Uusivuosi ja Syntymäpäiväni (New Year's and My Birthday)

At home in Canada, December 24th to January 2 is a pretty busy time for most people, but especially my family: Christmas Eve (24.12), Christmas (12.25), Boxing Day (26.12), my parents’ wedding anniversary (27.12), New Year’s Eve (31.12), New Year’s Day and my birthday (1.1). With all of this being said, this time is normally the hardest part of anyone’s exchange abroad and I definitely felt some homesickness. It wasn’t “wah! I miss my family, Finland sucks, I want to go home” homesickness but more like “gee, I wonder what my family is doing now” or “I miss how <insert holiday tradition> is done at home”.

Niko, Henri, ja Kalle syövät sushia

On December 27^th, I had a nice phone call with my parents to congratulate them on 25 happy years of marriage. They spent it in Uclulet and Tofino on Vancouver Island. (I just received a post card from them today, Jan. 9) Also on this day I had a sushi party with my friends. Kalle invited us to his house for some homemade sushi. I have never really liked sushi. In my Rotary letter under things I don’t like, sushi was one of them. But Kalle’s sushi was “ihan ok”…it was probably the best I’ve ever had and I ate a few pieces but I didn’t love it. Afterward we went to see the second Sherlock Holmes movie in the theatre (yay! for free movie tickets for a year, thanks Kauhava Rotary).

Minä luistelen

I went jäähalliin luistelemaan (to the “ice hall” to go skating) on both the 28^th and 29^th of December. I am not a very good skater but I was able to put one foot in front of the other (pun intended) and I only fell once during the time that I skated. It was an agonizing fall, though, because I broke my fall with my hand but my watch was in an awkward position and painfully dug into my wrist. My host brothers and father in my current family all play hockey so they were skilled skaters, but I enjoyed my time nonetheless.

Peter on paras pilotti.

Perheeni ja lentokone

On December 30^th I was given the privilege of a private tour of the Finnish Air Force base in my town. Both of my host fathers work there: Jarmo my first host father is a plane mechanic and Petri my current host father is a teacher at the flight school. My current host family spent the day at the base and Petri gave us instructions on flying two different simulators used to train the students. One was in a classroom and was a bunch of computer screens. The other was really high-tech: it came complete with a control centre with all the screens, knobs, lights, etcetera. The actual simulator was a real cockpit with some big screens in front but the windshield of the plane distorted the images to look just like it really would (well, all the images were easily identified as computer generated, but close enough to the real world). Unfortunately the headset wasn’t working very well so I couldn’t hear the commands from the control centre even though they could hear me clearly. Eventually I ended up crashing the plane a few metres from the runway, but I considered it to be pretty successful for my first “flight”.
Petri gave us a tour of the two hangars which house the planes which are part of the Finnish version of the Snowbirds called the Midnight Hawks. In June, when there is the midnight sun, the Midnight Hawks have a performance in the middle of the night. Majori Kettunen also brought us to a classroom where he showed us a really neat computer reconstruction of one of their practices. After this we went to the officers’ lounge and relaxed in the awesome massage chairs. It was a really cool day.

Minä ja tina

On New Year’s Eve I went back to Kalle’s house for a party with our friends. We played a game of what is basically Balderdash but in Finnish. Forget about playing it in a second language that I’m not very good at, balderdash is a really difficult game to play. I had a strategy that got me pretty far in the game. I was allowed to use my dictionary, but none of the words were ever in it. I would look up each word, select a similar word from that page in the dictionary, and then try to write something strange that could be sort of associated with that word in some way. One of my favourites was “a postbox which has been scratched by cats” but it was written Finnish. I was also pretty good at guessing the correct definition. Also on the 31^st before the clock struck twelve we had a sauna and, in the manner of true Finns, rolled around in the snow. For midnight, we went outside and there were lots of fireworks going off everywhere. Our group didn’t have any, but there were several displays that we could see from the yard. I had happy birthday sung to me in three languages: “Paljon onnea vaan”, “Cumpleaños feliz”, and “Happy Birthday”. We spent a bit more time lounging around the house before deciding to go to a party in Hirvijoki (Moose River) which is technically still in Kauhava. There were lots of people from our school who were there celebrating the New Year. We went back to Kalle’s house (at 4:30) and people started heading home. Niko, Kalle, and I conversed with Kalle’s older siblings Emma and Mikko until 6 before finally giving our eyes the privilege of closing for a few hours. I woke up at around 1 in the afternoon and ate some yoghurt. We played a game of cribbage (probably my favourite card game from home) before I left for my host family’s house.

Minun kakku

It is a common New Year’s tradition to predict the future with tin here. So we each heated to small tin horseshoes over the fire and dumped the melted metal into a bucket of water. Then we examine our trinkets and decide what they mean. Apparently mine has the texture that signifies money (fingers crossed for scholarship $$ this year!)
That evening we had spaghetti for my birthday dinner and my first host family came over for cake. The delicious chocolate cake was baked by Sanna, decorated by Saila, and had the candles from my former host brother Ilari’s 19^th birthday in September. For my present from my families I got a bracelet which has the Finnish and Canadian flags on it. I finished the day with a birthday phone call from mom and dad in Canada.
School started on January 3^rd and I got my new schedule

	Maanantai	Tiistai	Keskiviikko	Torstai	Perjantai
8-10	Physics 6	Math 9	Phys. Ed. 2	Math 9	English 9
10-11:35	Math 17	English 10	Math 17	Physics 6	Math 17
12:20-14		Physics 6		English 10
14-15:30	Math 9	English 9 (only 1 hour)	Music 7	Phys. Ed. 2

The blanks are hyppytunteja (jump hours) or spare periods during which I have no class. Last jakso I took English 9, which is a speaking course, but only 3-5 people came to each class, so I offered to the teacher that I can come this jakso as well to help (I think I’m pretty good at speaking English, even though my skills in my mother language have drastically declined since being here in Finland).

On January 6^th there was no school because it is the twelfth day of Christmas (or something like that). Because there was no school Kimmo hosted a saunailta (sauna evening) the night before. I basically slept the day away. I got sick this week and I have been medicating myself with some good Canadian Buckley’s: “It tastes awful. But it works”.
January 7th marked my 5th month-aversary in Finland. Wow! Almost half way through the year!

Yesterday, Sunday the 8^th, I went skiing. No, not downhill skiing on the (read with sarcasm) oh so tall mountains nearby…I went Nordic skiing (aka cross-country skiing) with my host brothers. Later, I went to see the movie Vares at the theatre (another free movie!) with some of my friends. It was a Finnish murder mystery. I understood some of the conversation but sometimes I found that I had stopped listening. It was a really easy mystery to figure out but the movie was pretty good. Although I didn’t understand every word, I understood the movie which is an accomplishment.

Today, January 9^th, I want to wish my Grannie happy 75^th birthday. An interesting fact, my Grannie was the New Year’s Baby of Wells, British Columbia, in 1937. I was born on the first of January, but I wasn’t the New Year’s Baby because I was the second baby born in my town.