Yksi vuotta

  OMG, today it makes one year that since I has been in Finland!!! This time goes by very very fast, now I realise why everybody says that life is short!! After all this time, I still miss Finland.

OST

  Terve,

  For a long time, that I've been thinking about showing you the playlist of my staying in Finland, I mean the songs that I'd heard more during that time (it doesn't nessacerily that I like all of them). It will appear both foriegn and finnish music. I usually listened the music in the radio of my first host-family a home a lot and in the car.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbr77atD3M (this song reminds me to the trip from the airport to my new home, I'd listened a lots of times in some ad in the radio)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zg2vcm0rJQ
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Ejyr-ddgw
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SeJIgWRPk
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pco91kroVgQ
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dtFZ8CFo8 (with this one I remember the first nights when I was on my bedroom watching the light at 10 pm)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfVme5npco
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egUQju95vT8
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcoRUqODJA
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Ykor-8MAM
  Now i will show some songs from a finnish band called "Haloo Helsinki!" that I love
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzBNIagJv3M
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhnydCct80
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5UKLeMl9Uc

  And to finish I will show a song that I haven't listend all the time, but my host-sister showed me in the Independence Day of Finland, sung by the veterans that fighted against Russia. I think that's very powerful.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKxCiTZoyQ

  Maybe I will add some songs in the future. Moikka

Final thanks

  Well, now I will write about my stupid thoughts.

  I've been missing so bad Finland, and for some reason the "not so good thoughts" come to my mind more often than the good ones. I don't know, I've spent a great time there, and I only remember when I'd caused a bruise on my youger host- brother, or when I dropped milk, but worst when in a night I completely forgot to tell my host-parents where I was, and they were very worried. But well, thanks good they forgave me. I didn't wanted to disappoint anybody, my host-families, my schoolmates and teachers, my friends, but I'm a human and I make mistakes, and make mistakes is important, because with them I can learn and grow up, to not repeat them. And I think I learned. I'm also afaird if I made some constraint to my host-families.

  Another thing is, that I'm thinking that all the thanks that I say, they are never enough to all that everybody made to me, and I want to thanks them like all the time, forever... So...

Kiitos paljon kaikille

The first days... (part 4)

   On my first Saturday, we started the day going to Panda factory, wich is a chocolate factory in a suburb of Jyväskylä called Vaajakoski. When I entered I just saw people with a shopping baskets full of candies and chocolates. The finns are crazy with all kinds of candies, even the adults, specially salmiakki, almost all the foreigners hate that creepy thing. That place was also good because it has chocolates for free to taste.

This black thing is salmiakki, also known as salty liquorice in English.

This is not salmiakki, thanks god!

  After that we went to a nice market nearby. I've tasted some kind of finnish army pea soup, that I like it, made in this sort of huge "soup cannon", like in the picture. The market was also near a channel, that we saw the gates openning. Because of the thousands of lakes that Finland have, there is a big channel network, also important for his timber industry. 

  One of the things that I was thinking a lot at that moment was about the weather. Since I was there it hadn't made any sun, I was thinking how I could survive 4 months on that way, but it finnaly made sun several days after.

  At afternoon, one of the things that I was expecting more to do, it happend. I WENT TO SAUNA. It was so weired, but the best time that I was in sauna. The house was of the host-grandparents of the spanish exchange student. Very nice place on the way to Muurame, near the lake. We lighted the fire to warm up the sauna and then we did boating. I was quite scared to be naked in the front of the other stangers in the sauna, but I went with swimming shorts. At first was weird to be there, i felt like my nose and my eyes burning, but then I get used to it. We also swam on the lake a couple of times. Then we went to a small cottage with a fire place with a grilling were we ate makkara. 

  I don't remember what else happend that day.

  The next day I went to an outdoor second hand shop market, next to the bulding of Keskisuomalainen, the newspaper of Central Finland, where they made a guided tour (in finnish!!!!) through their facilities. 

Those are the printing machines.

Ans this is the paper to do the newspapers.

  At afternoon I was at home, talking with my hist-sister about the school in Finland.

  The next day was my first day at school, that moment i've made already a post in the beggining of this blog.

  Moikka.

The first days... (part 3)

  Moi,

  The third day. The third day was nice, I met for the first time the Spanish exchange student. He was very shy and not very talkative. In that day, me and my host-sister, we went to his new house, because she and the host-sister of the Spanish guy are good friends. The way to the house was fabulous, on the shore of the lake and in the middle of the forest, omg, I was rapt with that, everything was beautiful there.
  Then after met them we went to the supermarket to buy some things to bake pulla and korvapuusti. Next to the supermarket it was the second highest building in Jyväskylä and it was funny because it wasn't very high and everything around it was small.
  Back to the house we went to the kitchen to bake, and the girls made almost everything, the boys only helped something, but almost nothing.
  After we were watching "Muumi" a Finnish cartoon, that everybody loves there and exists all kind if stuff with that. That it's one big memory of the childhood of the Finns. Also for the first time of my life I saw "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and it was one of the worst programs I've seen in my life. I also discover that the Spanish series "Los Serranos" is very famous here.

  Our lunch was the things that we baked, so very healthy. After we plaid cards. 

  And that's it of what I remember of the third day.

  See you later! 

  

The first days ...(part 2)

   Hello,

   The breakfast of the first days was very special because I felt like I was taking the breakfast of the rich people. I picked up some berries like blueberries, loganberries and another ones that I don't remember the name directly from the bushes that we had in the backyard, and I put that berries with cereals and yogurt. SO SO DELICIOUS.
  Because that day was the birthday of my youngest host-brother we went to the city center buy some strawberries to bake a cake to him. It was the first time that I ride a bike there (and I realize that I'm very slow riding a bike) and I saw the city. Before, me and my host-sister, we went to see Cygnaeus-lukio, my school. In the market were a lots of berries and mushrooms picked up by the sellers on the market, and another Finnish things like pastry with a nice look. It wasn't cold but it was quite rainy and stuffy. I remember that I took the camera with me but I didn't took any photos because I thought that the city wasn't very old, monumental, only with modern buildings, but i like it. In the way back home I saw that the city was very green, full of trees and parks.
  After, I don't remember much more of that day, only that I sang the happy birthday song in Portuguese and I still very confused with the hours of sun.

The first days... (part 1)

  Hello my dear readers,

  Here i am, writing to you all, about my first memoirs in Finland.
  It was a very special moment because it was the first time that i was flying in a plane and was also the first time outside of this little rectangle called Portugal. The first times are always very special for us, the discovery of new things, new realities.
  I remember the flight, 4 hours in a plane that never ended, I was reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" of Stieg Larsson and the food was bad. When we were landing I recieved a lots os messages of the finnish phone operators.
  At the airport the first thing that it came to my mind was the song "It's Oh So Quiet" of Björk. Before came to Finland i was really thinking that, that country is very peaceful and quiet. It's not so wrong that idea.
  The luggage of the flight from Lisbon was quite late, and I was despairing. But finnaly i crossed the green line and I was trying to looking for my family, but my host-mom called me after a little while and I saw her. She was with my youngest host-brother, and he was with the flag of Finland and a big paper with my name made by him. We embraced each other and I started my journey in Finland.
  First, I was very insecure about my English skills, but my host-mom understood almost everything that i wanted to say. I was asking a lots of things in the car and during the trip to my new house we stopped twice. The first time we stopped in my host-father's enterprise  to take him, and another time we stopped to eat. The first big difference: it was like 5 o'clock and we had a dinner in ABC (which is a company of sevice stations that exists all over the country), in a buffet. The food was good, but for me a little bit expensive.
I was looking for a lake in the trip and whan I saw one was like the proof that I really was in Finland.
  When we were changing the cars was raining a lot (my host-father said that until the previous day was sunny and warm and when i came it started to be cloudy) and i remember to see one plaque showing how many days that the enterprise don't have any knid of accidents and it was exactly 50 days (was also showing the record of days and was also 50). I saw, after the city and it was a strange feeling, because I was watching in real life what i was searching in the Internet.
  I was so excited to see my house, my other host-siblings and my room. I still thinking that I'm so lucky for the family that I had. They recieved me so well. And so, I put the clothes in the wardrobe and after everybody sit on the table and we ate. First big mistake: I always have heard that you should see what the others do and after you do what they did, but I'm very smart and I didn't did that, and so what happend? There was the dark dry bread with two slices together and so what i do, I put a little bit of butter in one slice and i ate both slices together. And after I saw my family eating only one slice full of things, like butter and cheese and ham and even cucumber. The flavour wasn't the best, but in December I started to like it. After on that day I don't remember what happend more, but I just remember that the night came very late. At 11 o'clock I could see some sunbeams. I also remember that I thought that my new bed was very very soft.