Virpominen pääsiäisenä (Trick-or-Treating at Easter)

The week before Easter was test week at school. I had two tests; I wrote a math test and I had a conversation with my äidinkieli puhekurssi teacher about what my mark for the course should be. I still haven’t gotten my math test back, and my mark for the speaking course was an “S” (in other words, a pass) however if I had done my second presentation, which I didn’t do because I was sick and then I went to Russia, I would have gotten a 9 out of 10 for the course. In all the free time I had during test week, I went to several elementary schools in Kauhava to gives presentations about my city, my country, and me. It was pretty fun to give away Canadian goodies to all the kids who asked questions.

Mämmi.

There is one type of food in Finland that comes out only around Eastertide. Mämmi. It is made of rye flour, malted rye, and dark molasses. Finns either hate it or love it. I like it but only when it is served with heaps of sugar and cream.

With Easter being one of the most important events on the calendar of the church, the choir sang on multiple occasions. We sang the Thursday before Easter, twice on pitkäperjantai (Good Friday), and also on Easter Sunday (however I was absent from that service). My understanding of Finnish is good enough that I know most af the content that we sing about, however it is normally really formal or archaic language so sometimes I have problems. There was one song we sang which was written by Bach. Not only were the melodies and harmonies quite tricky, the words were in German. At the pitkäperjantai evening service, there was the first reading of which I understood everything. It was a story about a boy questioning his mother about the meaning of Good Friday.

Me as a witch and Saila as the Easter bunny

Finns have a very unique Easter tradition. It reminds many people (me included) of Halloween. The little kids dress up as witches and go from door to door. They have made decorated twigs and say this poem “Virvon varvon, tuoreeks terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks, vitsa sulle, palkka mulle”. The poem is sort of like a little spell that mentions something about health coming in the year and then it says a stick for you and payment for me. In essence, the kids give their decorated stick to the home owner, who in return gives candy and coins to the kids. The morning of the day before Easter I went “trullitelemaan” a.k.a. “virpomaan” with my host sister Saila and some neighbours. I too dressed like a witch and got a kettle filled with chocolate.

The kokko.

The Saturday evening before Easter my host family drove to my host-mother’s parents’ house. My host parents went to a birthday party and the grandkids (me included) spent the evening with mumma and paappa. We went to the kokko, which is a big bonfire and Easter party. It seemed like the whole village came out, including my host aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was a little fair inside the community hall. They were selling makkara and pulla. I entered the costume contest and I was the oldest participant by probably more than ten years. I tried to converse with as many people as possible to persuade them to vote for me. But I lost. A cute 18 month old Easter bunny won over me, the 19 year old Canadian exchange student. My host siblings and I spent the night at my host-grandparents house.

Easter Sunday was a pretty low key day. I had two shifts working at the movie theatre to fundraise for my Berlin trip, for which I would leave only a few days later. For my second shift no one else showed up to work with me, so I ran the kiosk by myself. I even answered the questions that some of the moviegoers had. I walked home from the movie theatre (because the rest of my host family was at another birthday party). Sunday evening I ate pizza and skyped my mom and grandparents.

Санкт-Петербург, Россия (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

Me in front of this cool, famous church

I recently went on a Rotary organized trip to my holy city. (That was an attempt at being funny…because my name is Peter)

The first day of the trip started just before four o’clock in the morning when I woke up. I slowly packed up my final things and then hopped into the care with my host mom to drive to Seinäjoki, where the bus would depart. At five, the bus’s wheels started rolling. Most of the Finns to whom I told that I was going to Pietari (St. Petersburg in Finnish) were all very surprised to hear that I was going by bus; it is faster, easier, and more convenient to travel by train.

For the first couple of hours on the bus, I tried sleeping when it wasn’t interrupted with conversation amongst the exchange students. Our first stop was in Tampere to pick up a lot more students. Then we made another stop a few hours later in Lahti. This trip was my first time meeting most of the new Australian students and the one new Kiwi. I had already met the three who are in my district, two of whom live in Seinäjoki. The bus trip itself was pretty uneventful. Other than meeting the new people and just general chatting, nothing happened.
We stopped in a town just before the border to eat lunch and exchange some money. The other two buses came just a short while after us and there were lots of reconnections and new introductions. The border crossing was sort of interesting. We needed to go through one building to check out of Finland; then we drove a little bit (over the actual border) and had to go through another building to enter Russia. Almost everyone had a tourist visa for Russia, with a few exceptions because some nationalities don’t require one to visit Russia. We stopped at a gas station a short way from the border to buy provisions: for me it was a big bottle of water and a chocolate bar.

Jonathan and me in front of "my" throne

We arrived at the hotel after driving into St. Petersburg at night. I think big cities always look really cool at night: with all of the buildings and monuments lit up. We ate our dinner and just hung out for the evening. My roommate was Jonathan from Australia who lives in Seinäjoki.

We spent lots of Friday in museums. The first was the world renowned Hermitage Museum situated in the Winter Palace. It is the largest museum in Russia and thirteenth largest in the world. Some rooms were filled with old paintings; others were furnished with furniture from the era when the palace was used. The palace first started construction under the reign of Peter the Great, the museum was founded by Catherine the Great. For lunch we all went to the same restaurant; I think the cuisine was Moroccan but I’m not really sure. In the afternoon we went to the Kunstkamera, aka Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. It is basically Peter the Great’s collection of oddities and curiosities. For example, there was a human fetus with two heads, a placenta with five human fetuses, and other really disturbing stuff. There was also a large globe (diameter of about 8 feet).

Some of the dancers

Friday evening we went to see a Russian folk dancing show. It was really good! There was an a capella men’s singing group, a folk band, and some more folk singers, and two dance groups. The show was filled with energy. One of the chaperones and one of the students were brought onto stage to participate in the show.

All of the Canadians on the trip, standing on the river

On Saturday we had a tour of the city: “the highlights of the highlights” as our tour guide said several times. We visited several churches which were of the Russian Orthodox denomination and drove past the important buildings and monuments in the town while getting a bit of a Russian history lesson. During the entire trip to Russia and especial on this tour I started picking up several letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. I started recognizing familiar words even though they looked totally different. Saturday afternoon we had some free time in the shopping district.

Me and my bus buddy and new Aussie friend Danika at the ballet

That evening we went to the ballet. Most people got dressed up. I wore full suit and tie. I wish that the ballet had been a classical, well-known show like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Instead it was a contemporary ballet set to the music of Bach. I didn’t really understand lots of the show. But one number in particular stood out in my mind. It was with a dancer in the role of Bach playing his famous cello suite, and the cello was another dancer. It was really interesting to see how the dancer interpreting being both a musical instrument and the music which it produces.

Sunday was the long drive home. We left about nine o’clock or so in the morning. In the middle of the night the time change happened in Finland (a couple weeks before in Canada), but not in Russia. This confused some people and the alarms on their cell phone. 

My Russian dolls

We drove to Vyborg, which used to be the largest city of Eastern Finland but Karelia was lost to Russia during the Second World War. We went to a market hall where I purchased my souvenirs for the trip: a couple of matryoshka dolls (where you open one up and there is a smaller one, and inside that is a smaller one…). I actually bartered with the merchant in Finnish. Even though I knew instantly that her mother language was Russian, I hadn’t spoken Finnish for almost the duration of the trip and I needed to practice. While in St. Petersburg I bought and wrote some postcards, but I forgot to send them. I briefly looked around the market hall but couldn’t find any post boxes. I asked (in Finnish) a lady trying to sell scarves if she knew where the closest one was. She offered to take my cards and mail them because she wasn’t sure where one was. I was very hesitant, but the bus was about to leave, so I gave the cards to her. Then I decided to also give the loose change in my pocket to say thanks. I gave about 30 roubles which is roughly 1€ or $1.30. I really didn’t think they would ever get sent but it was worth a shot. One of the cards was to my host family, and they received it yesterday.

The rest of the trip was pretty much a reverse of Thursday. We drove across the border, again going to one building to leave Russia, driving, and then another building to enter Finland. We ate lunch at the same restaurant near the border. Then the goodbyes started. Goodbyes always take a really long time when you have a group of exchange students. Then the three buses went their separate ways. We stopped at Hesburger for dinner and arrived in Seinäjoki at about 11:30 pm.

Maaliskuu on tullut ja mennyt (March has come and gone)

Kauhavan kirkko.

Minä haluan sanoa aluksi, että olen pahoillani kaikille joka eivät osaa suomea. Ehkä Google-kääntäjä voi auttaa teitä. Tänään minä yritän jotain erilaista. Tämä koko teksti on suomeksi. Minun suomen kielikoe oli pari päivää sitten ja minun täytyi harjoitella kirjoittamaan suomea. Jos sinä huomaat ongelmia, että olen kirjoittanut väärin toistuvasti, kerrothan minulle. Huomatkaa suomalaiset, että tämä on harjoitukseksi eli olkaa kilttejä ja älkää olko ”kielioppi natseja”. Kiitoksia.

Vau! Maaliskuu meni todella nopeasti. Ja minä olin huono blogi kirjoittaja (vain yksi koko kuukaudessa). Minä tein paljon asioita, mutta en muista niitä kaikkia koska minun päiväni olivat normaaleja. Niin kuin olen jo kertonut minä olen ollut kuoron, orkesterin ja myös näytelmän harjoituksissa. Siis olen ollut kiireinen.

Kuorokurssi.

Eräänä lauantaina pari viikkoa sitten oli kirkkokuorokurssi seurakuntatalossa. Eteläpohjalaisia kirkkokuoro laulajia tuli tälle kuorokurssille, joka oli Kauhavalla. Ehkä kurssilla oli kaksi- tai kolmesataa laulajaa. Toukokuussa on iso kuoro juhla Jyväskylässä. Täällä kurssilla me opimme lauluja, joita lauletaan juhlassa. En tiedä menenkö juhlaan laulamaan, koska olen vaihto-oppilas ja minun suunnitelmani vaihtavat usein.

Meidän näytelmämme, ”Pohjalaisia”, valmistuu. Minun roolini on aika pieni. Minä olen häjy, eli eteläpohjalainen mies, joka on vihainen. Laulaminen näytelmässä on vaikeaa koska minun täytyy laulaa ulkoa ja ei vain suomeksi - vaan eteläpohjanmaaksi. 

Kauhavalla on kaksi Rotaryklubia: minun klubini ja toinen, joka syntyi viime vuonna. Minun lukion rehtori muutti tammikuussa toiseen klubiin ja hän kysyi minulta voinko kertoa heille Kanadasta. Ei ollut paljon henkilöitä, mutta puhuin enemmän kuin neljäkymmentä minuuttia vain suomeksi. No ehkä viisi sanaa englanniksi.

Koulussa oli hyvä kuukausi. Tunnit ovat nyt kivoja koska minä ymmärrän mistä puhumme ja voin oppia jotain. Kemian työkurssin ymmärtäminen oli vähän vaikeaa mutta kurssi oli hauska koska minä sain tehdä kokeita. Minun äidinkielen kurssini meni myös ihan hyvin. Kun oli minun ensimmäinen esitys luokalle se oli hermoja raastavaa. En tiennyt kun esitin, että minä puhuin ainakin kymmenen minuuttia enemmän kuin piti. Viime viikolla oli puhekoe. Minä sain aiheeni ja minulla oli vain kaksikymmentä minuuttia aikaa valmistua, mutta se oli kaksi kerta enemmän kuin muilla oli. Puheeni oli isälleni hänen viidentenäkymmenentenä syntymäpäivänänsä.

Tein niitä keksiä yksin. Maapakinavoisuukkoja.

Tiistaina menin ystävälle syömään veripalttua. Se oli...syötävää. Me leivoimme myös keksiä. Tämä perhe (Kalle, Ilkka, ja Heli) on minun seuraava isäntäperhe.

Eilen oli kielikoe Seinäjoella. Minä päätin puolitoista kuukautta sitten, että haluan yrittää tehdä keskitason koetta. Minä tykkään haasteista ja luulin että se voisi mennä hyvin. Olin väärässä. Tuo koe oli vaikein koe, jonka olen tehnyt koko elämässäni. Saan minun numeroni kahden kuukauden kuluttua. Ehkä pääsen läpi, mutta luulen että se meni tosi huonosti.

Minun lukiollani on projektiviikko pääsiäisen jälkeen. Minä menen viikoksi Berliiniin, Saksaan, koulukavereiden kanssa. Olen innostunut Berliinin matkasta. Kahdeksantoista oppilasta ja kaksi opettajaa lukiostani lähtevät sinne. Minä olen joutunut tekemään töitä elokuvateatterissa koska me saamme rahaa Rotarylta, jonka elokuvateatteri on.

Minun seuraava blogikirjoitus on Pietarin matkastani, joka oli vaihto-oppilaiden kanssa. Varmasti se on englanniksi, mutta yritän kirjoittaa jotain suomeksi.
Kiitos kaikille lukemisesta.