hannah_finland

Okej! I am now actually updating. Yes that's right ladies and gentlemen, you heard me right, haha. Sorry guys, i've been quite lazy lately! Well not really...in fact I've been extremely busy haha! But either way, I'm sorry i haven't posted in like FOREVER! I promise to make more time to talk to you guys as soon as I finish getting myself settled! It is taking forever to get myself back into my old habits, and get used to living back at home. It's so strange to have to actually learn to live at home again...it's so weird.

It's like...I dont' know. It is kinda a scary feeling to feel out of place when you are suppose to feel at home...IN Your home. Hmm I'm bad at explaining this haha. Okej, it's like I have this role that I'm expected to follow, but now that I've changed quite a lot as you guys know, I don't really fit back into that spot. So I'm kinda drifting and not really knowing where I belong now that I'm home. It' s a big mess of mixed feelings I guess. I love it at home, cause well...haha it's been my home for almost my whole life...but there will always be a part of me left in Finland (as completely lame as that sounds) so basically I'm doomed to homesickness no matter where I am, cause I belong to two different places. But yes, other than this constant feeling of uncertainty, I'm feeling pretty good :)

God I miss finland though. I miss you guys! Now for personal notes, haha to some very special people!!

Hannele, there is no one like you in Canada, haha. You are one of a kind girl, and I miss you so freaken much it's ridiculous! And the roof!! OMG there is no roof in Canada like the Islandia one!! That will forever be my special thinking spot, and I’m really happy that you got me to go up there ☺ We definitely have to get on this whole 'mailing letter' thing the snail mail way going! That would be fun! Don't forget the winnie the pooh stickers XD

Rei!! I'm glad your trip was a good experience and everything, even if things weren't perfect in the end, I'm glad you had a super awesome time :D I miss you and our talks! We definitely should do something to keep in touch better. I have 3 email addresses, and just about every blog thing possible, haha or we could like mail like hannele and I will :) you choose :D Either way, I really want to keep in touch, so let's find some way to talk more often sinec msn just doesnt' work as well with the time diff :D Just let me know!

Sara!!! Sorry I haven't emailed you like you asked! I honestly just haven't had the time to sit and collect my thoughts enough to give an update! Until now!!! So how have you been? Still working out lots? Are you working at all? I forget :P I guess school has started now, so you are probably busy doing that. Email me back, and I promise I"ll do better at writing you!! Miss you so much! Oh and btw, hehe i had a family dinner the other day, and the whole sex/nude/openness about all that stuff came up XD You know that list we planned on making? Well basically I talked about it ALL and it was so unbelievably hilarious. I'll definitely tell you more about that later, haha you would have been proud :P

EMILIA! I know you and I have kept in touch with facebook, but I just had to leave a note for you in here too :P MISS YOU GIRL! And our amazing adventures, haha which never ceased to amaze me!! I loved my present by the way, but I think I already told you that :) I wear them every day! Haha, they are so nice :)

As for everyone else who may read this, haha I'm not sure who is anymore, but yes, I miss you all. Honestly going to Finland was the highlight of my life so far, and I wouldn't have traded it for the world!

Okej, now for what I've been up to...

Umm I got my job back as a donut baker, which completely rocks, haha. I fit in there just like before, haha and I"ve made lots of new friends with the new workers. I have a blast, really I do, and I'm making money, haha which is always good!

I’m going to see my friend Kyle (Cdn exchange student who went to Japan for the year). He and I kept in touch all year, and now after 15 months of only msn, we are meeting in Brandon (about 2 hours from me)!! I’m so freaken excited! That’s on this coming Monday ☺ Should be amazingly fun! It’ll be so great seeing him again after so many months!

My 18th birthday just passed, haha and it was actually the best time ever. I went out to the bar and Boston Pizza and they bought me random shots of like a billion things, hehe even tequila which nearly killed me!! Haha it was great. I got completely wasted, and ended up puking for hours on end afterward, but it was totally worth it. I don’t’ even rememvber that last part much, so most of my memories are of the times NOT spent in the bathroom, haha, which is always good!! I have a cell phone now :D:D My parents bought it for me as my birthday gift, and I was completely surprised and totally happy. Amazingly enough, cell phones have become much more popular in Canada during my year away, so most of my friends have one. It’s red, and I like it, hehe! I also got lots of jewelry, bath stuff, piano music…etc. Love it all ☺

My homcoming was amazing. I was so lucky on the way home, cause I met so many great people! From Aland to Helsinki, I cried the whole time, and totally freaked out the hot flight attendant cause he thought I was afraid of the plane :P He kept rubbing my back and bringing me cookies and tissues, haha he was so cute! Then I met up with Paulo to say goodbye in Helsinki, which was nice. He kept me company for 5 hours while waiting till 3am for my next flight. Then off to Amsterdam I went, where I spent a good few hours chatting to an elderly couple who wanted to know ALL about Aland! I gave them a detailed version of how wonderful it is! In Amsterdam, I had less than 20 minutes to get to my next flight, and ended up having to cut 300 dutch people in line in order to make my flight, hehe. I was sworn at by hundreds, and found it highly amusing!! On that 9 hour flight, I sat beside my 50 year old buddy, who was pretty much the most interesting person EVER! He worked in like, western Africa, and was just going to the USA to visit his kids. He was so nice, and we totally watched horror movies while eating M&Ms :P It was a good time.

THEN as if things couldn’t get any better, I went to a Starbucks in the USA for my first time in a year, and ordered a Venti Caramal Frappacino Blended Coffee, haha ONLY to realize I didn’t have dollars…I had euros. DAMMIT! But this really hot nice Spanish dude came over and said ‘I’ll pay’ and gave the cashier money, and then introduced himself ☺ I have his number now, hehe. I couldn’t believe my luck with nice people that day!!!

So that pretty much made my whole day, haha. My last flight was nice too. I sat beside a young friendly girl around my age who was visiting her boyfriend. She talked MORE than I did, which was amazing, haha. We covered every possible topic from boys, to travel, to religion, to like EVERYTHING. I had fun! We have each other’s emails now!

As I walked through Winnipeg doors, I saw my family, Robyn and her mom, Megan and her dad, as well as Jessie and Brittany. My mom practically bulldozed me over in excitement, and we were both immediately in tears, haha. It was so nice. I hugged everyone and then just stood there bright red, eyes swollen from lack of sleep and crying so freaken much, and said ‘So,….what now?? Haha’ It was great. We went and had a BBQ, but I was really tired (it felt like 4am at this point) so I pretty much just wanted to sleep! Overall it was a great homecoming!

Seeing everyone else came the next day. My best guy friend Aaron called me and we met up at this coffee place and talked for like 5 hours. It was awesome. Parties came soon after, and I got really drunk :P It was fun, but honestly, parties on Aland are SO much more hilarious and adventurous! But still, it was great to be with my old friends again ☺

It’s been crunch time with seeing my friends, cause many are off to university elsewhere, which is so crazy and sad!! I just said goodbye to my good friend Suhjin from Korea today. She’s moving to Kingston, a province over from me. SO SAD! I cried :P

My room is now totally full of pictures, it’s actually ridiculous. Here, I’ll show you some pictures haha you’ll laugh!





Here are some other pics from my homecoming ☺

Here is my awesome friend Robyn, whom I loooove! We went straight to the mall and bought icecream, as well as window shopping! We even raided a Dollar Store, and took like a billion pictures, haha check out my site if you want to see more :www.flickr.com/photos/hannah_strachan/

Here is my brother Alex and I at the airport when I came home! He's grown at least a foot and his voice went down and octave, haha. It was great to see him again :)

Here is dear ol'Andrew and I, haha. I made him buy a chocolate donut, and we ate it all, and then went back for more :P He has food on his face in this one, haha what a slob! XD

Here's my brother and I digging into an A&W Burger, which I was deprived from for the whole year in Finland :P It was so goooood!

Raiding the dollar store with Robyn holding an 'IT'S A BOY' sign for no reason :P


This is a pic of my friends Andrew and Alex and I at the first party we had here! It was a bush party, and I was totally full of dirt after falling down so much, haha :P

Here is me in my drunken happiness, haha :P


Anyways, that’s about as good an update as I can do at this time, so I hope you all enjoyed it! Now that I’m finally unpacked (I finished yesterday, haha I still had a suitcase in there before that!) I promise to do better with this journal, and with emailing you guys! Keep the comments coming so I have motivation, haha and Hannele, I promise to comment on yours more often like you asked on myspace ☺ CYBER PINKY PROMISE!

I hope things are awesome with you guys, and I hope to hear an update from all you soon ☺ LOVE YOU GUYS! I miss you more than you know!

Your friend,
Hannah ☺

TODAY IS MY DAD*S BIRTHDAY!

Just thought I'd inform you all of that, haha.


Happy Birthday Dad!! Grattis Pappa! Here is your hello from me, and I hope you have an amazing birthday! Hopefully we will talk again later! I love you :D:D

http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o10/hlstrachan/?action=view¤t=35f53f75.flv

Love you Daddio :)

Hey everyone! Long time no write! I am definitely working on a big huge LONG descriptive adventure story about my  super amazing tour of europe, but incase you all are a little impatient and would like to take a sneak peak at some pictures first (some being 1660 pictures of course, taking into accout that I'm a chronic picture taker!!^^), I can now proudly inform you that my pictures are uploaded. Every last one of them. That's right. I know. Impressive. Took well over 6 hours. Be proud, haha: I have captions on some, working on the rest as we speak! Hope you enjoy them, and feel free to comment on certain pictures if you'd like since I may not be able to post here for a couple of days! 

Oh, and just know that I had the time of my life on the tour .I met SO MANY lifelong friends, and just had the most wonderful experience possible. From one sided sunburns, to losing our identies in the czech republic, we definitely had the greatest adventure ever!

I love you all so much and I can't wait until I can see you guys again! Only 25 days to go! =) Bye!

OH and here is the site. The icons are on the right, and just be sure to NOT click on the one that is labeled Euro Tour Look Down! It'll be too slow cause it has all 1660 pictures on it. I've broken the trip down into sections, so hope you enjoy! Bye for now =)

www.flickr.com/photos/hannah_strachan/

Hey you guys!!! This will just be a quickie, cause I don't have much time!! Buuuut I just needed to say goodbye before leaving on the Euro tour, cause I am not sure how often I will I have access to a computer until the 21st of June!! So yes! I shall give you a quick update, and then I have to go and pack again! Cause all of my stuff is ALL over Cata's room, haha!

So yes! The past month has been CRAZY! I mean, end of school, end of band, choir, EVERYTHING! I mean, I'm in the last 50 days of my stay here in Finland, and I CAN*T BELIEVE IT! I mean, in my head it's still saying 'OMG I'M IN FINLAND!!!!' and even though I've been here for like 10 months or something, I still have it in my head that I will be here longer! I had to make my goodbye speech for my class, and that was sad!!! I mean, it's hard when you actually HAVE to like say goodbye. REALLY hard! But they were very nice and everyone gave me their email addresses and hugs, and we took pictures, and it was just a really nice send off. Emilia and I had trouble saying goodbye, even though it's just for 20 days :P We were all like 'OH MY GOD I*M GOING TO MISS YOU...BAAAAAH' and it was sorta pathetically funny how hard it was to even say bye for that long. My choir sang at this old folks home as our final 'event', and that went really well! I had to memorize a TON of Swedish songs, including the Åland Song (sorta like their anthem in a way) and it was just great. The power of FIVE freaken people! We are sorta like a little family, and after our performance, we went to a cafe with our teacher, and at icecream for an hour or so. Once again, saying goodbye was just really hard! I got to see the Vickströms again (my third family) and Jessica, Gun and I went on a picnic, and that was just really great. I love them so much, and we are definitely planning at least a few more get-togethers before I take off to Canada! I went to a Rotary meeting too, and this old man said he wanted to take me out to see the islands FROM THE AIR!!! ON his tiny little plane! I was excited, haha and we are going to do that as soon as I come home! It should be wicked awesome!

So yes, now I am here at Cata's place in Åbo, and just really enjoying spending time with her and her family. She has 3 siblings, (2 girls, 17 and 13, and one boy who's 11) and we get along really well. Yesterday we had a HUUUUGE water fight, and I completely lost and got soaked beyond reason, haha! It was just really fun! Her parents speak mostly Swedish to me, and it's really encouraging when I hear that I'm actually starting to sound good! I mean they were really impressed that I could talk to them, and said I sounded Swedish (although I HIGHLY doubt my accent doesn't show, hehe) but it's still nice to hear. Cata and I went to this grad party for her 2nd host sister, who was really nice! It was just such a dainty little party, and we had to get dressed up (I wore Cata's mom's skirt, hehe) and we felt really old haha! And we experience SUCH hilarious awkward finnish conversations, where we just stood there in awkward silence as Cata's mom forced people to talk to us. It was funny! But we enjoyed the food, and managed to stay there for like 2 hours so it was great! OH and Cata and I colored our hair randomly for no reason, haha! Her's is tinted red, and mine is dark browny red sorta, haha and DON*T WORRY it looks good!!! I told my mom the other day, and she was like 'Ohhhhh my god' hehe! Sorry I didn't ask first mom ^^you would have said no, muahahah! So yes, it looks great, people really like it, and apparently it makes me look older, so I guess that's a good thing (??!!!) :D I like it anyway, and that's what matters! And I pierced my ear again, so I have 3 on one side, and 2 on the other! Sooo nice :)

So that's pretty much my quick update! Sorry I couldn't write more, but I promise to try popping into an internet cafe along the way to put up a quick post about how the tour is, okej???? I miss you guys, and your comments!!! Only like...47 days or something (I've lost count!) till I'm home! Should be amazing!

Bye :)

Okej, I started writing something...and then it deleted so now I have to go to bed XD Sorry mom! I shall post it again tomorrow. Just letting you all know I'm safe and sound and having fun at Cata's place in Åbo, and I will still have access to a computer until Sunday! Bye!°

Hello :) I'm not feeling too well today, so I'll just post pictures...and this video of my speech, haha. Enjoy.

http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o10/hlstrachan/?action=view¤t=Video4.flv

These are all from the weekend and the last couple of days...and maybe some from before. I don't know really, haha I've lost track! Talk to you guys later.

Hanne and I during our picnic in the most random of places on the most random of days...while eating grapes.


Sara and I having our first ice cream of the season :)


My favorite Robert's person XD


My favorite thinking spot


Me in my favorite thinking spot :P


Emilia and I sitting on the rocks


I went for a quick dip!


Breakfast for me now...hmm


I'm out on the rocks...I almost fell like 50 times


It was SUCH a nice day!!!

Okej so I'm just really happy and excited so I thought I'd post just to let it out a little, haha. So basically my weekend was really great. I had a double sleepover with Emilia, which was fun as always, and we watched the Eurovision song contest which was on Saturday!! Serbia won, although I personally would have chosen Georgia, the Ukraine or hmmm maybe Hungary. Here are some links so you can see :)

Georgia:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fZB5U0GZgVQ

The Ukraine, hehe they were so funny ^^
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jnV7Nydf9L4

The Winner!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jx4BnKm0L6g

Hungary
http://youtube.com/watch?v=F2geuKHTW5E

So yes, overall it was a really good overall show, but the winner wasn't what I would have expected! But it was still fun! Emilia and I ended up going over to our friend Philip's house (he's a really great singer I know from the music institute) and we ate a wackload of chocolate cake, candy, chips and Coca Cola while watching 3 hours of the Eurovision song contest! It was faaantastic!

It was also nice to spend so much time with Emilia. When I moved to Jomala, it just didn't seem like I saw enough of her, and now we are in the same art class almost every day and we live like 5 minutes from each other again, and I just love it. We had a really nice time :)

It was also mother's day if I recall, so I apologize for my lateness but HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!! Hehe I love you mom, you are amazing :) You know what's funny too is that I didn't know it was even Mother's Day on Åland, and then when I was watching the hockey game and I saw some guy holding a sign saying Happy mother's day and i was like OMG I FORGOT. I'm such a wonderful daughter. Really, I am, haha. Which brings me to yet another point. HOCKEY!

FINLAND VS. CANADA! WAR OF MY WORLDS! Oh man it was intense! I was watching it at Emilia's place, and her dad was so cute. He was all gruff and frustrated with his arms crossed and everything as Canada completely KICKED BUTT winning against Finland 4-2. For those of you who didn't see it, Canada was leading 3 nill for most of the game, until like 5 minutes from the end, when Finland somehow got two goals. Then right at the last minute, Canada scored yet again, concluding the game! Whooohooo Go Canada! I can't even tell you how many times I've been hit on the head here because of that game, haha. It's funny. My Samhälla teacher even brought it up. Slightly ironic that it's Canada vs. Finland eh? Yeah, haha that's what I thought. But Finland is still happy cause we beat Sweden. As long as FInland beats Sweden...they're happy! And even in the Eurovision Song Contest, we beat them by like...I think 1 or 2 points or something! Woot GO FINLAND! It was a very exciting weekend. Once again, I have pics, but have not been able to upload them yet. They are coming!

And now comes the most exciting part! I'M DONE MY SAMHÄLLA ESSAY! Thanks to SARA!!! She's a life saver, really. After school today I was panicing a little, and she was like 'come over and I'll help you!' and SHE DID! I was so happy. She sat down with me for like an hour or something just translating and helping me finish writing this page of stuff about this Karl Emanuel dude! It was so boring, but now it's done and I'm happy! THANKS SARA! You are super! And just for the fun of it, I shall post it! Even though most of you can't read it! It's short, but I also have some pictures of his paintings and what not that I can show and explain!^^ Should be amazingly boring!

Karl Emanuel Jansson var en berömd konstnär från Åland. Hans namn kanske inte låter så bekant, men många har ändå hört talas om hans berömda tavlor. T.ex.: ’Åländsk bondbrud som befinner sig i Ålands Museum.

Karl Emanuel Jansson föddes 1846 och han var den första ålänningen som fick möjligheten att utbilda sig till konstnär. Han var det näst äldsta barnet i ett bondehem i Pålsböle, Finström. Hans äldsta bror tog över gården, och hans yngre bröder blev sjömän.

Jansson blev inspirerad av sin granne, Gustav Kellgren som var sockenmålare, och Gustavs verk gjorde starkt intryck på Karl Emanuel.

Redan som pojke, fick han möjlighet att studera för kunniga lärare först i Åbo, och senare i Stockholm. Efter att ha studerat i åtta år så for han till Düsseldorf i Tyskland, år 1868. Han var där i två år. Då ville han skildra den egna hembygdens folkliv och sedvänjor. Han målar då verk som t.ex.: ’Åländsk Bondbrud’, ’Flicka drömmande vid spinnrocken’ och ’Gubbe som binder nät’.

När han åter vänder till Åland 1870, målar han under vintern: ’Klöveräss’ också kallad för ’Kortspel i en Åländsk Kajuta’. Som säljs för det ovanligt höga priset, 800 mark.

Samma år, började lungsot spridas på Åland. Han var på väg tillbaka till Düsseldorf men han hann bara till Stockholm, där han blev tvungen att uppsöka läkare, som sade att han borde resa söderut. Han beger sig till Düsseldorf, men hans kropp orkar inte mycket längre, och han led av blodhosta och söms svårigheter. Han fullbordar nu sina två viktiga verk ’Talmannen’ och en ’Slant i håven’. Han försöker hitta bot mot lungsoten men lyckas inte.

Sommaren 1873 far han tillbaka till Åland igen. När han ligger på sjukbädden i Jomala tecknar han sin egen begravning.

Karl Emanuel Jansson dog 1874, när han var 28 år gammal.

-------------------------

Hehe so yes. It's not perfect I'd bet, but it's my best shot at doing this! I've had many different people edit it, and now I'm just rehearsing it with my sister and stuff, haha. I'm a little nervous. I should be presenting it tomorrow, so wish me luck! It should be fun, haha. My Swedish has definitely improved since my last speech, so it will be fine :) Nerves are good, but I'll be glad to get it over with!

But yes, I'm kinda excited, cause it's my first Swedish essay. I'm proud. And I'm thankful I have friends to help me. It makes things so much easier and more fun when I feel like I'm capable of doing something. I mean, I'm getting so much better at hearing Swedish, and then writing it down. I can understand and separate words, and figure out how to spell them, even with all the funky sounds and pronouciations that sound NOTHING like the way the word looks! It's fun :) Makes me happy!

So yes umm I know there is more fun stuff to say... but I can't think of any at the moment. It's late! I just promised my mother I would post today, so I did :)

Miss you guys. 64 days to go! I will make a more detailed post tomorrow :)

Okej so now for the update!! Woot!

So first off I'll just say that I'm feeling really comfortable in my new family. I even surprised myself with how fast I just adapted and completely made myself at home. I think I surprised them too, haha which is kinda funny. I mean, I came here on like...Friday night I believe...and then just came over, had coffee, said goodbye and then boom. I was here. As I said, my room is fairly big...not huge...but big. It consists of my amazingly comfortable couch bed thingy, a bedside table which I've personalized, a book shelf full of things that I will never even look at twice and a mirror I use all the time, the computer desk which I'm practically always using, a TV, a dresser that I use half a drawer of, and a chair that I pile the rest of my crap on. It's pretty super. I didn't think I was going to like it, but I do in fact, because my family is so used to having people living in this room, that they still respect my space, and they aren't always on the computer or doing things in here. So I still feel like I have my space, and that is a very important thing to me. I mean, when you are away from home, you just need your spot. In my first house, that spot was the piano. Second house was the TV room, my last house it was a combination of my room with Jessica, or the trampoline with Jessica, haha. And here I also have my spot. I like it.

My family, as I said, is used to having people. They've had their own daughter (who is moved out now) go to Brazil for the year, as well as 2 exchanges students of their own. Carin was from Australia, and Bruno was from Brazil. Apparently Bruno was fairly 'out of it' and Carin was not social at all...so yes. I think I'm a little overwhelming, hehe! I just had so much fun talking and playing piano and running around and just doing what I've always done. As I said before, on the first evening I was already comfortable looking in the fridge, and I mean...I just treat them like family and the house like my house. It's really not that hard to do, I don't see the big deal in it, haha. Now when I go to people's house as an ACTUAL guest, I may seem rude, but honestly, making myself at home isn't hard at all.

So the first night my sister (16 yrs) Erika and her friend Andrea and I just biked down to town, and rented a movie. It was just a nice relaxing evening, and I really like her friends so that's always nice. We go back and forth between English and Swedish, just because some stories are just better told in the other language!!! My host mom is fairly quiet, and is from Åbo in Finland, so she's definitely Finnish in that 'shy' sort of way. I like her. We really connected I think when I just started practicing this thingy for choir on the piano, and it was this Åland summer song in Swedish so she recognized it. We were both singing it and Erika just rolled her eyes in embarrassment of her mother singing, haha. It was really funny. My host dad is really nice too. Very honest and likes to tell me stuff. I think he's going to make me attend practically every Rotary meeting from now till the end of the year, haha just cause he can! Should be fun....slight sarcasm there. But yes, I like them a lot. Erika and I enjoyed laughing at the fact that they apparently told her that it was so funny how much more I talked than the last exchange student!! I think they like it, haha although it was just rather surprising since they can't believe I feel so at home and comfortable after such a short time. I think I adjusted faster than them, which is quite hilarious! I like them though cause like, they know how to treat me. I'm not 'special' to them, I'm just a part of the family. That's all us exchange students ever ask for!!! They have 3 girls (2 have moved out) and have had 2 exchange students, so they are just used to it. I love that. I have no curfew, as long as they know where I am. That also rocks!! They actually trust me!!!!!

So in the morning I was planning on meeting a friend of mine from Sweden. But when I woke up...nobody was home. Like, the house was completely deserted!!! They are a busy family (my sister plays soccer more than I did at home, haha and just everyone is always out and running) so I guess they all left before 9am???!!! So yes. I was confused. I didn't really know what to do exactly. I mean, I had mentioned I was thinking of meeting a friend today... but I hadn't told them anything really and I had no key, or like...PHONE! I didn't have their numbers or MY NUMBER even!! I was completely unprepared. So I just walked around the house...attempted at finding some food (and failed miserably!!! Honestly they have no food in this house! I'm gonna lose so much freaken weight just from NOT snacking!) So I managed to sorta find a lonely piece of icky brown bread, and put butter on it. Then I had to search for the shower. When I found it, I was SO ANNOYED!! There was like, NO HANDLE! Only the head of the shower thing attached to the tube, and it was just lying there in the tub...just there. So of course I had to stand/sit awkwardly and like hose myself down; turn it off; shampoo; turn it on...and so it goes. I've gotten better at it now, but SERIOUSLY! It was annoying.

After that, I realized I had not yet found a towel. I have impeccable timing to think of these things eh? Just as I'm soaking wet, dripping in a tub, I realize I have no towel. So I had to like walk around FREEZING COLD naked trying to find a towel somewhere in the house. Found one eventually. It was small.

So yes, then I went to catch the bus, only to realize they didn't run on Saturdays at this time, so I had to walk. 30-40 minutes later I came to the ferry port. But you see, I didn't even know for sure if my friend was coming, so it could have been a complete waste of time; luckily it wasn't! He came and it was fun! His name is Johan, and he was just coming for a quick day trip to see Sara and I, so that was cooooool. We just walked around all day, eating Paninis and cake, and it was great. So after a long day of walking across Mariehamn MULTIPLE times, we said goodbye to Sara and had to run back to the ferry!!! Because we had VERY little time! So we get there, and apparently we missed it by honestly 2 minutes. Maybe less. BAAAH! I had no idea what to do. My first reaction was like OMG I have no idea what we are going to dooo!!! Where will he sleep!!??? But then after we walked outside, we just started laughing. And we couldn't stop, haha. It was so funny and ridiculous, especially with my luck. Things like these never cease to happen to me, haha seriously. It was funny.

So we are standing there in the cold for a long time...trying to decide what to do. I mean, I had just moved families the night before, so I couldn't ask them to have him sleep over, because that would seem very strange. They were also out for the evening, and were not expected home until later. Emilia was in Germany, and Sara, Hannele and like EVERY other one of my friends were all out at this party thing for this girl that I don't know very well. So basically...I had no where to go but home alone with this guy I just met!! BAH! But then I remembered that Frida lived near the ferry, so we went to her house just to use their phone since Johan's had stopped working. That was awkward beyond belief!! BAAAH of course Frida wasn't home, and her DAD of all people just had to answer the door. So here is poor ol me standing on their doorstop talking to my friend's dad whom I don't know very well at all, and he's like 'Oh yeaaah, no problem. I can even give you a ride home if you want!' Then he screamed upstairs and told Frida's sister to drive us. I wanted to die from embarrassment really, haha cause I can't imagine her being all too happy to drive us, although she is a very sweet girl and I like her! But yes. I felt very funny!

So we got driven to my house, where we went inside. I had no idea what to do. I hadn't even ventured past the bathroom in my house yet, because I hadn't had time! There was NO food, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with Johan! I mean, he had no way to get hoooome! Then the phone rang and I answered and THANK GOD it was Sara. Her dad apparently works for the ferry line and said that he could take the long bus ride to this place and then take the 1am ferry from there! The bus came to the center of town at 12:10, so basically I just had to find something to do for 5 hours. So that was the plan. So let me just set this picture for you....

I just met this guy from Sweden today. I am in my new house, home alone, with this guy, in my room, on my couch/bed, watching TV....for 5 hours! I don't know, but it was strangely awkward and funny too. But yes. We just watched TV and played on the guitar and piano for a while and that was fun. He's really good at guitar, so we just printed some chords from the internet of random songs and played them while attempting and failing to sing the lyrics. It was fun.

Five hours later we did the walk from my house to the ferry for like the fourth time that day (sad when you can say you practically walked across the city 4 times in one day eh!!??) and met Sara and Hannele in town. It was just a fun day. And Johan got to experience what I like to call, a very 'Hannah-like' day, with all of my bad luck and Murphy's Law cursing me every step of the way. Super duper.

So that was my first day in my host family. Very dramatic. It was funny though, because I mean, my dad knew I would be home late that night cause I had phoned him at Frida's, but he had not known that Johan was in the house cause I had lost his number. But since they had not come home, it just didn't matter. But when I was in my room later, my sister Erika came in with this HUUUUGE curious smile on her face and sat on my bed and was like 'SO HANNAH! WHOOOOO was that boy your were with today???' and I was completely taken by surprise! I mean...HOW DID SHE KNOW I was with Johan, lol and it wasn't anything at all, just friends hanging out. But yes. Apparently some girl told one of Erika's friends that she had seen me in town with some Swedish guy, and then that friend told Erika and yah! You KNOW you are on Åland WHEN THAT happens!!! Haha. So yes, that was funny! So I explained, and she just giggled and laughed at me for my Hannah-ish ways. It was pretty funny.

So my second day was a little more relaxed. In fact, I pretty much slept half the day, then ate breakfast/lunch with my dad, and then unpacked, read, played piano and went on the computer. It was a very relaxing day. My sister was in Sweden for a soccer game, so I was pretty much alone in the house for a long time. That's one thing I really like about here. I get alone time. In my last house Gun was always home, and Jessica was always in my room. Although I miss that pesky little annoying little sister of mine, haha. No matter how much they drive you crazy, you miss them like crazy once they are gone. We talk every day on msn now, so at least that's something! Jessica asked if I could go with her to try out to get into the music institute to play the piano, so I think I'll be doing that next week or something.

So yes other than that, I've just been getting to know my sister more. Erika is so nice and we get along really well. I also just got back from the Hospital where my Brass Group was playing, adn that was fun. I love performing. It doesn't even make me nervous anymore, which is super.

Oh and my challenge of the week being that lame 10 minute Swedish presentation about that painter dude on Åland is taking forever! All the internet sites are like Swedish, and baaaaah it's annoying. It's so hard to gather information, translate it so I will understand everything (there are lots of words I don't know) and then I have to write a 10 minute speech about it in Swedish yet again. And present it!! Baaah it's going to be hard, but I'm taking it as a challenge! I don't get this sort of opportunity to really work super hard at Swedish and school, so this is my chance to actually prove I can do something!! So I shall get to work on that now, and wish me luck!

I'll post again as soon as possible with pictures okej? Byyye!

Okej so I totally broke my promise about getting back on track with these journals! Life has been insane! I dont' have time to talk about now because I have this 10 minute Swedish presentation on some dude named...Karl-Emanuel Jansson or something like that in a week in Samhälla class, and I'm totally not prepared, haha! Gotta work work work!

But yes, I will say this though. My new family is really great. I like them a lot. The transfer was hard, and sad. Jessica and I spent WELL over the already ridiculous amount of time together, and honestly just had a blast on my last couple of days. They made me my favorite dinner... BIG SLABS OF MEAT WITH FRIES; GOOD SALAD AND Mmmm it was good. Wine too! That wasn't as tasty, but it went well with the meat! I liked it.

My new family is nice. I live in the computer room on the couch. Although really it isn't bad at all! I have a tv, and computer in my room, AND my couch bed is actually really comfortable! So yes, I sleep like a baby. I have a 16 year old sister as you know, and she's great! I have a piano too! Yay! But yes, more on that later!

My friend from Sweden came. That was quite a funny time! I'll tell you about it later!

Anyways, I have to sleep! But just know that I'm gooood and will recover from this pathetic excuse of a post! Bye!

Okej, so now for the update on my week since I fell asleep yesterday before I could tell you ALL about it!! Hehe oh well, that last post was long enough as it was!!! So yes...my week.

Well I guess first off I'll mention the part of the reason why I haven't really been posting as much lately. It's been a really off week really. Not bad, but just not terrific either. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and although I'm still happy and doing okej, my sleep has been affected a little. I'm not sure if you guys over there heard about the car accident on the highway where Katlyn Rex passed away when she stopped at a stop sign but I guess didn't look both ways well enough and a semi hit her on the driver's side. I recieved an email about it from a friend at home telling me it had happened. Katlyn had been a friend of mine that I met during this amazing volunteer weekend a couple of years back, and we had been roomates and have been keeping in touch for the past 2 years. So for the past few days, I've been up rather late talking with the friends that she and I had shared, and just trying to even accept the fact that it happened. I guess I'm a little numb from it, and I don't think it's really going to feel real until I get home, or maybe not for a long while. I don't know. It's bothering me a lot lately though, just because it really does make you think about how fragile your life is. I mean, she was the happiest person ever, really smart, just graduated last year, about to get started on her adult life, and then something as sudden as this happens and that all disappears. I don't know. It's really hard to deal with it from over here though. I mean, I feel very removed and out of the loop, and at this particular moment, I just wish I could be home to grieve with everyone and even gone to her funeral which was a few days ago. It's so hard hearing about these things, and reading it on an email was a really horrible way to find out about it. Bah. But yes. That's why I've been a little removed and acting a tad off this week. Hopefully I will be back on track in a few days, starting today with this entry. So yes, I'd prefer to not talk about it really though, it's just really hard to believe that it actually happened. So just keep Katlyn in your thoughts and pray for her family, and guys...be careful driving. I don't want this happening to anyone else, especially when I am not over there. Just be careful okej.

So yes, moving on to happier topics, because of course I do have a positive side to this week as always. I've been rather lonely I guess, because Emilia (along with Robert, my oldest brother and some other students from our school)has gone to Germany for this United Nations thingy, where people from around Europe meet and immitate a real United Nations get-together...thingy, haha yeah. So our school is apparently representing Isreal, and she's had to do so much work to prepare for it. Hopefully she is having a blast!!! MISS YOU EMILIA! KRAM! :) It was actually ridiculous how hard it was to say goodbye to her for ONE FREAKEN WEEK! I mean, I think we hugged each other like five times, ahha it was quite funny. I miss her already too, so I dont' even want to think about what it's going to be like when I go home! That's going to be the cry fest of the century!

So yes, basically I've been hanging with Hannele for most of the time! This past weekend we had a ton of fun with some friends of hers at this party, and then I made her scrambled eggs! She had never eating eggs SCRAMBLED before, which I thought was insane. It's like the best thing ever! Especially with LOTS of salt, and maybe ketchup :)

So this week actually marks the final week in my 3rd host family!!! AAAAHHH! I love them so much, and I CAN'T BELIEVE I already have to leave again! I mean OMG I just love it here too much. I mean my host mom and I have become really close, and I've just made so much progress with my Swedish in the past two months living here, and I mean...JESSICA and I are just so freaken close!!! It's going to break my heart to leave here, really it is. She keeps on grabbing my arm and putting on her toughest face saying in Swedish 'You AREN'T going to leave here', and 'I'M GOING TO MISS YOU!', and bah it just makes me sad! She's already planning a sleepover party for me and her friends in the near future, haha so yes. I'll be partying with a bunch of 8-year-olds! Haha I'm definitely cool! I've been spending a lot of time with her during the past few days, just jumping on the trampoline with her, reading, being read to (she's practicing reading English, hehe and it's adorable), and PLAYING THE PIANO LIKE CRAZY!!! Like honestly, with Robert gone, we can play as often as we want because we no longer need to respect the '100% peace and quiet' like he demands when he's home! WOOT! It's cute actually, because Jessica is starting to take lessons on piano next week, and my mom Gun told me that before I got here, she refused to take lessons!! So apparently I've become her inspiration, which just makes me so happy!! She practices everything so much, and I think I will show you some of them! It's just so great! She's so freaken fast at learning everything, it's actually surprising! Here is a video of this one song that I taught her not 10 minutes before this was filmed!!

http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o10/hlstrachan/?action=view¤t=piano005.flv

Great eh? I love her so much, bah I don't want to leave, haha. Oh and here is a really cute, and VERY 8-year-old dance that we made up together!!! We do it every time we see each other...which is like 10 billion times a day, haha! There is a trampoline version too, but I won't post that! Here it is!!!

http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o10/hlstrachan/?action=view¤t=cata032.flv

Haha we have so much fun. I make a kick ass Swedish 8-year-old, haha if I do say so myself! So actually I move tomorrow....which is SO CRAZY BAAAAAAAH! I'm excited, nervous, sad and happy. Haha talk about mixed emotions! But I think it will be good. And my Swedish will either improve there even more, or stay the same. Either way I've come such a long way, so I'm going to be happy no matter what!!

BAAAH BUT YOU KNOW WHAT MOVING MEANS???!!!

PACKING!

Stupid packing, packing is stupid, I HATE PACKING! It's honestly like THE WORST thing about the exchange, haha is the fact that no matter what you are on the move and you have to pack up your life OVER and OVER again. I mean, I'm not an organized person as most of you know, therefore when I get settled, I'm REALLY settled, and since I was expecting to stay the whole rest of this year in this particular family, I REALLY made myself at home! And now I have to pack. Bah. I hate it, haha I think I've said that about 10 times now, but honestly, that is how much I hate it! Wish me luck! And hopefully I'll have hair when I come home.

Speaking of hair, after this LONG year of not cutting it, my mom has booked me a hair appointment literally the day after I arrive home!! How convenient!! Haha! I'm keeping it long though, I like it better. But honestly the split end count I have is shooting through the roof! It's definitely time for a trim!

Hmm so what else is new...I shot a gun the other day...AND HIT THE FREAKEN TARGET!
You see, on Monday it was this...thingy. Umm how to explain it. It's this old tradition where people have tons of bonfires (I mean TONS!) to like...scare away the bad spirits before letting their cattle out (this is how my dad explained it to me, haha). So basically my family, and other people on our street just ate a ridiculous amount of burnt hotdogs and drank beer while socializing, and it was fun. Cold. But fun. Anyways...what was the point of telling you this again...umm...OH RIGHT! Shooting. It's a tradition as well for my dad anyway, to go out and shoot birds. But apparently these dudes made a law saying they couldn't do it anymore, which pissed off a lot of people, so now they shoot flying disks out in the country. So that's what we did! The gun was HUGE and HEAVY! I felt like such a wuss when I was struggling to hold it steady! Then I just closed my eyes and pulled the trigger expecting pain to come...

AND IT DIDN'T! I did a perfect shot! And NO PAIN!! That has got to be the first for me! I actually did something AMAZING on the first try! I was proud, and very popular among the old men for the rest of the day, haha! I BLEW the disk into microsopic pieces! WOOT! It rocked. I saw sheep too. Lots of them. Like HUNDREDS of them and they were all trying to eat my pants. Yummy. Cute though, I have some pics that, once again, I will post later!

I think I've gone to every possible musical concert there has been on Aland since I got here. Honestly and truly. There was this concert where my friends Frida and Philip were like leads in, and they were SO GOOD! You remember that musical I was in a while ago that I had to stop cause I was already in like 5 bands? Where we played the Les Miserables songs and whatnot? Yeah, this was it, only better and more songs from like, The Sound of Music and Misss Saigon. It was great. "A Little Fall of Rain" honestly is the best thing ever. Look it up on Youtube. FANtastic!

A friend of mine might be coming to visit from Stockholm in Sweden on Saturday!! It's not for sure yet, but it's definitely a plan in progress. I've never actually met him, but he's a friend of Sara's and so we are both going to hang with him. His name is Johan, and he's just coming for the day on the ferries. Should be fun :) I'm excited!

OH and one more thing. I had pizza the other day as a sort of tradition my family does with their exchange students. It was super duper. God I'm going to miss them.

HMMMMmmm well I think that is basically the main stuff I've done this week...nothing else worth mentioning really I dont' think! If I remember something later I'll post it tomorrow! I have no idea how the whole computer situation will be at my next family...so be prepared to not see me online for a while. And no cam until I can figure that out too. Skype as well, haha we'll just have too see how it works out! We'll hope for the best anyway! I've been spoiled in this family with my very own computer in my room, haha. Maybe moving will give me more sleep, and less hours chatting into the night (hehe whoops!! My mom in canada has only caught me a few times!!) SO yes!!! I really need to stop talking, haha I type way too much in these things! Talk to you guys later! Pictures are on the way! Byyyye :)

Alrighty then...it has been...haha well over a week since I last posted, which is insane and totally unlike me!! It has been a very strange week I guess you could say. A lot has happened, and now I have to write about it, haha so be prepared for a VERY brief and yet still a billion-pages-long post!!! Muahahah...

Okej so I will begin with my super awesome fun weekend in Pori! God it was fun. But totally unorganized on Rotary's part! First off, I couldn't sleep at all the night before, so I slept from 5am till 8am...when I was suddenly woken by mom mother's SISTER of all people. I had like shook her hand once I think...maybe...or maybe I don't even know her. I have no idea!! So I open my eyes and there is this strange woman standing over me (referring to herself as 'the sister') saying I had to get up... so then I rolled over...ONLY TO SEE that right next to my head lay 30 euros!! I was like WHOOOAH! CRAZY! That's like waking up to a 50 dollar bill lying on your pillow! It was wicked awesome! Apparently my mom left it for me, but I had no idea if it was for some specific purpose, cause she doesn't normally just GIVE me money... but I didn't know so I just assumed it was for chocolate!!! Hehe! SO then I realized I had to leave in t-minus-10 minutes!! OH MY GOD! And guess what...I hadn't even packed! So that was by far the fastest I've ever seen myself move! So I showered, packed, and raced out to the car! It was a FANTASTIC way to start the day (mild sarcasm there, but who would notice :P). So I drove with this woman who I didn't know to buy fertilizer for her garden apparently...and then to the ferry. She tells me to sit there and wait and someone (she THOUGHT) would come and pick me up. So I'm sitting in this ferry place for like 45 minutes, and nobody comes. I was like, OMG what the heck am I doing. Actually I wasn't...I was half asleep because of my stupid sleep deprivation so it was aaaaall good. Eventually someone woke me up saying 'Are you Hannah?' and I was like (all droggy and icky-like since I had like JUST woken up after not sleeping all night) 'Yumm, ja?' and then I walked with this complete stranger into this car, and he drove me to some other car where I sat with 2 more complete strangers for over 1 hour waiting in the car line to drive onto the ferry. Honestly. They could have just raped me and I wouldn't have had a chance. Thank god this is Aland and regardless of how clueless and vulnerable I am, just taking random car rides with strangers across the country... I am pretty much as safe as I can be.

So of course I decide to make conversation. Heck! If I have to sit alone with a couple of ol'farts (kidding, they were great!) for an hour, they might as well get to know me!! So I talked and talked. It was just like at home...only SWEDISH STYLE! Most of you guys have seen me entertain an audience, and oh man did I even entertain. They were pure finnish meaning that they weren't about to say a word to me until they felt more comfortable...therefore I made it my soul duty to MAKE this happe, cause there was no way in hell that I was going to sit there in awkward silence!! It's so funny when you realize you are creating similar speaking habits in another language. Like just the WAY you talk, and your attitude and whatnot...I'm noticing I'm able to sorta 'attempt' to show more of my personality when I speak. Even if I sound aggressive, haha! It's hard to know what you sound like to other people, so I've just given up trying to sound normal, and I just speak the way I feel comfortable. So yes. I talked a lot about myself, and forced things out of them like where they came from and whatnot. They had NO excuse not to talk to me, because I was speaking their language now, muahahahaha (evil laughter) and they highly enjoyed my little show. It amused them, haha. So by the end of the hour, I had them laughing and talking to me as if we had been best friends forever (creepy since they were like 50!) and then FINALLY the line started moving and we got on the ferry.

We get on the ferry and then get stuck in the freaken elevator! I couldn't believe it! Like honestly stuff like this just works it's way into my daily life! I mean geeeze! Let me explain. My stranger escorts didn't know where to go once we got out of the car, and I had them laughing so hard that we didn't see where everyone else went...so we gravitated towards this tiny tin box on the side and walked in, pressed the 'door close' button, and waited.

Nothing happened.

We pressed a button. Then two. Then ALL OF THEM! NOTHING WAS FREAKEN HAPPENING! We were stuck in a tiny metal box. Now I'm a little uncomfortable in small spaces...especially in this case cause it felt very wrong! I mean we are on a ferry over the baltic sea coming out of a car dump looking place in the bottom of the ferry...and we are stuck in a freaken metal space in the wall. We even pressed the alarm button, but nothing happened that was noticable enough to us to convince everyone that it actually worked! So we continued pressing every button possible when FINALLY some dude opened the door. He looked amazingly annoyed, and told us this was not an elevator for the public. Then one of my stranger dudes was like 'so the alarm worked?', which was a dumb question. We had obviously cause some sort of annoyance, haha. So we were nearly peeing our pants laughing all the way up to the public elevators, where we went up to the main area to eat food.

Okej I just realized I have about a week and a half to tell you about, so I can't keep writing in this much detail, haha! Moving on in a quicker pace!

I got to sleep 3 hours in some room that they booked for me, which was nice since I had hardly slept! Then some new stranger woke me up and brought me to the lunchroom. We ate a ridiculous amount of food and laughed a lot! It was a fun time.

After 6 hours we got off the ferry and went to some hotel place. I was so freaken surprised! I hadn't expected a super duper fancy hotel place, where I would be getting my OWN FREAKEN ROOM! I was the only one of us on the 4th floor, and I had my own little room and everything with a stocked fridge and OH MAN it was cool! I highly enjoyed the luxery.

In the morning I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing, and I was completely disoriented and I forgot I was even in Finland. For some reason I thought I was at my friend Robyn's house in Canada for a sleepover...don't ask! So I answered it and some dude starts talking to me on the other end in Finnish accented Swedish. I was confused. I just said jaaa a bunch of times and hung up. I had heard the word breakfast somewhere in there, so I assumed that's where I was headed. I showered, got dressed, packed up and went in search of food. I found my crew of beloved strangers already finished eating...so I just stuffed a wackload of crap down my throat while they watched me eat. Then I realized the had all their bags and stuff...and I didn't. I asked them where I was going to sleep the next night, and they looked at me as if I were stupid!

THEY HAD NO IDEA! I mean they just said, umm I don't know! Don't you know what you are doing this weekend? We are just here to get you into Pori, which we have. The rest is up to you! Do you have any number or anything you can call?

I didn't.

I felt stupid, haha. So I went to the front desk, and totally confused some poor soul with my English when I was asking if Rotary had booked me another room for the next night. She didn't know. So what did I do next? I tagged along with my favorite strangers! Apparently they had some Rotary thingy to go to, so maybe I was supposed to go there? I didn' t know, and there was only one way to find out! Grabbing my bags and what dignity I had left, we went for a drive in search of some hidden secret building. It took us over an hour cause mr.stranger dude couldn't read a map to save his life! He LITERALLY was reading upside down I swear.

After a long and curse-filled hour, we finally got there and it started to rain. Terrific! So we get inside the building, where they ran off to some meeting...and I was left to fend for myself. I walked around this strange GIGANTIC building in a city I had never been to...aallllll alone with my lonesome self. This carried on for awhile...a LONG WHILE! Just when I thought I was seriously lost in Finland...I SAW TORSTI! My Rotary 'big man' who is in charge of the exchange students in Finland!! I was SO RELIEVED you have no freaken idea. So I run to him slow motion style, and practically hug him before realizing who I was actually talking to, haha. So he guided me to the right place where I FINALLY reunited with my fellow exchangers. It was amazing. We were stuffed into a room that honestly was heated like a sauna, for well over 2 hours and were asked to prepare something to entertain people with...like a dance or skit. We just talked, took pictures, danced around like fools, and ate chocolate. Yessss!

It was great seeing everyone again. Even Cata, haha although I just saw her two weeks prior! There were newbies there too, who just arrived in January, all from Australia and South Africa. They were SO FUN! I mean, totally hilarious. The Australians are always these super fun crazy people, especially the guys! They make such a commotion, it's really funny! So that was fun.

Then they made us go up and perform this finnish song while doing these actions to make fun of different countries...IN FRONT OF LIKE ALL THESE PEOPLE! It was painful to even be a part of, haha. First of all, nobody knew the words. So there was the 2 leaders singing, and all of us mumbling, and forgetting the actions and just walking around. I'm not even sure that the audience got the joke...we'll never know...

So yes, enough of talking about nothing. We finally got to this campy place and went on the most stupid tour ever, where the scenery looked like any other typical finnish country field with crops and trees...maybe the occational red or yellow house, and then into this one home where there was this really scary white statue of some creepy man's head waiting to greet us at the front door. Shiiiver. It was creepy. I know nothing about why we were there, who's house it was, or anything. Nobody really cared quite frankly, haha. And the tour guide's finnish accent even made her English difficult to understand, so pretty much...nobody listened! Complete waste of time. But we got to socialize of course, and that was at least fun.

The food was nauseating. You've heard this complaint many times so I will not get into details. But it was bad....bad bad bad.

So yes, we played cards and did some funny dancing for a long while...until....

The deer poo incident.

Yes. I'm going to quickly go over this again, just for your entertainment. So I'm just hanging out, all innocent like, with my friend Natalie from Germany and Sara from the USA, and all of a sudden DANIEL (Australian guy) decides he wants to go for a run around the lake and tells me to come with him. Then he just grabbed my arm at the elbow and started running! So I pulled along Natalie and Sara, and Daniel pulled along his friend Ed from Australia too. So the five of us are just racing through the forest, overcoming every gigantic ditch full of water, and trees that had fallen down...when the poo fight began. All due to an innocent flick of moss in our faces...and the battle had begun. It wasn't until they found poo, that the real game had started. Of course this is where Daniel (with his exceptional aim) nailed me right between the eyes with poo and broke my glasses entirely in half. Oh yes. Unbelievable. So now comes the part where I couldn't see a damn thing, and my two nights in shining armour had to guide me home...Oh dear me. WHY I trusted them in the first place is beyond me, haha but yes. It was interesting. I think I tripped on every possible thing cause all they did was grab my hand and race me through the forest blind. Oh hell ya, that was fun! Then guiding me up onto this huge rock, they decided it would be fun for me to go on Daniel's shoulders for a little ride. I COMPLETELY didn't agree, but quite frankly, they didn't give me a choice. So Daniel is racing through the forest not hanging onto me at all, while I'm screaming and grasping onto his head for DEAR LIFE, and oh my god it was hilarious. I was totally embarrassed, and it was just painfully funny. BAH! These things always happen to me. So for the rest of the day all I heard was 'OMG Hannah! Daniel broke your glasses with DEER POO????', or 'OMG HANNAH! You have BLUE eyes!'

Yes...so apparently I have bluer eyes than people had originally thought! Sweet.

So for some darn reason, I had managed to bring 2 disposable packs of contacts. Why? Maybe I have some six sense I'm not aware of or something. I don't know. But I'm sure glad I brought them! Thank god!

We of course had a sauna too, and we all went down and did that. We even got to go into the lake, which was FREEZING by the way. That was great. I'm really going to miss the sauna when I come home...especially the part about having one in your house! It's become so normal for me now, that NOT having one feels more strange to me! I don't know, just the feeling of pulling out a beer with friends in a sauna, and heating the dang thing as hot as you can stand, then running into the cold water or snow KNOWING that you will be racing back to the intense heat and beer.... just really is the best thing ever. I'll miss it.

So later on we ordered PIZZA! Hell ya, that's right. It was great. Felt like home actually. Just being lazy with 30 other people, sitting around eating pizza, taking pictures, and talking. Really nice. We then had to move to the sauna house, where there was another sitting room cause some people apparently wanted to sleep. Cata and I had no intention of going to bed, haha. So Cata (chile), Non (South Africa), Sara (USA), Daniel (Australia) and I, along with random others that joined us on and off...stayed up all night. We honestly sat on this freaken couch in the same way for 5 hours straight at one point. I have no idea what we talked about either. We just had a blast. Non became very comfortable holding my legs, haha I dont' know why, but she liked hugging them! We made some form of a fort at one point by putting this long pillow over our heads. That was ...fun. Overall it was just really great. At 5:30, the girls and I ditched poor ol'Daniel on the couch, (where we later found him sleeping in the most HILARIOUS position) to go shower before anyone else woke up. I don't know why we chose 5:30 as such a good time...but we did. OH and if Kyle is reading this, I'll be happy to say that I even remembered to teach everyone how to say 'It's 5:30 in the morning' in Spanish, just like how I learned it from Renan in Russell a year ago! Haha I swore that if I was ever up at that time again with exchangers I'd say it...and I freaken remembered. Yes, I'm proud.

So after dancing in the shower, I climbed up on this roof, took pictures, and then stood around with the 5 or some people that stayed up all night too and talked about the most hilarious of things that I am not going to share hehe! It was great. We were tired!!!

The rest of that day is sorta a blur. All I really remember is our two leaders...Mamma Rikka and Auntie Anna made us run around doing silly games and totally made us tired...and umm...going on a bus ride to the place where we started where I found Torsti when I was lost! We just sorta ate bad food and talked there for awhile, and then one by one everyone was taken back to their cities or towns or whatever. Cata and I went with this dude from her Rotary club I think...not sure who he was...and then drove for a couple of hours in the car. I slept.

Having arrived...somewhere...on the side of some road, we got out of the car and switched to Cata's dad's car. He discovered I could speak Swedish, and then practiced all the way home, leaving poor Cata super duper bored. But I couldn't be rude to her dad, so I just went along with it! It was fun though! I love speaking Swedish!

So the rest of that day was just sorta doing nothing...not that I can remember anyhow.

So we woke up in the morning and got ready to go. The plan was that Cata would be going to this Rotary meeting, and I would stay in this cafe place where this dude she knows would take GOOD care of me serving me bottomless cups of coffee and sandwiches. It was so good! The best chicken sandwich ever! And it was gooood cofffee too. Actually...probably the best I've ever had! He was a cool guy. Kinda old, lived in lots of places, and spoke Spanish, English, Swedish and Finnish fluently, and just had a lot to say! It was fun. The hour went by fast.

Cata and hung around in the empty cafe for hours, doing the most random of things...crazy dancing, fun pictures, going over funny memories. The whole shabang! It was super fun. Apparently the cafe hosts this party every once in a while, and we are invited! It's at the end of May, so I think I'll just take a boat and live with Cata for a week before the Euro Tour! That should be fun! OH and Cata and I just found out we are ROOMATES for the EURO TOUR! We are so happy, it's ridiculous. We are going to drive each other crazy! So fun.

The rest of the day was full of SHOPPING and maybe a little bit of sightseeing...sorta. I bought shorts and a tank for summer.

Hmmm after that I had to go home on the ferry...blind! So Cata's dad drove me and walked me to the boarding place so I wouldn't lose my way since I couldn't read the signs, and then I hugged him and said bye. I think I scared the begeebers out of him when I hugged him. It was like I broke the sacred glass between us. Fun stuff. I highly enjoy freaking Finns out.

So I boarded the boat and slept. That was seriously all I did. Some old dude started talking to me at one point, but he was not understandable so that didn't last long. It was such a smooth ride home, no waves at all. The sea was really beautiful.

So yes I'm getting sleepy! Can you tell? My paragraphs are getting shorter and shorter as we speak! But yes, I think I'll stop there. It was just a super weekend. I loved it. These get togethers with exchange students are just the best, and I totally can't wait for the Euro Tour! :)

Oh, by the way. I'll upload pics tomorrow! I'm just too lazy to wait for my slow internet!

Hope you enjoyed my blind, stranger filled backpacking adventure to Finland! Talk to you later alligators!!

Crap this is long! Haha kudos for those of you who get through it all!!

Haha okej, well I wasn't going to post until Tuesday when I got home from this District Meeting out here in Pori, Finland...but I have a story that just can't wait. It's unbelievably funny, but still sucks big time! And I need help, lol...okej here it is.

So I met up with all my good friends who are exchange students this weekend, like Cata, and a a bunch of newbies who arrived in January. Two Australians and some of my friends decided to go for a walk in the forest at one point, and we ran around taking the most complicated of routes over ditches, under broken trees and across huge puddles. It was super fun...especially when the guys (as mature as they are) found a huge pile of old deer poo which they threw at us. So we began having this poo fight, as unbelievably stupid as that sounds, and the pieces were about the size of one of those larger marble thinies, haha. Anyways, (being the unlucky person I am) one of the guys threw one right between my eyes, hitting me square in the glasses! It was literally the most direct hit anyone has ever taken when throwing poo. Like seriously, it was actually impressive. It didn't hurt at all cause it just hit the bridge of my glasses...only when I went to get the glasses untangled from my hair, I realized I only had one half! OMG! MY GLASSES WERE FREAKEN SNAPPED DIRECTLY IN TWO BY DEER POO! Now if that's not a story, I don't know what is. How many people can say that honestly. So yes, I'm sad, haha cause I mean, those glasses have been a part of me for 4 years or something now, and now they are gone...and I mean...that can't be good!!! SO! I'm now only using the remaining daily disposable contacts that I have left, which may last me a week or so...so mommy...can you send me more??? Maybe non-disposable ones! Cause I don't expect new frames haha! I need them soon, cause honestly I can't see a thing without them! Trust me, the guys had to like LEAD me back to the camp, cause I had to climb back over all these crazy obstacles we had put ourselves into at the beginning, and god that was a disaster! I mean, at one point they led me up a huge rock, pushed me off onto one guys back, and the next thing I knew I was on some guys shoulders as he's madly running through a forest! Talk about embarrassing. So yes...an interesting day! I don't have time to tell you anymore about the weekend now, other than it was super and that we are really tired from pulling off an all-nighter! I'm living at Cata's house for a few days just outside of Turku (the oldest city in Finland) until Tuesday. So I will update then!

Talk to you guys later! And yes...please send me more contacts mom!

Don't laugh.

Just cause these things happen to me, doesn't make it my fault, haha! I mean seriously! Who could have predicted something as random as that!

Bye! =) Cata says hi by the way!!!

So Emilia and I had a sleep over yesterday, which would be why I didn't post, haha and it was fun...although I think we are both paying for our decision to stay up late chatting today! WE ARE TIRED! But yes, haha oh well we will survive :)

Yesterday was a good day! I felt really happy and giggly it was fun! It started off with sleeping in until like SO LATE cause I didn't begin school until 12! Whoohoo! That's always a great start! I hung around Hannele, Rei and Sam for a while before class began, and we took some cute pictures which I will post later seeing as I haven't uploaded them yet! It was fun. I love those guys!

I had art too...and it was boring...as usual. But the best part is that I'm in it with Emilia, so I see her like, EVERY DAY! It's definitely exciting! She makes the class more fun, haha cause otherwise I would just die, haha honestly!

I had Samhälla too, which is a class that talks about Åland in general, and I'm actually finding it really interesting! We went to this museum yesterday too, and it was right by this big ship sorta that Åland is known for. The museum was pretty cool, and I actually was able to understand the tour, so that made it more interesting! The inside was set up sorta like it would look like on a real ship, and I actually learned some history about Åland in general. It was pretty okej I guess.

The best part came on the way home, when I was walking with Sara, and these two other girls that I knew OF but had never really spoken to from what I recall. So they were in their own little conversation and I couldn't really take part in it cause it was about their school system, and stuff. But I DID have fun understanding! Eavesdropping is by far the BEST thing ever about learning a language, haha. That and understanding jokes. I just love walking and hearing Swedish and understanding it without thinking. It makes daily life more interesting and fun! It's like a new game for me, haha I just sit in the library and listen to people telling their secrets, thinking 'OH it's just the exchange student, we can talk about anything cause she wont understand. Noooo problem, haha' and of course, I CAN indeed understand, therefore I get to hear a lot of people's secret stories! How fun!!

So yes, I was just listening to this conversation Sara and the two girls were having about their futures, languages they wanted to learn, and traveling or whatnot, when all of a sudden, one of the girls goes 'Förstår du vad vi säger?' which is 'Do you understand what we are saying?' I get this question a lot, and quite often it's yes, haha. So I answered in Swedish saying that I could understand, and that my ability to comprehend Swedish is MUCH better than my ability to actually speak it, haha. We just laughed and she told me that my Swedish sounded quite good actually! And then we had a whole conversation about how I learned Finnish first, and how funny they thought that was. And how they were really surprised that I could speak Swedish so well to them, because they just hadn't heard me speak too much! That's mostly because I tend to be with Emilia a lot, and we speak English cause it's more fun, haha. But yes, they were really excited for me, and it was just a lot of fun to be able to express myself in Swedish to other students in my school! It makes me feel good to prove that I HAVE indeed learned some of this language, even if it's taken me a long time! They thought it was crazy that I didn't have a teacher, and that I could still understand so much. Haha I was so happy after that conversation. Things like that really make your day!

So after school Emilia came over! I finally got to show her around my neighborhood and family and stuff. It was really nice. We watched American History X for homework, and even talked to my mom on Skype, which was cool! My mom apparently thinks that I sound JUST like Emilia. She had commented earlier on how I sorta have picked up a slight accent, and that I sound different when it comes to certain things, and now she KNOWS that it's because I sound exactly like Emilia. Haha we thought this was really funny, cause Emilia sounds like she speaks perfect English to me, and now apparently I sound different! So yes, haha we had a good laugh over that!

Later on we just talked on MSN and chatted till like 12:30 or 1, and then went to bed. We were sleeeepy when we woke up! We kinda lay in bed for a while, and so we were rather rushed in the morning, and got to school 3 minutes before class started. Woot!

But yes, I will talk about today...tonight, haha. I have another class of Samhälla now in like...4 minutes so I'd better get going!

Catch you all later!

Okej so about tomorrow and today...

Yesterday was a normal day at school, and I ended up chatting with a lot of people, which made it a very good day! Emilia and I have art together now, so I get to see her MUCH more often! :) It's so funny cause of course I've taken the class before, and the teacher is always like 'Yes, Hannah has taken this class before, so you can ask her if you need help...' or 'Haha and HANNAH has seen THIS video before, Ha ha haaaa' and it's hilariously annoying. Everyone must think I'm a freak honestly for taking the course twice, LOL! But the good thing is that I know what we are going to do for every assignment! No suprises right? WRONG! Our teacher likes to change things JUST a little, just to like, piss me off, haha. We took a small paper and crumped it up and then had to draw it. Of course I knew that after we did that, we would have to draw a room behind it, so I positioned it correctly on the paper so I could draw a couch sorta behind it, and then a window above it (he told us last time it had to include a window for some reason). So yes, I felt prepared and smart. BUT THEN he was like, 'now draw a BATHroom behind it. That just screwed my couch idea, and then I just had this awkardly tilted crumped looking square on the left side of the paper. Great. I managed to draw a random chair around it, and then a shower next to it...so now it's kinda like a living room with a shower. Woot for me. I guess that beats the last time when I drew a girl dreaming of a window (I had limited options, haha) and it looked like the dream bubble was a sheep. How sad!


Oh and I forgot to mention that the other day, it was FREAKEN 20 DEGREES outside! I was wearing shorts! Here's a picture! We had a BBQ too outside over a burning pile of wood my dad cut down. Jessica and I basically jumped on the trampoline for hours on end!



Oh and I had a nice conversation with Frida for the first time in a long while :) I made her take a picture with me just cause it has been about 2 months since the last one! It was really nice to talk with her again actually :)



So later on I met up with Sara, and we went for a walk! Ever since I moved I hadn't been able to speak very much with her, so it was fun! On our way back to school, I saw Hannele, so I kinda just left Sara and she went to class, and walked with Hannele to Robert's Coffee! I haven't been there in a long while! I had a smoothie, she had a Robert's Mocha...and we shared cake! Haha and we talked for a really long time actually! And I even met my trumpet teacher there, and we switched glasses and took a picture. Aren't we hot?



So later on I just went to Hannele's for the evening. We cleaned her room (QUITE the task if I do say so myself! And I got to experience my first REALLY finnish dinner, with REAL finns. Meaning everyone just sat in absolute silence and stared...it was funny~! I highly enjoyed it! We went for a really long walk too! I loved it.



Oh and by the way! Emilia and I just randomly ran out today and got my ears peirced a second time. Now I have two holes in each ear, although I'm getting a third in one of them after these two heal! It's going to look so great :) Here's a picture! I think I've gotten over my fear of it now, haha! It was fun and doesn't hurt at all now!





OHOHOHOHOH And I got a freakn 8 out of 10 in Psychology!! OH MY GOD! I couldn't believe it! I got the test back and literally screamed, and then blushed! I mean OMG I freaken passed it! I PASSED IT! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH so happy! I totally thanked my teacher like crazy, and then ran out of the class to Emilia!!! We screamed and jumped around, and my face looked like a tomato! It was very exciting! I'm like crazy crazy CRAZY excited! GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So an AMAZING day! Emilia's coming over tomorrow to sleep, so I'm cleaning my room now! Got to go! Byyye! :)

Here is my plan. I have procrastinated Easter for over a week now, and the longer I wait, the more I just don't feel like talking about it. So here's the thing. I'll give you a quicky, and for those of you who care, just go on my flickr site and go to Eatser. You will see a bunch of pics and you can follow my short story! I just have no energy to talk about it all! So...On Easter we had an egg hunt with 5 clues. Mine were in Swedish, and Cata's were English. It was pretty cool cause I could read it perfectly! Then we went on a tour of Aland, where we saw so many beautiful islands and Aland scenery! It was beautiful! We took different kinds of very tiny line ferries that followed a rope to connect the islands and stuff...so that was cool! We also climbed on things that were forbidden to be climbed on, lol. We even broke into the castle on Aland by doing some pretty wicked rock climbing, and Edgar just watched us laughing. It was a good time. We even took a picture of us beside the 'Do NOT climb' sign :) Aren't we just angels!? We also had a dinner party where we had to wear yellow, so that explains the insane amount of yellow clothing we have on in tons of the pictures! We drank this stuff that was like...grapefruit with some kind of alcohol.. cant' remember what it was (it's popular in Finland anyhow apparently), with the parents, and played triominos (3 way dominos) so it was fun. Our Easter dinner was soupy hotdog schlop on a plate with garlic bread....yumm?

That's about all I have energy for, haha. Now for my most recent news!

Okej so my weekend was super duper! As you all know, I went to Helsinki with Emilia and her parents to go SHOPPING! Now, quite frankly I'm not much of a shopper. I tend to just make fun of every article of clothing I pick up (ask Emilia, haha I made fun of more stuff than I tried on...styles are so different nowadays!) I actuallly dislike shopping quite a lot in some ways cause it's normally completely impossible to find clothes that fit me and my personality...but on the other hand I love it cause I mean...who doesn't like new clothes???!!! And honestly none of my summer clothing fits me now (the downside of being a girl...clothes are normally tight...therefore if you grow, you do not fit them...damn!), and my 15-20 pound gain hasn't helped much! Although I don't really think I look too different. I mean, my friends haven't noticed anything big, and if anything I just look more healthy, so I'm happy. Even if it means having to go shopping! And with none other than EMILIA! We had a blast =)

So yes, after school on Friday I went to Emilia's and then to a small concert at the Music Institute put on by a VERY talented group of guys and gals from Stockholm who honestly were amazing musicians...AMAZING! Honestly. One really preppy cute guy wearing a pink tie was practically making love to his cello as he passionately swung it around as he played. It was crazy good, and really REALLY pulled us right into the music. It was like he was in a trance. There was this girl who played the piano like I had NEVER seen before. It blew me away. Emilia and I were practically drunk with happiness, just cause the music was so good! We were singing and giggly after it, and oh it was just so great.

Then later at around 11ish we headed to the ferry. We were taking the night ferry so we even had a room to sleep in. It would leave around 12ish and arrive about 10 in the morning in Helsinki. So we got on and basically went to bed, cause it was late. The room was SO SMALL! Here is a picture! There was one bed near the ground and one couch that could turn into a bed. Then above those two, you could pull out two more from the wall. Emilia and I slept on the top ones!





So yes, it was cozy! And OMG I slept better than I have EVER SLEPT since I arrived in Finland. I know Kyle knows this, but honestly as an exchange student...you never really sleep. I mean you do...but it's not a deep sleep. You have very intense dreams that wake you up and keep you from drifting into a deeper sleep, and you are ALWAYS tired when you wake up. I have never felt completely rested in Finland since I got here...until this weekend!!!! I don't know if it was the rocking of the boat, or the small hum of the motors, but it made me have the most RELAXING, dreamless, restful sleep of my life! Coming from the city that is loud, to Aland where it is quiet...my ears just ring when I sleep so it's hard to relax. So with the ferry that went away I guess. I loved it! So when I woke up, I was wide awake and happy! It was wonderful. Really it was.

So we got up and dressed and went down to eat breakfast. The food wasn't great for me...haha and Emilia's mother wouldn't let me have my regular bread with marmalade so I had to have yogurt with puffs, strawberries and walnuts...and it was pretty good. The yogurt was a tad sour for my liking, and honestly I'm not too hungry in the mornings anyway..but I guess it was all right.

When the ferry finally arrived we walked into town and were finally LET FREE to get lost! It was exciting! Of course we headed straight for a H&M store cause it's the best thing ever really! The styles are so great, and it's basically the teenager store for everyone here in Finland. We spent forever trying on sunglasses (which we both ended up buying!!), headbands, clips, and lots and lots of clothes! We also went around to a bunch of other places in search of summer clothes and accessories! Emilia loves looking at earrings and necklaces and stuff, lol!

Oh and Emilia's mom wanted to MAKE SURE I took note of the government building and a really pretty church, just so I could say that I saw more than the inside of every freaken H&M store in Helsinki, haha! We also went through this large outdoor market, which was quite interesting! Everything was too expensive though, but very cultural! Helsinki sorta reminded me of Stockholm a bit. I just LOVE the feeling of being in the big city! They even had the old fashioned buses that are hooked onto lines! It was cool. Check on my site to see them, haha I'm too lazy to find the good ones!

In the end, I ended up buying really cute shorts, 2 adorable summer teeshirts, sunglasses, a headband and hair clip, REALLY ADORABLE cute little shoes (which I have NEVER bought in my life by the way!!), and a party shirt! I have been living off of Emilia's brother's old unused black running shoes for this year, which is really quite sad when I think about it! So now I have some cute little summer shoes, which is a good thing. And now for once I won't have to borrow a party shirt when we go out somewhere, lol! Emilia is probably happy about that, haha considering I'm such a picky pain in the butt! Anyways, here are some pictures!









Okej so later on in the evening after a long day of shopping, Emilia and I just went around the ferry looking for something to do. At dinner we spotted a rather hot good looking guy, and I wanted his picture, haha. I don't know what gave me that idea, but I wanted one. So when he got up from his table of friends to get more food, we got up and said that we were from Canada, and that we were taking pictures of hot guys on the ferry...and if he wanted to be in one. Haha OH MAN it was sorta embarrassing, but he was really great about it, and I think it was actually his girlfriend who took the pic, so yeah, haha funny! Here it is...



So this started a game. We just continued this, looking for people who were good looking, or wearing something funny. We found a guy with a cool straw hat, another dude with a headband, one older employee of this grocery store even had a really long cool beard, so we got pictures of them all. A couple of other good looking guys, too, and OMG it was so embarrassing this one time. I went up to these two guys and started saying 'Oh hej, we are from Canada and...' when all of a sudden one of them said 'Yes, we've heard about you'. UMMMMMMM WHAT??!! I was sorta shocked, LOL and I had no idea what to say! Apparently they had been sitting with the first dude at his table so he had told them about us...haha so yeah, TOTALLY awkward! We got their picture anyways, haha!







Okej so enough of that, haha. It was amusing for a while anyway! Then we decided to get all dressed up, JUST to go hang with Emilia's parents in the disco thingy place. Yes, I know. We are that cool, haha. So we put on makeup, did our hair, put on pretty clothes, sampled some free perfume, and went off to the place. It was like a bar thingy, with lots of seats and a stage where people danced to this music a band was playing. It's a Finnish thing to dance. Haha and to get drunk. Sometimes I think people literally go on the ferry JUST to buy cheap alcohol and get wasted! So yes, we had a lot of fun! We danced a bit, although I suck at it, and Emilia's dad ended up dancing with me too, haha. I was quite proud actually...I only stepped on his foot a LITTLE once and I managed to like, actually follow what he was doing. It was quite impressive if I do say so myself. I know I still sucked, but I guess it gave me some confidence, haha. Emilia and I even did the tango, which was a hilarious disaster that resulted in quite a few people laughing at us. We had no idea what we were doing! It was great.

Then we noticed this guy beside us, who looked rather lonely. He was about 18 it looked like, and he was with his parents holding his mom's purse as they danced. It was quite a sad sight actually. Emilia's mom even said that she had seem him practicing dancing with his mother, haha. Awww! Anyways, he looked very bored, and at one point I think his parents were trying to get him to ask one of us to dance, but he was MUCH MUCH MUUUUUCH too shy for that. So finally Emilia put him out of his misery and asked him to dance. He looked SO SHOCKED and horrified, haha aww it was funny. His parents were highly amused. Emilia said he was even shaking a bit! Aww. His name was Sammi...or something, and he was 18 and from Finland. Was not too good at English, and turned out to be quite hopeless at dancing (as am I!) As soon as Emilia finished dancing with him and they came off the stage, I jumped up, grabbed his hand (giving him no choice) and danced with him! We couldn't talk much cause well...his English was lacking and my Finnish doesn't extend past 'Hi, thank you, and excuse me' so we were hopeless. I think we gave the guy some confidense though! I mean, cmon! What man wouldn't like two attractive young ladies asking them to dance, LOL! Anyways, here are some pictures:







And just so you can see how freaken big a ferry is...





Soooo YES! The weekend was super duper! We got home at like 4am in the morning, so we were walking zombies. I slept at Emilia's again, and then went home where I spent the day doing nothing. It was wonderful.

Okej, so now I'm getting lazy and I want to sleep again, haha. So I guess I will write about what happened today...tomorrow! I'm not sure why I'm like days and weeks behind schedule on my journal now! I guess I'm just tired the past few days. REALLY HAPPY and BUSY but tired. This weekend I'm gone too in Pori, FInland for a District Meeting with the exchange students. Should be fun! Anyways, hope this is a good enough update for now! Hope you check out my easter pics!

Bye :)

Haha okej for the millionth time, I lied, and instead of updating I'm going to bed!! Whoops. Easter and Helsinki update tommorrow, haha! Bye!

Okej, so this news can't really wait until Sunday, haha so I will write this now.

All right, so I'm sitting in the car with my dad this morning on the way to school, and he just all of a sudden goes...'Rotary has found you a 4th host family!!!' I just sat there in total shock, because until now, I wasn't expecting a 4th family at all! My councilor had told me that the only family the had found so far was WAAAAY out on some far away island where I couldn't go cause there is no school out there...so I just sorta assumed I'd be staying with the Vickströms for the rest of the year. So I was shocked! I didn't really know what to think, cause I had kinda gotten so comfortable with my family now, and I really love it there. I mean, with my host mom and Jessica and everything, and just looking at how good this family has been for my Swedish and just everything... I guess my initial reaction was sorta sad and disappointed that I wouldn't finish off my year there. Although I was kinda excited too, cause changes are always kinda cool, and I was SOOOOOOoooooOOOOOooo curious as to who it was!

AND GUESS WHAT!!!???

I'm moving back to Östernas where I lived for the first half a year of my exchange, haha! So I'm living like 200m from Emilia again, so I'm really really SOOO unbelievably happy about that. I mean, yes it's always nice to see other parts of Åland, but right now, I just want to spend as much time with Emilia as I can before I go, especially since she is getting a job at a grocery store soon, so I wont be able to see her as much! She's such a close friend of mine, and I'm going to miss her like so freaken much when I go back home. And one of the things we have both missed a lot ever since I moved out into the country, is our random long walks. It gave us time to talk and walk around the really nice neighborhood, and now I can do that again! When I went to school today, I told her like immediately and she did little girly screams while hopping up and down and then gave each other a big hug, haha! We are so happy about it! So just because of her, it makes the whole move worth it...even if it means packing up my bags in 3 weeks! So crazy how fast time is literally flying by. I can't keep up with it, seriously!

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

So all my host dad could tell me about my new family was that my dad's name was Andesh (spelling???)...or something like that and that he thought they had an older girl...maybe 20 years old. So that wasn't very helpful. Then when Emilia and I were talking about it at lunch, she was like 'Mmmmm I wonder if it's her family!!' (while pointing to this really adorable girl in Emilia's grade who I stood and chatted to at my old bus stop for like 4 months, haha!) But I mean, the chances of her dad being the 'Andesh' that Edgar was talking about (it's a popular name, haha) were nill to none, so I really didn't think much of it.

BUT THEN!

I was sitting with Emilia in the library, and that same girl we had pointed to during lunch came down and sat with us. We started gossiping about stuff, and I could totally tell Emilia wanted to ask her so badly if she was the family...but I mean, we didn't know whether she was at all, or if she would even know about it yet even if her family was the one...so Emilia just leaned over and asked her if her dad's name was Andesh. And she laughed and said yes, (and then obviously catching on) turned to me and said that I would be living with her!! I was so excited!! She is such a nice person, and I really enjoyed talking to her. Plus she will also be really great for my Swedish, cause I will start the moment I step into her house ONLY speaking Swedish. That's what I did with the Vickströms, and it worked really well. It's harder for me to speak it at school, cause I did speak Swedish right away, so now English feels normal at school. At home, Swedish feels normal. So now that I know that, I will most definitely force Swedish into my home routine at this new house.

OMG it's just so cool, cause like. I don't know. When I first imagined what this exchange would be like, I kinda pictured me in a nice small family, with me having a sister about my age just sitting on a bed talking in a new language, and just being really close to my family and stuff. And now I can have that. It's so cool how I will have HER of all people as a sister! I can't wait. It should be really cool. As much as I will miss Jessica and my whole family that I have now, I think this will be a really great experience too. I'm moving on May 4th I think, and I will be staying there for the remainder of my stay here. It should be super great, and I'm unbelievably excited!!!

And I may even be able to go visit that one place way out on some far away island for a week or something, just to see what it's like! That should be sweet too! OH and some guy in my Rotary club is wanting to take me out in his small plane too to see the archipelago really soon! And my councilor wants to take me out on his boat with his family! OH MAN I'm just so excited, it's beyond words, and to top it off I'm going shopping this weekend in Helsinki with my best friend Emilia, and GAAAAAAAAH I'm just so happy it's ridiculous. This has been a super day, and AHHHHH haha I'm getting a 4th family! CRAZY! I can't wait!

Anyways, I just felt the need to get my excitement down on paper!!

GAAAAAH I'm so happy =)

I will talk to you guys again on Sunday when I get home from Helsinki! Byes!

Bah, I'm tired, my back hurts, my knee is sore, and I'm stressed for no reason, haha. Although I DIIIIID do my Psychology test today and I THINK I PASSED! Wohohohohoho! More about that later though! I will be gone until Sunday though, cause I'll be in Helsinki with Emilia and her family! Should be AMAZINGLY fun! :D

Anyways, I WILL indeed update you about Easter when I get home from the mainland, okej?

Byyye! :)

HELLO!! I know it's been like a week since I last posted, and I'm sorry!!! It's test week, and I actually do have a test and have been a little busy with a lot this week. Not to mention the fact that I got sick which sucked!! So yes, here is a small update on some of the stuff I did over the Easter weekend...

Cata came (my friend from Chile who is on the exchange in Finland as well)! She arrived here at like...ummm.. 2:30 on thursday, and we had to go pick her up from the ferry.

Thursday:

Basically we spent the whole day tending to Jessica's need for our attention, seeing as she was a little bored since we were speaking so much English. Jessica loves Cata. She is already slapping her butt, and tickling her, doing bunny ears on her, and randomly attacking her...which I guess is a good thing...for Jessica, haha. This meant countless times jumping on the trampoline, random tickle fights, and lots of screaming and laughing. Not to even MENTION the mess that my room is! Having TWO girls live in my room for 4 days made the equivelant damage of a tornado. Anyways, finally we got some time to get ready, since we were told that guests were arriving in an hour.

Cata managed to convince me to wear a skirt...it was funny. My host mom told us we didn't have to dress up at all, and then just moments before the people arrived, they all come down looking all pretty and FORMAL! So we raced back into my room and got changed.

So yes. Now for dinner....

BY FAR THE MOST AWKWARD THING EVER!

Well, when they came in, we went to greet them. Shook hands as always, and we both noticed the unbearable awkward silence and the FINNISH STARE that followed! We just stood there (me accidently hitting my head about 3 times on the same spot! How embarrassing!) PLUS there was a rather HOT guy there, who I got to sit beside at dinner (teehee)! He had nice eyes! It made for a rather giggly meal! We are such girls!

First off, the appetizer was shrimp with avacados and this saucy stuff on bread. NEITHER of us liked it, and we both had to prevent ourselves from laughing throughout the ENTIRE freaking dinner. The shrimp thing wasn't very good. I mean, Finns like it, but I have always hated these fishy things that they serve before dinner!!! Cata hates it too! I mean ICK it's just so gross. The combination of shrimp on bread with sauce soaking into it...sorta giving it a tangy lemon-like flavour really tastes quite disgusting! So the whole time I had to keep avoiding eye contact with her as to prevent myself from bursting out laughing, cause we were both just swallowing down every bite with Coke. It was really horrible! Then everyone kept staring at Cata waiting for her to say something (Cata says it felt as if they thought she were some 'exotic creature' that was sitting at their table!) and she was sorta...quiet! My brother kept asking her questions having to do with the elevation-sea level stuff, population and a bunch of other boring and pointless statistics that Catalina really could not have cared less about! I almost laughed cause my brother was being quiet serious, and she just kept giggling and saying 'I don't know' and then looking away. So really, we said NOTHING the whole time, just listening to these Chelsea crazy fans talk about soccer in Swedish the whole time. Edgar must have noticed some hesitation or something that I showed (although I REALLY TRIED to look like I was enjoying it...I guess I failed!) and said that I didn't have to eat the shrimpy glop if I didn't want to. Automatically I said 'Ooooh no, it's fine. Tastes great!' And Cata nearly killed me with her evil stare. I had just turned down our only chance to NOT eat the icky shrimp thing. Whoops. OH well, haha we survived!

Finally they let us leave the table, and we walked as fast as we could (politely Cata says) into my room, where we broke down onto the floor laughing our heads off. It was ridiculous really. It was like, I had to bottle up so much laughter during the meal, that everytime people at the table would laugh at something (and I wouldnt' get it) I would laugh a lot anyway with them just to get rid of the urge to giggle! OH man it was just pathetic really!)

The main meal was better...but still not great. We had lamb and broccoli stuff, a lentils mixture and potatotes...only it was really gross actually. Cata's lamb was BLOOD red, and mine was extremely difficult to cut! We had NO arm room whatsoever, so we really must have looked ridiculous as we attemped butchering our lamb chops. It was terrible. Amazingly, we both agreed that the potatoes were the best part of the meal...how sad is THAT??!!

Basically that evening was dedicated to LAUGHING insanely at all of our memories of the Karkku language camp and the Lapland trip with the exchange students. IT WAS SO FUNNY! Bringing back stories of us getting locked outside our door in skimpy towels, and then getting spotted by Bernardo from Brazil who VERY willingly came to our aid, wrapping his arms around us when we were JUST BARELY keeping our towels up! God that was embarrassing. Oh and we talked about how I tumbled down the ski hill, hurt my knee, couldn't walk, and then when I was trying to pull my way up the stairs, Paulo from Brazil snuck up behind me and scooped me up! And carried me ALL the way up 2 flights of stairs...I was as red as a tomato. So yes, we were laughing like crazy at these memories, haha oh man, good times.

Friday:

I made breakfast on Friday! WOOT! And I basically succeeded, which is AMAZING for Hannah standards. I mean, for those of you who know me...well...yeah, haha I suck! I've said it before and I'll say it again. I just can't cook. So for the first time, I cooked bacon and eggs with toast. OH yeah, that's right. How amazing am I, haha??!! Don't you laugh now, it was hard work, and I managed to do it without burning the house down. YESSSSSSSssssssss! Cata had never had bacon WITH eggs before, and she even said that I make a meeean plate o'bacon! I PASSED!

So later on Emilia and I took Cata out for a walk around my old neighbourhood. It was really great actually, cause I got to introduce her to my first two host families. We took her down by the water where there is this little path through some trees behind the houses. It's a nice view and we took an insane amount of pictures. We even stood on a broken boat, haha, which honestly looked like it was going to break when we were standing up on it. Anyways, we dropped by Susan and Steven, my first family, and talked for about 10 minutes. They were actually pretty good about it. Sometimes people here will just stare at people who are from other cultures and places, because they look different. I mean, a LOT of people in Finland have blonde hair and blue eyes, and if not that, most others have brown hair or something. So when someone comes in with natural black hair and brown eyes, people tend to stare cause they think it's really beautiful. I'm kinda happy that I don't get that kind of attention. I am only stared at when I speak English, cause people can then tell I am not from here. Otherwise I sorta look the part. So Cata has found that she gets stared at a lot in Finland. Thankfully, both of my first 2 families were wonderful and actually brought up some interesting conversations about what they already knew about Chile.

Haha, oh and at my first family's home, Susan was like 'Hannah, you seem to have gotten taller! Have you grown in the past few months?' I had no idea actually, cause I hadn't actually measured, and then Steven was like, 'I think maybe she looks more mature and older'...and Susan was like 'Nooo just taller...'!!! Haha, it was just an awkwardly embarrassing moment!

Anyways, it was pretty nice. Then we went around the curve at the bottom of Marihamn,and onto the western side where we went to a tiny Kiosk and bough hamburgers and pizza. It was goooood! So it was nice that Emilia and I could show Cata a little of what I had been living with prior to my family now.

It was a really nice evening too, and we lay out on the trampoline for a loooong time just staring at the stars. We even saw a shooting star and screamed with excitement as we made our wishes, haha. Honestly we probably sounded insane, and Gun came out to make sure we were okej, haha aww she was cute. Anyways, it was just a really nice night.

Saturday:

So...the day before easter!!! Emilia and I took Cata into town for the first time, and showed her around, PLUS there was this little Easter mini-market that had been set up. We walked around, and bought a few things. Both Catalina and I bought pairs of new wool socks (I Loooooove wool socks now, haha) and a cool little traditional Aland Butterknife. There was even a stand set up that had only sex toys and games, haha. It was so funny, that I just had to buy something from there. After looking at a few things, we decided that I should buy a candy cock ring for Alex as part of his birthday present, LOL! So yes, Alex, now you have your own EATABLE candy cockring. THREE OF THEM! Yesssss!

Later we showed her our school, Roberts Coffee, the main shopping street and the mini-mall we have. We also had to go shopping for YELLOW stuff for the yellow party we had to go to later, and amazingly, we were quite successful! I bought a shirt, a necklace, a bandana and a headband, which made me pretty much entirelyyellow from the waist up! Cata also bought a yellow scarf and bandana, as well as this really pretty orange summer dress! Here are some pictures from that!

Sunday...EASTER!!!

Okej, well I think I'll save this update for tomorrow! Sorry I've been so lazy! Talk to you guys later!

Here are some pics by the way :D


Us before dinner>




Emilia, Cata and I at the Easter Market


Cata and I ready for the Yellow party! (I'll talk about that later!)


Memma is this Easter dessert sorta...it's not very good at all!

Okej I know I haven't posted in like...forever!! But Cata is here and we have been having sooo freaken busy having a RIDICULOUS amount of fun...and when I have had time to write, I've just been to lazy or tired to, haha. So yes, I have uploaded a wackload of pics onto my sight, so if you want a sneak peek at my weekend's happenings, you are welcome to look at them. I will post tomorrow! PROMISE!! Byes :)

Cata says hi!



Byebye! Nakemiin! Hej hej! Chao!