There are some things I have been getting used to here that I have not been mentioning in my blogs. I forget to mention these things because they have just become second nature to me. Each morning I am woken up at around 6:30 or when the sun comes up by a rooster pheasant squawking outside my window! They are everywhere in my neighborhood! Also because I am not allowed to drive here I have to rely on my finish friends to get me places. I have become friends with a lot of my host sisters friends who is currently on exchange in New Mexico, and they are mostly girls. This leaves me riding on the back of girls mopeds 3 to 4 times a week! At first I felt extremely emasculated riding on the back of a girls scooter, but after being here for only a week I realized no one cares who is riding where because your all going to the same place!
The wedding I went to was pretty interesting. The service was pretty long or at least it seemed that way because it was in another language that I can barely understand. The reception was cool though, it was not like American wedding receptions though. There was only dancing for the last 45 minutes of the reception and it was all slow dancing, which isn't really my cup of tea. Pretty much the entire reception consisted of eating, talking, walking around between tables then eating more! I think there ended up being 5 total courses!
I was just interrupted while writing my blog by smoke seeping under my door to my room! Then I heard my host dad stomping around the house saying some not so choice words, and when I opened the door to my room (which leads right into the family room) I was greeted by the house being filled with smoke! They tried to start a fire in the fire place but something happened so the smoke wasn't going up the chimney but straight into the house! That made my average monday night pretty exciting!
Back to the wedding though! After the first 4 courses of really good meat and potatoes and salad and other delicious greens was the desert! The desert consisted of cake, coffee and Konyak! That was an interesting mixture! After we finished desert my 20 year old host sister and her cousin and I walked around the town we were in and went to a couple of clubs to end the night! It was overall a fun weekend and an enjoyable wedding!
Last week was an average week of school, nothing to special. However on tuesday last week I helped the principal to my school teach a gym class how to play softball! He thought I was the most qualified person to help him after finding out I played baseball for 8 years. It was a lot of fun though! Tomorrow with my rugby club we are helping the principal teach another gym class how to play rugby! The principal is so cool! One time he called out in the middle of the lunch room to me and the other exchange students asking us to join him for Finish baseball after school, and when we looked hesitant he yelled at us "Be there or be square, dudes" so we all decided it would be fun to join him! Finish Baseball is a crazy sport, I cant explain the rules so look them up if you want more details!
The rugby tournament was three hours away so we had to leave at 8 in the morning to make our noon game! I road up with the captain to our team and two members of the Finish army that play on our team so I heard some pretty cool stories on the way there and learned a couple of new finish words I probably wouldn't learn in school. We ended up playing 3 games as a team but I played 4 because another team was short players. I met some cool guys at the tournament, one guy from New Zealand, and a couple more from France. One thing I will never get sick of is the connection shared by rugby players world wide! I played pretty well for not having played for 4 months, but I do still feel each of the games!
Yesterday a fellow Minnesotan exchange friend came from a neighboring town to visit me and my buddy Connor from California here in Hameenlinna. We walked around the huge public park here called Aulanko, and explored the castles built in the 1800's with in the park! It was great fun and nice to see another Minnesotan! I'll never get sick of big Minnesota hugs!
Hopefully my next blog post will be sometime at the beginning of next week but we will see.
For now, Live life and be safe!
