I shall now shed a bit of light on some things that have happened since my last blogpost.
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this was a four day camping trip near Hyvinkää. it's organized by a lovely hostfamily (really, amazing people. I wish I'd gotten to know them better) with access to some lovely woods. this is only the second year they've held it, and if it continues in future years, I highly recommend it to future Finland exchangers! not only do you get to spend several days straight in the newly-thawed mud of the springtime Finnish woods without showers or electricity, but you get to do so with a truly awesome group of people from all over the world, knowing all the while that this may be the last time you are all together as a group. it was magical.
we slept in Swedish army tents (anything that went wrong in them was, of
course, Sweden's fault. this out of focus and terrible picture
represents the atmosphere. imagine twenty girls sleeping pinwheeled
around a woodstove (staying up in shifts during the night to keep the
fire alight) with warm feet and muddy heads, snoring in all the
languages of the world. this is what it looked like from the outside.
the campsite. behind me are the four Swedish army tents and the teepee (in which the volunteers slept).
chores included chopping firewood and planting daffodils.
waist-length hair isn't very practical in a muddy, showerless environment. so we cut mine with a puukko and
kitchen scissors and tossed it into the campfire. it was a good thing I
had so much hair to start out with because quite a few people wanted to
try their hands at hairdressing. amazed and thankful props to Megan for
skillfully overseeing this all!
another recent happening was the departure orientation. I don't like to talk about that because the very name terrifies me. we were at Polvijärvi, about a half an hour out of Joensuu. it was the same group as was at our arrival orienation, and it was bittersweetly lovely to compare thoughts and impressions and memories.
photoed is the dock from which we swam after saunaing. it was cold, but o have I
missed lakeswimming! I stayed in the water perhaps longer than I should
have (though it was hard to convince ourselves that it was actually
getting late because the sky didn't really get dark). that was also the weekend that Finland didn't medal in either Eurovision or the Hockey championship. poor Finland.
this weekend I went with my host sister Tuuli to Helsinki to stay with her godmother Tarja. this trip is something that we have all been talking about since I came, but autumn went by so speedily that we didn't fit it in and decided to wait until after the snow melted. finally, this weekend was the weekend.
when we arrived on Friday, Tarja took us to Porvoo. Tuuli photographed me under the scrumptious greenness of an obliging tree.
we walked along the river and ate icecream as afternoonevening turned to eveningevening.
on Saturday, my brotherdear Jacob arrived from Estonia and Tuuli, he,
and I explored Helsinki. that day was happening a Maailma Kylässä
('World in a Village') festivalfairevent. we wandered the tents and some
scientists from Saint Petersburg included us in a psychological
experiment (in Russian-accented Finnish). and, it just so happened that
PMMP (a very popular Finnish band) was performing right after we
happened across a stage. so, you know, we stuck around for that too.
it took us a while to leave the park, due to poor navigation skills
and distractions and the like. in our wanderings, we saw the most
beautiful greenhouse.
we tried to make it back to Suomenlinna (where I was last time I was
in Helsinki, but I was there in the night). but due to the
aforementioned level of our navigation skills, we ended up somewhere
completely different. but it was also an island, and it was absolutely
gorgeous.
today, Sunday, we visited Ainola (Jean Sibelius's house, now a
museum). it was a profoundly beautiful place. we also visited Heureka
(science museum) and saw the exhibit of bodies there. a good day.
other than the muchnesses pictured/described in this post, much has been happening here since my last blogpost. snows have melted, trees have greened (there is nothing like the sound of a birch forest in the wind), and nighttime (and with it the motivation to sleep) is slowly disappearing. dandelions are gloriously prolific, and you know what? Finns appreciate dandelions. I never understood why people back stateside feel the need to humiliate dandelions to the point that they sometimes seem to lose their flowership. but no such bigotry here.
today I have exactly one month left here.
happy spring to you all!
