Arriving and Karkku Pt.1

Moi, This is my first blog post here in Finland and there will be more to come, probably once a month. Enjoy x

ARRIVING

After about 25 hours in the air, eleven excited Aussies landed in Helsinki. The last flight from Heathrow to Helsinki was stunning [I had the window seat] as we saw hundreds of trees and buildings covered in white snow. As soon as we stepped off the plane, the cold hit me but it wasn’t too bad and the snow made up for it. Inside waiting were some rotarians and some of our oldies [exchange students who had arrived six months ago]. They had salmiakki, which I still don’t particularly love and Finnish chocolate which is sooooo good.

The next day there were more exchange students arriving so we had to wait in Helsinki for the night. We took a bus and ferry to the small island Suomenllina where we stayed the night. That night a few off us went out onto the ice skating rink and slid on it in our boots and threw snowballs at eachother. It was a great way to spend our first night.

The next day, after picking up the exchange students left on about a 3 hour bus ride to Karkku for our orientation camp.

MAANANTAI – MONDAY

Karkku was an amazing way to start off my year in Finland. I think it helped prepare me for Finnish culture and learning the language.
On the first day at karkku we met the tutors, Kata, Ilka, Riina, Veera, Heta and our Finnish teacher, Mimmu. We started with Finnish lessons and later on we played soccer in the snow and went sledding which hurt from all the times I fell off and my bum was frozen but was definitely worth it.

That night we had our first sauna. Although we didn’t go in “the Finnish way” this time it was still an a great experience. We did ‘Avanto’ twice which is where you run out of the sauna and jump into the ice lake. The water wasn’t as cold as I thought but my feet literally froze on the way down and stuck to the path. After Sauna we had evening snack in the Sauna house which was really nice and we got to know everyone better.

I also learnt that if you put your tongue on a frozen pole it will stick to it. Not the smartest choice of mine.

TIISTAI – TUESDAY

Today we had about 3 hours of Finnish lessons, lounas [lunch], kahvi [coffee] and a lecture with Mimmu about being an exchange student in Finland. After dinner we had “Life at a Forest Camp”. With some nature guides from the KEO  we did heaps of Finnish winter activities. They gave us some really warm winter clothes [also about ten sizes too big] and split us into groups. I got to try on skiis, snow shoes, walked out onto the frozen lake and got to drill a hole in the ice, like they do when they ice fish. We had a chance lie on the lake and just stay there in silence for a few minutes. It was so relaxing except for the sound of the cracking ice underneath us. I could have slept there. We went into a small hut and cooked our own pancakes on the fire and at another small shelter we got to try some rainbow trout, cooked on the open fire, served with warm juice [the best juice I’ve ever had]. We cooked our own makkara [sausages] and marshmallows on the fire to. We got to meet joulupukki [santa] and he gave us some carved wooden spoons and an award for completing “life at a forest camp”.