter. I now understand what everyone means about enjoying the sunshine while you can! Good thing I like winter :)

I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss the 3 month mark for being fluent in the language but I think it's all right... Maybe by Christmas...Actually, I'm hoping to be able to understand the Harry Potter movie when it comes out in November. That's the goal ;) But I'm noticing that sometimes I can pick up the gist of sentences, depending on the subject. Don't ask me to tell anybody what we're learning in history class, for example... I hear Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin and I say WWII. That's pretty much the extent of it.

Other than that, though, it feels like I'm pretty settled in. Life is definitely good!