FINLAND DURING APRIL...

Another wonderful month has once again been and gone. The year is going so quickly and there is still so many things I have yet to do.

MY BIRTHDAY

The cake Jenni made me

April brought about many wonderful experiences. It started off with me celebrating my 18^th Birthday. Jenni made me a cake which was a jam sponge layer cake, which she decorated with the word ONNEA which is congratulations in Finnish. My birthday fell during the middle of test week at school although luckily for me I didn’t have a test so I was able to stay home and have a lovely day with Anne. We went out for dinner to the restaurant in Heinola where I was able to have a steak. It was so good!!!  After a busy first week of April, the month was only just beginning.

                                                                                     EASTER TIME!

One food that comes out around Eater time is Mämmi. It is made of rye flour, malted rye and dark molasses. It is one of those foods that you either love or hate. It looks rather disgusting as it is a dark brown/black colour and is rather gooey. But I didn’t mind it when I had it with vanilla cream.

For Easter I went to Oulu which is 8hours North West of Heinola. To get there I was lucky to be able to get a lift majority of the way up by a friend of Anne who was going up North for Easter as well to visit her family. When we arrived in the little city of Pihtipudas, the place her parents lived, I was invited to their place for dinner before getting the bus the rest of the way up to Oulu.  The dinner just kept coming. First of all we had the main meal which consisted of Finnish meatballs, mash, watermelon salad, salted raw salmon and bread. After dinner we had a Finnish smoothie. It’s served in a bowl as you eat it with a spoon, as it has berries and other things in it.  After I thought I was finished I was given a glass of Jaffa (a Finnish soft drink a little like fanta) whilst the coffee was being made. Once the coffee was ready I sat back at the table for karjalanpiirakka with egg butter, pula and an Easter egg shaped frozen chocolate cake thing, with a cup of coffee. After all this food it was time for me to leave and go to the bus station. Though as I was leaving I was given 2 little chocolate blocks, a bottle filled with Jaffa and some more Karjalanpiirakka for my journey on the bus. After a 3 hour bus trip from Pihtipudas I had finally made it to Oulu and met the other exchange students already there. In Oulu we walked around the city and caught up with each other again as it had been ages since we were all last together.

At the tori police with Rachel and Vanessa in Oulu

DISTRICT 1390 CONFERENCE

On the 14^th to 15^th of April I attended with the 40 other exchange students in district 1390. During the weekend we listened to some presentations and speeches (which were mainly all in Finnish so I didn’t understand majority of them), about different things that clubs of the district were doing both locally and internationally. At the conference there were 5 guests from a Taiwan rotary club who were at the conference gaining information which they could then take back to their local rotary club. In the afternoon of the Saturday the exchange students in groups went across the road to the architectural design museum of Jyväskylä. After a visit of the museum we returned to the hotel where we were staying to get ready for the governors ball which we were attending that evening. Before the ball we attended pre drinks (where we had a berry frappe) where we shook hands with the governor.  After this we entered the dining hall where there were 3 long rows of tables all set nicely. The exchange students all sat in one row where we had a lovely dinner consisting of an entree and a main and a dessert. After dinner we watched a comedy performance by a Finnish group, which was then followed by some dancing.  After the ball the exchange students headed back to the hotel where we all chilled together catching up again to end a wonderful day. The following day we had a few more presentations before a closing ceremony before it was time to say goodbye to all the other exchange students and go back home.

ANZAC DAY

I wasn’t able to attend a service or anything so I decided to make ANZAC biscuits for my friends and school and for Anne and Jenni to try. Everyone really enjoyed them

               A SUNSET IN HEINOLA AT 9PM TAKEN BY ME ON THE 30^TH APRIL 2012