&//tomorrow never comes until its too late\\

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:36:19 GMT

[[i know that some of the first entries are a bit confusing so hopefully they'll get easier after awhile]]

lets rewind to the previous weekend first. my sister laura, had a party last weekend on saturday. about 20 people from school were invited and about 60 showed up. laura told me that she didnt want to be translating all night for me so i didnt hang out with the people that were there, i instead hung out in my room on msn. damn, i didnt know i was that big of a disease. so anywho, this weekend was a bit more eventful.

there was a girl at my school last year who was an exchange student from finland, and we became friends while she was there. well, she lives about an hour away from where i am right now, she lives in the captial area of helsinki. so we decided that we were going to have me come out for the weekend. so i left friday after school and we went out to eat when i got there. we had pizza from her dads pizzaria, and then walked around town. i went on an underground subway for the first time, rode a trolly for the first time and rode on a train for the first time. when we took the train from espoo, a city outside of helsinki where daniela lives, we were sitting in seats across from each other and it was only about 8pm but there were these three drunk guys who came and sat down next to us, and in finland if someone comes and sits next to you and starts talking to you and they dont know you, its considered rude for them to be talking to you. well these guys were like 40 years old and reeked of alcohol, they sat down, started talking to me and daniela in finnish and daniela told them in english that we didnt speak finnish. after awhile of them just being stupid and mocking us for not speaking finnish daniela told them in finnish that if she were them she'd shut her mouth and quick. after awhile a guy that was sitting in a seat across the isle got up and motioned back to it for me to take it, i jumped over the guy that was sitting next to me and took it, daniela follwed and then the guy that was sitting next to me streched out on the seat and fell asleep, what the hell? hows that for a first time on a train?

i almost forgot. after we rode the subway from one block to the other, we went up into this little shop area that was underground and i was just standing around taking in all of the different things when i saw another exchange student from canada. i ran over to him and im just like 'omg i know you!' i was my friend john kaye. he was so shocked to have seen me. he was waiting for two of the girls that were the teachers at the camp i first went to when i came to finland. he hugged me and was just in complete awe, because he couldnt believe that he had actually ran into someone from rotary. he lives in helsinki and so do about 4 other exchange students, but they all live on the opposite ends of each other, he lives in northern helsinki and the others on the south, west and east, so your chances of running into one another are quite slim. daniela came up behind us and was asking who he was and i told her he was another exchange student and he asked who she was and i explained she was an exchange student in my school last year, and hes like 'youre not from finland' he didnt believe that she was from finland because her accent was so 'wisconsinish' i asked him what he meant, he told me that when we were at the camp, all the canadians were trying to figure out which accent from the states was the strongest and they came up with that wisconsin acccent was the strongest...really now, i dont think that i have an accent, but the other girls he was with said that my voice was the easiest to tell from all the others, so congrats to mackenzie and kylie who are the only other two girls in finland from wisconsin! go cheeseheads! he totally made my day and danielas, because he just wouldnt believe that she was from finland because she sounded like an american. amazing things happen for such strange reasons. ha. well moving on.

big difference between finland and the united states, the cops know that 80% of the people that drink are underage, but they dont do anything about it. as long as no fights, no bottles are being broken on cars, theyre fine with it. you can walk right in front of them with a beer can, glass bottle, whatever and theyll just watch you go. so, me and daniela went to the supermarket and she went in and bought my new favorite drink which is cider. you have to be 18 to buy alcohol. but they do sell to underage kids in a few select places. so we walked around helsinki just drinking and talking. we went into a few stores. everything in helsinki is open until 2am on fridays and only on fridays. people of all ages young and old stay out until early in the morning just drinking and club hopping and partying. so thats just what we did come saturday.

saturday we were up and out of the house by 9am. we took two trains to get to helsinki and went shopping for a bit. like i said before everything here is more expensive than in the states. i spent about 100 dollars on a jacket, sweatshirt, and some souveniors from the local market. after that, daniela and i took a boat to Suomealinna, which is Finland Fortress, in finnish. it was a big island next to the gulf of finland, and it was full of tunnels and brick 'fortresses' that were used during the finnish war with russia. it was quite cold on the island from all the wind coming from the gulf, so we only stayed for about an hour. after we got back to the mainland we went to cafe and had coffee and just watched the cars pass by, they have the funkiest looking cars here. i saw a cadillac coup de vil, a car with a lifesized can of redbull on it, and a hummer! a hummer, can you believe that? i can, finland is in a way like the united states, they speak english, they are very technologically advanced, and so is there fashion. some people even nickname finland, 'little america' because it is so americanized. oh, i also exchanged one of my euros in for a british pound, you can change any kind of money in whether you have euros, usd, pounds, yen whatever, you can change it into euros, usd, pounds, yen, they dont just make you change it into euros. and you can go and change american money in for pounds, and the get it changed into euros, voila you have more money that way.

around 7pm, daniela and i took the train back to her house and got ready to go out and 'party'. like i said before you have to be 18 to get into bars and such, well daniela is fine because shes 18, and the other girl that was going with us, jenna, is also 18, so they had nothing to worry about, i on the other hand am only 16, and look like im 16. they got the idea that the more makeup i wear the more grown up ill look, so in the end i had enough make up on to supply a full 20 clown circus, it didnt look tacky, but i could feel the makeup on me, not a good thing. i had black ankle pants on, a white-gold shirt, my hair was curled, i had high heels on and a black knee length coat on. and i have to admit, i did look older than 16. the first bar we went to it was called club volume. the doorman of course was standing by the door checking ids, so daniela and jenna got theirs out and i just stood there. i didnt have any identification on me and even if i did, it wasnt going to help me obviously. so, my story went like this. im a student studying at the university of helsinki, majoring in english literature and i dont have any identification with me because i just got here two weeks ago and i dont carry my passport around because it has my visa in it, and if i loose my visa, i cant leave the country. well, he almost bought it, but told me because he couldnt take the risk of not knowing if i was really 18, he couldnt let me in, so we left.

we walked for about 10 minutes, deciding which place to attempt to get into next. daniela and jenna both said the austrailian outback. there was a way to get in without going through the doormen in the front. the austrailian outback is on a corner, the front is entrance to the nightclub and the other entrance which is around the corner, is to the cafe. you can get to the nightclub from the cafe. so we walked into the cafe part and went into the bathroom, removed our jackets to make it look like we had already been let in and were just taking a bathroom break. so, we walked out of the bathroom and up the stairs to the nightclub. the doorman were busy with some other people being let in and didnt notice us. good stroke of luck. we found a table in a corner upstairs and stowed our jackets and purses and daniela went and ordered us some drinks. she brought herself and jenna a 'perry cider' and got me a strawberry margarita. boy, them things are good! after awhile of drinking and talking we decided to make it to the dance floor. daniela told me that my goal for the night was to get some random guy to buy me a drink. well considering id never been to a club, or a bar before and dont know how to dance to save my life, i was a little worried. well, it turns out i had nothing to be worried about. finnish people cant dance either, everyone just moves to their own beat, whether it matches up with the music playing or not, they just move. so i did too, after awhile i had danced with a few people, mostly daniela and jenna and some drunk lady and then a guy came between me and daniela and started dancing with her and another one came over and danced with me. his name was adel and he was from lebanon. i swear there was at least one person from every country in that club. after 10 minutes of dancing, i asked if he wanted to buy me a drink, he complied and i recieved a shot of vodka. well, my job was done, or so i thought.

he asked where i was from and i gave him my story, although it differed from the one i told the doorman at club volume. this story was my name was emma, i was 19 and visiting a friend for a few weeks and that it was my last weekend here and that we were going to celebrate in style. i told him i was leaving on monday to go back to california to UCLA where i study english literature (the only thing that stayed the same was the course title). well, he asked if i wanted to celebrate with him and he asked if my friend would mind if i went home with him. i told him i'd go check and then left him there. i walked back onto the dancefloor about 10 minutes later with jenna and started dancing, some guy came up to her and tried to dance but daniela came up behind her and they told me that they were pretending to be lesbians, i dont know why, but apparently guys find that hot in finland, thats just creepy. they didnt kiss or anything, just danced together. after awhile we all went to use the bathroom and when we came back some big burly black guy stopped me before i walk back onto the dance floor and told me that i was going to dance with him, and i said fine. he didnt ask he just told, so i complied. once again i told my story and he told me he had lived in finland for two years, his name was eugene and he was there for a hockey thing, did i mention he was 23 and from nigeria? well, i danced with him for about 20 minutes and he asked if i was thirsty, i told him yes and he bought me a drink. redbull was my choice this time. daniela and jenna saw me across the bar and started yelling, i guess they were proud of me or something. after i was done drinking we went back onto the floor and i told him that i wanted to sit down, well we went back into the lounge and we talked about why he was here, and what i was doing here and just stupid shit and then went and danced again, well some guy, another black guy tried cutting in and eugene looked at him really meanly, like glared and the guy backed away. this was getting creepy. eugene was getting closer to me and then he turned me around and made me grind him, im dead serious he had his hands on my hips and was pushing me into him, i wanted to throw up, well i turned around after like 10 seconds of that and told him that i needed to use the restroom, it was about 215am and i was really going to find daniela, he told me that he would walk me to the restroom so i could find him when i got done, i said fine and had another stroke of luck when i found daniela in the restroom, trying to talk to jenna on her phone, we needed to leave, some guy was following daniela around and she couldnt get rid of him, and we needed to get back to the train station by 240am, otherwise we were stuck in helsinki for the night. well, we walked out of the bathroom and i told eugene that i had to go get my things because we needed to catch our train. well he wanted to dance again, and because daniela had to go find jenna we followed her out onto the dancefloor and danced while daniela looked for jenna. well, after like 30 seconds, this guys mouth was on mine! whoa, i thought i was gonna hurl. i told him not to do that, and he asked why not? why not, what the fuck. because i said no. well, daniela found jenna and told me to find out jackets well i told eugene goodbye and he grabbed my wrist and held me again and kissed me. i told him i had to go and he said he wanted my number, i gave him some bogus number with my name, emma and turned to leave, the little bastard slapped my ass. i felt disgusted. i found our jackets and hauled ass back to daniela. another black guy was talking to her and he was telling her to answer his phone, then he gave it to me and i answered it and told the person to fuck off in finnish, which is 'haista viitu' and gave him the phone back, i dont know whether or not the person heard me because the club was so noisy you couldnt hear yourself think. well we hauled ass out of the club and ran to the train station. we had just enough money to get home and when we did get home, i showered for 45 minutes and then slept. i was too tired to do anything else, and i still am.

sunday was a bit easier, we went to danielas mom and step dads house and had lunch and they offered to be my next host family if it was okay with the rotary department, because she lives in a different city than i am in right now and id have to change schools, but i took the information and emailed my club counselor, so hopefully we'll know in a bit whats going on.

[[jennifer]]

backtracking

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:34:31 GMT

[[this is actually a blog that i typed when i first got here and it was on my old website but it now here, so some of the information is the same as the entry before]]

the family i am staying with for my duration of my exchange are the lapvetalinens. paivi is my mom, ari is my dad, laura is my older sister (by 3 months) and noora is my younger sister (by 2 years). they have a dog named kassu who resembles a cotton ball. hes some sort of shitz zu (is that spelled right?) mixed with something else. hes 5 years old, and has the yappiest high pitched bark i have ever had the misfortune to hear. my mom paivi is a nurse, who also teaches others to be nurses. shes one of those moms who is very worried about what her house looks like. even if the house is spotless, i mean as to where you can eat off the floor spotless, she will still clean, or make me and my sisters clean. my dad ari is a civil engineer. he designs things, makes plans, seals the deal on big business things, rakes in a lot of green if you get my drift. actually its not really green here, the money here is actually multicolored. the bills for five, ten, twenty and fifty are blue, red, blue and orange. in that order, five being blue, ten being red, you get my drift. the currency is euros. my sister laura sells strawberries at the local market during the summer, shes not doing it now because the strawberry season is over, but she made a good haul this year. my other sister noora, doesnt work, she does play soccer though, three times a week, and is a helluva good player. there team won gold at their conference tourney.

the language of finland is yes you guessed it, finnish and the people who live here are called finns. the language of finnish has no concept, it makes no sense whatsoever. but its something that i need to learn. the good thing about finland is that everyone is now required to take english during school, starting in kindergarden, so even if your finnish sucks, but you know english, you can still communicate. when i first arrived at my host families house i was saying how nice it was to meet everyone and that i was really happy to be here, and they just looked at me. i asked if they spoke english and everyone said yes, but they didnt understand anything i was saying, i was talking too fast, but were fascinated at how fast i could speak english. well, i have been speaking it most of my life. here are some simple finnish phrases:

moi (pronounced moy) it means 'hello'

moika (pronounced moyka) it means 'goodbye'

ei (pronounce like the canadian eh) means 'no'

joo (pronounced like the u.s. yo! )means 'yes'

kiitos (pronounced keytoes) means 'thank you'

mita (pronounced me ta) means 'what'

everything here is almost double if not triple the prices in the united states. ive spent more money on clothing here in the last month than i have back home in the last four years. finnish is lightyears ahead of the fashion we have back home. well, maybe just ahead of wisconsin. you know in tabloid magazines they have pictures of the celebs in like headscarfs and skinny jeans, and marc jacobs oversized sunglasses and cute little slid on shoes, yah well thats what it is here. all of the girls wear the same thing, skinny jeans, slid on shoes, head scarfs, everyone has their bangs parted to the side. the guys where their pants tucked into the backs of their shoes, have polo shirts and military hats. everyone follows this trend. except you know, me. i go to school on the first day, t-shirt, hair in a ponytail, my trademark guy jeans, (i do not own chick pants, well i never used to but i do now but ill explain later) and converse sneakers. i have never gotten that many stares before. but you know, me being the geeky exchange student just thought they were interested to see who i was. but nope, it was the way i was dresses, and i realized that about a week later. so, my host mom took me and my sisters out for a day of shopping. i bought skinny jeans, slip on shoes, and some nice shirts. problem was, girls wore skinny jeans everyday. i didnt need to buy five pairs of jeans though, because everyone here wears the same clothing at least twice a week, nobody cares, as long as its still the same fashion. ive gone shopping three times since ive been here, and now own three pairs of skinny jeans, some nice short sleeved shirts from H&M (which is a HUGE, very cheap clothing store thats very popular here) and slip on shoes, besides the clothing that i brought with me. silly me forgot that finland gets more snow than wisconsin and temps in the negative range during the winter, stupid me forgot to pack long sleeved tshirts. so now i have to spend more money on that. congratulations to me.

finland is a very healthy country, one of the healthiest in the world. school lunches back home cost $2.25, that gets you a carton of milk, the main meal and fries, or whatever they have for the entree type thing. here, the lunches are free, but disgusting. every week it is the same food.

monday: fish soup with rye bread

tuesday: meatballs with rye bread

wednesday: potato soup with rye bread

thursday: meat casserole with rye bread

friday: leftovers of things that didnt get eaten during the week with, you guess it rye bread.

no pizza, no chocolate milk, no nachos, no tacos, no nothing. know i could see if you were like really into being healthy and into organic stuff, and just loved rye bread with a passion. but damn, no pizza, thats abuse of an american, i could die! you can get pizza here though, theres a diner in nummela that serves pizza, its actually really nice, the only pizza they have is the size of a medium pizza back home, but here, even if youre eating alone, thats what you get, its about 10 usd, and you get a drink and salad bar with it, which is acutally macaroni with pickles, but still, its good. finnish people eat about 5 times a day. breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, snack. every snack has coffee or tea involved. breakfast is usually an open faced sandwich with cheese, a slice of ham, a tomato slice and some cucumbers. that was very strange to me. they dont eat cereal for breakfast. no toast with jam, no doughnuts. nothing but the sandwich. the family i stay with doesnt allow us 'kids' to eat unhealthy foods during the week, no candy, no soda, well most coca-cola, thats all anyone drinks for soda here. but were not allowed to have it during the week. it was different because back home i eat whatever i want to, nobody tells me no you cant eat that, here, i have rules to follow. i guess its a healthy system, just another thing i have to get used to. and the closest mcdonalds is about 30 minutes away, in a somewhat bigger city called lojah. they do have a hamburger place here in nummela called hesburger, its like burger king back home, they have mayonnaise on their burgers. its almost double the price though, 8 bucks for just a regular cheeseburger with french fries and a drink, back home maybe 4 or 5 usd. see, double the price.

in the town of nummela, there are two supermarkets. i tried asking my host dad where the grocery store was one day and he didnt know what i was talking about, its called a supermarket here, nothing else. there are two supermarkets, both double as clothing stores, kind of like a super wal-mart. theres one post office, one bookstore, one gas station, two banks, one high school, one video rental store, one shoe store, one school supply store, one indoor skating rink, one cafe and one bridge. all on the same block. you can hit every store within 15 minutes, providing its not a sunday or after 7pm during the week. nothing here is open on sundays, not the supermarkets, not the cafe, not the gas station, unless you got a credit card to use to fill up your tank, because you cant pay inside. everything closes at 7pm during the week, with the exception of the supermarket which closes at 9. oooooo... a whole two hours more, well golly gee.

the public transportation system in nummela is brilliant though. the busses that they have run every hour on the 10, so like 110, 210, 310, you get my drift, and the busses are nice. they arent the yellow, smelly, leather seat with gum stuck under it, kind of busses. these are greyhound type bus nice. airconditioned, adjustable seats, carpeted floors, the works. this is the bus i take to school everyday. everyone uses the transportation system, old people, middle aged, teens, little ankle biters, everyone. to get to work, school, from one town to the other, whatever. everyone drives here too though. back home its illegal to drive a dirtbike downtown, here, if youre 16 you can get a license for one. all the kids at school have either a moped, crotch rocket or dirt bike. a few own cars, you have to be 18 here to get your license, they dont have like a GDL period back home. you have to be 18 to even enroll in drivers ed. i cant drive anyways here, not because im not 18 but because its against rotary rules, which there happens to be a lot of.

no drinking

no driving

no sex

no leaving the country, unless with host family or school function, but not without the permission of the:

-host club counselor,

-host parents,

-parents back home,

-the school,

-host club counselor back home,

-president of rotary back home

-and the president of rotary here.

by the time you have all that, the trip will be over!

im in the second grade at my school. im currently taking four classes and am helping teach one. im taking

-spanish

-french

-math

-english 4

and am helping teach english to the beginners. most of the teachers speak english and are usually good at telling me everything were doing in english, except for the math teacher. her english is as good as my dogs and i dont understand math in english anyways, let alone finnish, so i just sit and read and do other homework in that class. my spanish teacher is the meanest one, she knows less spanish than i do and is always looking over my shoulder when we do partner exercies. my english teacher is a real hoot though, shes got a great english accent, shes sounds like shes from britian. and is always asking me if i understand the english were doing, yup, only have been speaking the language for the last 16 years. my french teacher is the second nicest teacher i have. she explains everything in finnish first, then french and then asks if i need it to be repeated in english, by that time ive figured out what were supposed to be doing by watching everyone else. so no, i dont need it in english, but thank you for asking. the english class i help teach, the teacher speaks better english than i do, and lets me plan some of the lessons, i dont have to go to that class everyday, so i have a free period to do what i want. unlike back home were allowed to leave school when we have a free period. so i go down to the library for my free time, which is usually an hour or two and i check out books and then go back to school for the rest of my classes. sometimes i start school at 8 in the morning sometimes at 10, sometimes i get done at 2 in the afternoon sometimes 4. back home, if you have math at 8 am on monday, youll have math at 8 am on tuedsay, wednesday, thursday and friday too. here, i have math at 8 on monday and i dont have it again until friday at 2. the days are never the same. we switch classes every 7 weeks, and get to pick classes each time, the schedules arent picked out the year before like back home. its a neat system, confusing but neat.

sauna is a big thing in finnish culture. everyone does it, they do it together, and theyre naked. me, ive done it once, with my towel firmly around me, by myself. its weird being around naked people, especially if you dont know the person thats naked. i find it very uncomfortable. i guess i just have to get used to it, but for now, i think ill stick to staying fully clothed.

[[jennifer]]

introductions and what not

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:27:27 GMT

because the general population of my friends has a livejournal or some kind of online diary, i figured i would go along with that general population and get one for myself. so here i am, typing my first entry in my very first livejournal.com, journal. congratulations to me. *crowd cheers* so, i guess i will be using this journal to obviously write, but more specificly, write about my time as an exchange student. as you may have seen from my profile im actually a u.s. resident from the state of wiscosnin. but currently im neither in wisconsin, nor the states. im 7000 miles due northeast in the country of finland. ive been here since august 6, so coming right upon almost 2 months. *crowd cheers again* the town im in is not big. i wouldnt really call it a town even, just a really big hole in the wall. welcome to:

Nummela, Finland
Population 2500
No. of supermarkets: 2
No. of gas stations: 1
No. of banks: 2
No. of movie rental places: 1
No. of fast food places: 2 (Hesburger which is like Buger King, and a Pizza and Kebab joint, which no,it is not like Pizza Hut unfortunately)
No. of students at the high school with only 3 grades: 278
No. of siblings I have: 2 sisters, 17 and 14
No. of pets I have: 1, Kassu a cottonball looking dog
No. of parents I have: a mom and a dad

[[compaired to fort atkinson]]

Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
Population 11,500
No. of supermarkets: 2
No. of gas stations: 7
No. of banks: 7
No. of movie rental places: 2
No. of fast food places: 8 (Mcdonalds, Burger King, Burger Corner, 2 Subways, Pizza Hut, Salamones Pizza, Pizza Villa)
No. of students at the high school that has 4 grades: 700
No. of siblings I have: zero
No. of pets I have: 1, Bandit, a killer whale type dog
No. of parents I have: my mom

the change is a bit different, but ive grown accustomed to it. the rules they have here a quite a bit different than back home. in nummela there is no police station or fire station, the closest one is almost 20 minutes away in lohja. the public transportation system is used by everyone of every age, not just kids going to school. the buses arent an ugly yellow color with brown leather seats, theyre nice tour-bus type buses with carpeted seats, little garbage cans on the sides of the seats and air conditioned. back home, we dont have public transportation, you either walk, or drive a car. here, its the bus, riding a bike, or car, but i believe there are more bikes than cars here.

school is different as well. in fort, you have the same classes at the same time everyday. here, you have different classes, everyday at different times. you also get free periods during the day. when you dont have a class. youre allowed to go anywhere during these times, you can walk into town, if you live close enough you can go home. in fort, youre not allowed to leave the school premisses unless its to leave for a doctors appointment or something. finns are very laid back here, the put quite a bit of trust into the people who live here, especially between the teachers and students. there are no detentions, no expulsions, no staying after class. if the teacher doesnt want you in there class for some reason or another, they just dont let you in. the doors to the class rooms are locked after class starts and if youre late, you must knock and if the teacher doesnt answer, you dont go it. unlike fort, if youre late youd better have a pass or a really good excuse, otherwise its counted against you and if you get enough counts you get detention. i like school here.

theres more on my exchange here in the next couple of enteries.

[[jennifer]]