Talvi – Winter

Moi!

Sorry for not being as active as I used to be on here, but with the second wave of Covid hitting Finland in the last few months of my exchange, my motivation kind of went out the window. I’m currently in my two weeks of quarantine back in Australia and thought that with all the time I have on my hands, I would share some of the things that happened in the final stretch of my exchange in Finland. It might be a bit of a long blog post sorry so I hope you’re comfy.

If you remember where I left off my last blog post, you would recall how I was about to go on the Lapland trip and that I was hoping for corona to stay under control so I could enjoy the last big trip of my exchange. So um… yeah… that didn’t age very well as it did in fact get cancelled. Not going to lie, I did shed quite a few tears as it was pretty disappointing to hear but since we are in a pandemic, it is definitely better to be safe than sorry. However, as soon as this pandemic is over and I have enough money, you best believe I will be on the next flight back to Finland and I will see Lapland.

At the start of November, it was my friend, Hila’s birthday (an exchange student from New Zealand). To celebrate, a few of the other exchange students came to Helsinki to celebrate. We went ice skating and then bowling after and it was so good to see everyone as I hadn’t seen many of them since the orientation camp at the start of the year.

Soon after that gathering, the second wave of covid started to get worse and school went back online for the rest of the year. The last day of school in person was actually quite a good way to end it as there was snow everywhere and in the class that I had for that day, instead of doing an exam, we ate pulla (a sweet finnish bun) and drank coffee – possibly the most Finnish way of “finnishing” the last day of real school.

On the last day the museums were open, I went with my counsellor and his wife to see a Vincent Van Gough exhibition in Helsinki. It mainly focused on his early works but they also had his self portrait that was really cool to see in person.

In December it snowed a little bit more. According to Finns the amount of snow was nothing and they weren’t really phased by it, but as an Australian, even the smallest dusting of snow is enough to make me so excited.

To help cope with the cancellation of the Lapland tour, my counsellor invited me to bake traditional Finnish treats with his wife. We made Karelian pies, Christmas tarts, Christmas bread and ginger bread. Safe to say it definitely helped and it may have added on to the rest of the exchange weight but you know, it was worth it.

One weekend, I caught up with my first host family and we went to Fiskars Village. It’s a small town and hour or so West of Helsinki and it’s where the Finnish company Fiskars originated – big surprise! I went there briefly in the summer with my second family but didn’t get to see much as a lot of the places were closed. This time the weather was a bit different as it was -3 degrees out but we were able to go around and visit the shops.

Since I was doing online school and not that many classes for my last period of school, I had quite a lot of free time and so did another Aussie exchange student Gemma, who ended up moving quite close to where I lived which led to us doing a lot of things together. Her host mum, Kristiina was also one of the RYE coordinators for our district and was very kind to take us to Hämeenlinna one afternoon after school. It’s about an hour north of Helsinki and is most famous for it’s castle which is still there from when Finland was under the Swedish rule. We also had dinner at a really nice restaurant and ate the best reindeer and potatoes I’ve ever had – sorry Rudolph!

One of the best things about exchange in Finland was experiencing a cold Christmas and being able to do things like what they do in all the movies. Although I love the Aussie Christmas and celebrating at the beach, it felt a lot more “proper” to celebrate it during the winter. I also got to experience what it was life to have a real Christmas tree which was really cool. I baked my first ginger bread house from scratch and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much ginger bread in my life – however I do think the dough tastes even better raw than it does cooked.

Christmas in Finland is basically different to how I celebrate in Australia in every aspect. For one, it’s freezing cold and it’s also celebrated on the 24th. Santa also physically visits all the houses to give out the presents and we were lucky enough to get a visit from the real Santa. He looked quite alike to my older host brother who happened to be on the toilet the whole time he was visiting but maybe it was just the lighting or something. For Christmas dinner we had 3 different types of casseroles – potato, carrot and liver. We also had ham and salmon as well as some traditional Finnish Christmas salads. It is also common in Finland to visit cemeteries and place candles at the graves of your loved ones who have passed away. It’s a bit of a sad tradition but it’s also a nice time to reflect and think. There was one place where people could place a candle if you were unable to visit the actual grave of the person that passed away and so I thought of pop and ojiichan when I placed my candle there.

To stay true to my Aussie roots, I made a pavlova for my host family for dessert which thankfully worked out and tasted how it’s supposed to. I also face timed my family back in Australia/Japan and it turns out I wasn’t the only one spending it away from the family. My older brother Tats is in Japan, mum and dad went to Adelaide to spend it with relatives which my other siblings Kai and Rina were supposed to do too however, due to the Northern Beaches cluster of Covid, they couldn’t travel and were stuck in NSW.

After Christmas, my second host family invited me to stay at their cottage for a few days. It was the most snow I had ever experienced and I got to stand on a frozen lake for the first time and make my first snow angel. We went on a walk to one of the places we went to in the summer and it was so cool to see the same scenery just with a lot more snow.

For New Years, there weren’t any big events happening due to corona, so myself and two other exchange students, Hila from New Zealand and Gemma from Queensland thought to celebrate it together. We decided that it would be a “fun” idea to go to Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki and swim in 4 degree sea water as if we were “washing off the bad vibes from 2020”. This was in fact maybe one of the most painful decisions I have ever made throughout the whole of my exchange. After we warmed up again and got feeling back into ourselves, we went back to Gemma’s house and counted down the last few seconds of 2020 with her host mum, Kristiina. In Finland it’s legal to buy fireworks and set them off if you’re over 18. We didn’t buy any however right outside the house, many people were setting them off so we got our own fireworks display without having to pay for them.

Looking back, it’s safe to say that 2020 definitely was not at all what I expected it to be. Although Covid did ruin a lot of things, I still had such an amazing year and did so many amazing things I could have only ever dreamed of!

The last few days of my exchange were extremely emotional. Having to get a negative corona test added another level of stress on top of packing and saying goodbye to everyone. I don’t think anything could ever prepare anyone for the sadness it brings to say goodbye to the life you built for a year in a whole other country. I met so many amazing people that I hope to never forget and I’m so thankful to everyone who was a part of my exchange. To save myself from bawling my eyes out while writing this, I’ll make it short but during my exchange I grew in so many ways and learnt so many lessons that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I have made unforgettable memories that I will cherish forever and so many friendships I hope to keep up as I get older.

I would like to thank Rotary for this amazing once in a lifetime experience and all my host families for being so amazing and making me feel so welcome. Thank you to my counsellor Pertti and his wife Kati for helping me with any issues I was dealing with and to all my friends that I made throughout my exchange, I hope to see you all very soon. My family also were a huge part in keeping me sane and being there whenever I needed to talk to someone – I couldn’t ask for a better support system.

It’s sad to think that this is the end but I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me!

Nähdään!