Moikka

May was a pretty busy month for me. I was travelling somewhere almost every weekend, changed host families and at the end of the month, finished up school until August.

some school friends

On the 1st of May there is a holiday in Finland called Vappu and there is many big celebrations and parties. My second host family took me to Oulu for half the day. First we visited my host cousins just outside of Oulu, then went with them to a concert in the main square in Oulu. The Oulu ice hockey team, Kärpät had just won the national title and that concert was celebrating the win. There were a few bands playing and hundreds of people there. Such a cool atmosphere.

The first weekend of May I travelled to Kalajoki for the Rotary district conference. We spent the weekend at a resort on Kalajoki beach. There I got to meet some of my oldies I hadn’t met yet and we had a great weekend. A beautiful place with amazing people.

The next weekend I went with those exchange students again and some rotex to a summer cottage in Pihdipudas. That weekend has been one of my favourite weekends of exchange. It was so perfect. We listened to music and ate way too much. We went to sauna and then all ran across the field and jumped in the lake together while the sun was setting. It was one of the best sunsets I have seen. I think this is one of the best and most perfect memories I have with my oldies.

My last trip in May was to Helsinki where I stayed with my friend from America for the weekend. I met some other exchange students and got to see some Australians that I hadn’t seen for almost 5 months. It was so weird to hear the Australian accent again. I got to finally see the capitol city of my host country which I think is a really nice city. Not too big and really safe [like all of Finland]  but still felt really big after living in Nivala for 5 months.

At the end of the month I moved host families. I am so grateful for my first host family and everything they did for me and it was sad to leave but also exciting to start in a new family and I can still visit them. I had already met them before I moved so it wasn’t so strange to be living with them, but still it took me a little while to adjust. In my new family I have younger siblings which was nice because I was missing mine in Australia. I also had to start speaking Finnish a lot more as only my host Dad, Jari can speak English.

my first host parents

This month I spent a lot of time with other exchange students that are now like family to me. Sadly they go home this summer but for now I am just excited to spend Eurotour with them. Having these friends from all over the world is one of the best things about exchange but also one of the hardest. But as everyone says, its not goodbye just see you later.