Kesäkuu – June

June was the month of Eurotour which was so exciting but also meant I was close to my halfway point, something I cannot come to terms with. Summer holidays have come finally and almost straight after school ended I travelled on a train down to Helsinki for Eurotour!

We started in Estonia and travelled through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and Austria. In each city we had a guided tour by bus then got to explore the city on our own. My two favourite places were Budapest and Prague.

I have been to Prague once before so when I was there it kind of felt like a dream, some amazing city I saw as a younger child. Always felt like I had Deja vu. I really think Prague is such a beautiful city. We walked across the Charles Bridge and saw the John Lennon wall and the Prague Castle. It was a city full of life.

In Budapest we got to go on a night cruise on the river Danube. The city looked amazing with all the buildings lit up in bright lights. We ate and danced on the roof of our boat and it was definitely one of my favourite memories from Eurotour. Budapest was just as stunning in the daylight to and I can’t wait to go back there.

There were many great experiences at the Eurotour but  will just say one more or I could go on forever. When we were in Germany we had a chance to visit Dachau Concentration Camp. Although an extremely depressing place, it was so eye opening to see the actual places people were living. Everything that happened there was so inhumane and hard to imagine people who could do such things. I remember being there almost crying from just reading the stories and then walking through the camp. Overall I am so glad I got to have this experience as it opened my eyes so much more that all those things I had learnt about in history class or from museums.

If you want to read about our daily itinerary then read it on this link: https://eurotourfinland2018.blogspot.com/?m=1

Those were some of the best weeks of my life. Travelling through so many places with some of my greatest friends from all over the world. Thank you to all the people at Eurotour, everyone I met and who I already knew, see you someday again x

After Eurotour I came home to Nivala and spent the rest of the month here. I did some things with my school friends and my host family and my host sister came home from her exchange year in Tasmania!

At midsummer (Juhannus) I got to visit my host family’s summer cottage which is something I really wanted to do here in summer. Their cottage is on a lake in the forest and going there kind of feels like it is from a dream sometimes. We swam, went to sauna and ate so much great food. In sauna there is an old tradition where people hit themselves and others with this thing called ‘Vasta’. It is made from some sticks and leaves from a Birch Tree. It sounds a bit weird but they say it helps your blood circulation. Going to the cottage is such an escape from normal life as you just loose track of time and are mostly just relaxing near a lake and outside all the time. There was so power or running water at our cottage so we cooked on the fire and had showers in the lake. I loved that we could just go swimming at 12am because the sun never set. It was such a great weekend (other than the thousands of mozzies).

I had such a great first month of summer. The weather was really hot and sometimes I felt like I was still in Australia ahaha. Something I love about Finnish summers is that the sun never sets. You can still be doing things in the middle of the night and not even notice the time.

– Moikka