onnellinen

I went to New York yesterday to get my Finnish residency permit from the Finnish Consulate General (in the United Nations Plaza). Everything went incredibly smoothly! I got to speak some Finnish with the woman there (who happens to have the same last name as my host family AND be from Lappeenranta, which is less than 20 miles away from my host town of Savitaipale... she thinks they're probably related), ride in an elevator full of conversing Finns, and afterwards as I was walking on the sidewalk, a pigeon in flight gave me a lovely little package, created just for me and delivered directly from its bowels to my forehead with care.

Also, as of today I am now facebook friends with my entire host family, and I have facebook-chatted with my host mother and both of my host sisters. I was chatting with them in Finnish (or trying to), which means pretty much using the same three words over and over regardless of meaning, but alas.