Not being home for the holidays has been one of the hardest thing an exchange student can go through. It's hard having to spend your time with your new family while your family back at home are spending their days with one less person in their lives. The only thing that is getting me through these hard times is knowing I have caring and loving people waiting for me to return. But having a new family allowing me into their family and sharing their christmas traditions makes me so grateful the new people I have let into my life.
Finnish Christmas traditions are very similar to American traditions but with a little twist. They celebrate everything on the 24th and don't put their tree up until a couple days before christmas! On Christmas Eve my family and I walked to the Cathedral in the city and a lot of the city goes to this. They play music and just sing the national anthem then we leave. They said it's a 600 year tradition in the city for everyone to gather around the Cathedral. After we got home we ate rice porridge for lunch( THEY ALWAYS ARE EATING PORRIDGE) and couple hours later it was sauna time! After sauna we did a big big big big dinner, you could say I was stuffed for days! Typical finnish christmas dishes we had was smoked salmon, liver casserole, mixed beetroot salad and bunch of other kinds of stuff. After the dinner then it was presents time and then we played board games as a family. The next day all we did is go to the grandparents with rest of the family!
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
I got a visitor!
Meghan is another exchange student from the US. She is living up near Oulu and she came down to visit for couple days! I showed her around the city, we made gingerbread house, and sugar cookies!
Monday, December 8, 2014
Tallinn, Estonia!
First time I had wings since I've been here! (:
The boat we took from Helsinki to Tallinn!
Monday, December 1, 2014
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