Syyskuu

Oh man where to begin.
Well, syyskuu means september, which it is. It's coming to an end, rather quickly. About 5 days from now. I can't believe I'm almost 2 months into my exchange. Crazy to think about it like that. So i guess I prefer to say I have about 8 months left. But that still seems like so little time. Right now, I really don't even want to think about ever having to leave. I'll just stay here, and people can come visit, K? K.

Well.... let's go in order of what happened this week.
First of all, on Monday I woke up and my eyes were all itchy, and then at school after the first class I realized they were totally red. So I mentioned it to my host sister and she insisted I call mom to get a doctors appointment. So I did. I leave school early on Mondays to go to Turku for a Finnish lesson with all other exchange students in the area, so I did that, and right after the lesson I went to the doc. Turns out I had an eye infection. Wonderful. So I got some medicine, and was told it should be better in 2 days. And was also told to throw away my mascara and eye shadow. Not cool. Mascara here is so expensive! And luckily I had only used one of my eyeshadows in the past 3 days, so I didn't have to throw away all of them! But the infection didn't go away by Friday, so my wonderful host mom called the doctor and got me a new prescription... which seems to be working so far :) That was my oh so exciting Monday! But I promise my Tuesday was MUCH better.....

BECAUSE I MET THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF SWEDEN! That's right, you read that correctly. I decided to skip school and go to the library in Turku where I knew they would be that day in hopes of getting a good picture. I didn't even really expect to even see them at all. Let alone talk to the princess! Well... ok. To tell the truth, I didn't really talk. I was frozen for a while, and then when everyone I was with starting talking, I realized I had the chance to actually talk to the future Queen of Sweden (that's right, I'll be able to say I met a queen!) and so I kind of just mumbled something. I don't even know what it was that I tried to say! But one of the guys I was with (also a Rotary exchange student) thought to give Victoria(the princess) one of his exchange student business cards! So... she now has his phone number! haha. But here are some pics. And no, zoom was not on. We were really that close :)

^^that would be the princess with my friends business card. he had written a little note for her on the back

And then after that we went to Hesburger. But that's pretty much a weekly occurrence. (For those that haven't read the previous posts... Hesburger is a big burger chain that started in Turku)

Wednesday was just a normal day. I went to school, and went orienteering in gym class. This was the second week in a row that we did that. We aren't given a compass, just a map. So, just like last week, my group got lost. Except it was a different group. But it's still fun to go on these little adventures with the people in my class. (By the way... eyes were still not better today.)

Thursday.... I went to school again. Normal day. Nothing too special happened that I can remember. 

Friday! Went to school again. But I get to sleep in on Fridays, so the day started out good! My host mom had called the doctor for some different medicine for me since my eyes still weren't any better. So I got some new medicine. We were going to go swimming after school, but since I still had the eye infection, and my host mom had gotten it as well, we figured that wasn't a good idea. So, we went to my host mom's friend's ranch for sauna! It was dark when we got there, so I didn't see that much. But they have chickens and horses! That was kind of random. But they do, and I think we're planning on going there again sometime in the daylight. But then we went to sauna, and ran out to a pond that they have on their property. It was fun! There wasn't enough room in the sauna for everyone to be on the top bench, and so my host sister got kicked off the top since I'm only here for a year and they get to sauna their entire lives! Oh, the perks of being an exchange student :) 

Saturday... I finally woke up before 11 on a Saturday. Pretty sure that's like the 2nd time since I've been here. School weeks take all of my energy. But today we just cleaned the house. And I decided that I wanted to make no bake cookies, and my host mom needed some stuff from the store too, so I rode my bike to the store and got everything. But then I ended up not making the cookies today. I'm saving that for tomorrow instead. Can't wait to have some no bakes though! They sound amazing. This evening, the whole family (well, except my host dad. He's in Siberia for 9 days for some concerts) went to some French club's meeting so my host sisters could play some music for them. I ended up sitting next to an old woman who actually spoke English as well because she goes there for 2 months every year. Also, we ate a lot of food there, so I was stuffed. 

Leaving there, we went to the video store and picked out a movie. We rented Water for Elephants and watched it when we got home. For those of you have haven't seen it, I highly recommend! It was super good, but definitely a tear jerker. I cried pretty much the entire time. 

And now I'm just in my room writing a blog, and just got done skyping with a friend back home :) 

OH, by the way. I've been wanting lemonade pretty bad for the entire past month. So, tonight I was told there was lemonade at this French club meeting. I got pretty exciting and of course said I would like some lemonade. Only to be let down when a Sprite was put in front of me. But oh well, I'll get over it. But hopefully I can get some lemonade soon!

Also, there were Pringles tonight in the car on the way home, and I asked my host sisters if they ever put them in their mouth and pretend that they're a duck. They NEVER do that. CRAZY! But by the time I thought of that and went to show them, there were no Pringles left. So we're going to have to get some soon so I can show them. They're definitely missing out. 

^that's what i'm talking about. For those that don't know what I mean. 

Anyways... I've been here for almost 2 months, and the only mail I have gotten is from the bank here after setting up an account. So if anyone wishes to send me some love, that would be greatly appreciated :) 

Just let me know and I can send you my address. 

Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying my blog! 

With love from Finland! 

P.S.... my spelling is really starting to get bad! Thank goodness this blog does the automatic spell check and puts a red line under everything I spell wrong. Otherwise there would be tons of errors! Hopefully this thing caught them all........