Busy, busy, busy!

1st off: This is my last week of classes! WOW! I have three classes and two exams this week, an essay due at some point in the near future, and my dreadful plant exam on the 12th of December, but then I'm done! 

With it being so close to the end of the semester and the on going "it's Christmas time!" feeling, my motivation is no where to be found! So of course I've been keeping busy with friends instead of studying ;)

At the lake watching the amazing
northern light display

More pizza!
For a b.day party

Pool on a snooker table
at the bar

Finnish Scrabble

ESN Sitsit party!

I need to explain this one. Sitsit's are student feasts. You sit boy-girl around the table and the proceedings are led by the master of ceremonies. The whole thing is basically singing crazy drinking songs and eating, but there are a lot of rules you have to follow, i.e., you can't talk/eat/drink while a song is being sung or someone is talking or you get a punishment. After each song, you have to toast people on both sides of you and the one in front before you can drink. The theme for this one was toga. After, we had a dance party. Such a fun night!

Pancakes!!!

Me with my Sami Culture teacher.
He's from Karigasniemi

Sami rock band, SomBy.
They are really good!

More explanations. The Sami are the indigenous people who live in the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the North-West of Russia. Their population isn't very big and there are currently 9 different groups, each with their own language and style of Gakti (traditional clothing). There was a Sami concert going on so me and some friends went to it after our teacher told us about it. The first group did more traditional Sami style songs called yoiking. The second group was the rock band pictured above. The third was a Sami rapper (who was my teacher's cousin). They all had very different sounds and styles of music, but they were all SO good! Best 5 euro I've ever spent!

Black light bowling!

Japanese food party!
These guys prepared traditional Japanese
food for 80+ people!
So fantastic! 

I'm loving it here way too much. I don't want to leave :( I only have a month left... *sigh* Oh well. That's still four more weeks of fun to look forward to I suppose! I should really get a bit of studying in at some point though ;)

Until next time,
<3 Hannah

In the capital with Nightwish!

As the title of this post tells you...

Marco, Tuomas, Floor, Troy, Jukka, & Emppu!

I SAW NIGHTWISH!!!!!!!!

They put on such an amazing show!! I thought I was going to die from starstruck-ness. Tuomas and Marco! <3 <3 In case you didn't know, they had to replace their singer during this tour. It was sad, but the temporary singer was really, really good! I hope that she is the new permanent singer! After the concert, they showed us the premiere of their new movie "Imaginaerum". I really enjoyed it! Such a good night! :D



So another thing the title of this post tells you, is that I was (finally) in the capital! Even though I was only there for a day, I determined quickly that I really like it! Helsinki might be the capital, but just like the rest of Finland, it doesn't have *that* many people. The city proper only has 600,000 people while the metropolitan area has around 1.3 million. I felt slightly overwhelmed after being in Oulu for so long (130,000 people) HAHA! I can't wait to visit again in December!

Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral

Lutheran Cathedral & statue of
Emperor Alexander II of Russia

The National Museum of Finland

Parliament House

Here is a link to one of my fav Nightwish songs. The music video is while they were filming their new movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8ykQLYnX0

And here is a link to a very funny Finnish song called "Bouncy Feelings" filmed in Helsinki by a guy known as "Eggman": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHReqKRvonE

Moral of this story: I love Finland and everything about it :)
<3 Hannah

P.S. Happy Veteran's Day! Happy Finnish Father's Day! and Happy Make a Wish Day! :D

Life: Here and There

1st off: IT'S NOVEMBER! WHAT ZE HECK?! sloooowwww down time! I'm in no rush!

That being said: Where did "no shave November" come from? I tell people here about that and they all think we crazy! :D

Me and my French friend, Geraud, drew
French and American stereotypes while
we were bored in Finnish History class.

Speaking of CrAzY America ways... I missed being home for the first time since arriving here this past Wednesday. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I was very sad to miss out on it! It's not really celebrated here which is depressing, but oh well... Guess this means I'll just have to throw a costume party when I return to the states to get my fill of it! :D

Now I will update you on other various things concerning my life back home:

1. I registered for my classes for next semester... MY LAST SEMESTER OF UNDERGRAD!!! OMG!! THIS IS IN-SANE! O_O
2. I have an interview via Skype this next Thursday for the Peace Corps!!!! So excited! Soooo nervous!

Back to life here in good ol' Finland:

1. Me and some friends bought tickets to the Nightwish concert/movie premier in Helsinki next Saturday!!!!!! I HAVE BEYOND PUMPED!
2. It's a ways off, but speaking of concerts, I will be going to the Poets of the Fall concert in Helsinki on December 8th!! AAHHH!!!!!
3. Snow! There has been snow/ice all week, but it (mostly) melted today so it's safe to ride bikes again :D
4. I have a lot of homework that I really need to get to work on :/
5. This Sunday me and some peeps will be going to the university's choir concert. It's Mozart's Requiem and three of my friends are in it so it should be good!
6. I will also be going ice skating with my kummi family if the weather is agreeable! :D

That about does it! Sorry this post wasn't so exciting, but I had a lot of announcements I needed to make! haha! You really should listen to the bands (Nightwish and Poets of the Fall) if you haven't heard them. They are really great!

Until next time,

-Hannah

Pizza, cookies, and friends!
Nothing better :)

2,500+km of adventure!

Previously in my blog: I mentioned that I was going on a road trip with three friends to the north. Well, that's exactly what happened! We had a big surprise half way through, but I'll get to that later. Let me start from the beginning...

We left last Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day and we made lots of stops as we headed for our 1st destination: Ivalo, Finland. We went to Santa Claus village, saw tons of reindeer, and visited some other random places. What a beautiful country!

At the top of a ski slope at sunset

Reindeer aren't very shy

My fellow adventurers in a winter wonderland!

So that night we stayed in a cottage and set out bright and early for our next destination: Olderfjord, Norway! Right before we crossed the border, we hiked up a mountain. So much snow and nothing for miles! It felt like we were in a movie. 

At the top!

Definitely felt like we were in
an apocalypse movie

Suddenly, Norway!

I couldn't believe how easy it was to get into Norway. All we had to do was just drive on through. No stops or anything! That night we stayed in another cabin (much larger and nicer). The next day (Tuesday) we drove up, up, up to Nordkapp! The northern most point in continental Europe! I was actually looking at the Arctic Ocean!!!!! Ahhhh!!!! :D Then we went to Hammerfest, one of the northernmost cities in the world! That night we stayed in the same cabin as the previous night.

Nordkapp

The next day (Wednesday) we left Olderfjord to make our way along the coast to Tromsø  We got about half way when we had an unexpected surprise.. The weather hadn't been so nice this day and the snow was really coming down. We had just come down off of the mountains and entered a small village called Sørkjosen when we hit a patch of ice and lost control of the car. Luckily were were at sea level again and only went into a ditch instead off the side of a mountain into the ocean. No one was hurt but the car got a little beat up. Luckily some nice Norwegian guys saw us and helped us out. While we were waiting to hear back from the car rental people one of the Norwegian guys took us to his house and showed us his hunting pictures and told us stories about living there. It was really great! Then he drove us and our luggage to a hotel and told us where everything was. He was so helpful!

On Thursday we figured out how to get back home with no car (the parts for the car wouldn't be in for another few days so we had to leave it there). A guy who worked at the hotel really helped us out a lot by informing us of some bus routes. We got on a bus, took a ferry, got on another three buses and finally arrived in Narvik. There we got a room in a hostel. That city is very beautiful and has a lot of quirky things in it. We even saw some guys break dancing! haha!

Friday morning we woke up and had a very yummy breakfast (bacon and eggs!!) before getting on our train to Luleå, Sweden. We were able to get some studying done as well as talk to a nice Swedish lady. After we got off the train we caught a bus to Haparanda, Sweden. At 1st we were worried that we would be stuck there because there is no connection from there to Finland, but luckily Elizabeth knew a girl who was in the area and she was able to (very quickly) drive us to the train station in Kemi, Finland. We made it to the train two minutes before it left! WHEW!! That train took us to Oulu and Alex had his friend come pick us up and drop us off at our flats around midnight. 

WOW! What a week! Even though it didn't go quite as planned, I still had an amazing time! I would have preferred to not have had the accident, but it was really a blessing in disguise. Because of it we were able to meet both Norwegian and Swedish natives! It was also an exciting adventure to try to find a way back home. And I rode my first ferry! Not to mention that this wasn't the same old hat as everyone else's trip to the north. We have a very exciting twist! :D

Snow and ice :) haha!

I'm really glad I went. Not only because of the adventure, but also because it was great spending six days with three Germans. So many laughs and I learned so much about Germany!

Balancing game :D

We love Finland and the Nordic countries!!

Let fall break commence!

Today was the first day of fall break! Not everyone gets a fall break here. It depends on your department of study. Most of my classes are in the Scandinavian Studies program so I have the week off! ...if it wasn't for my one biology course... but I'm going to skip it because I am going to the lapland tomorrow and won't return until Friday! :D Me and three other friends have rented a car and we are hitting the road! I really hope the weather doesn't get too bad. It was very beautiful today! But it has been raining most of the week. It even snowed once!

In case I haven't already said it a thousand times,
the sky here is sooooo beautiful!!!

This was taken around 12:30 this afternoon.
It still amazes me that the sun isn't actually
overhead, but off on the horizon.
It's crazy to be so far north! :)

In other news: I have FINALLY gone to the pancake restaurant! and all I can say is: Why didn't I go sooner?! It's amazing! They have every kind of pancake you could ever want! I got a bacon and cheese one and then a nutella one for dessert *drool*

I also went bowling the other day! My friend told the lady who was working that it was my birthday and that he wanted to request the song "Karma Chameleon" to be played for me. All the Finns thought we were crazy for singing and dancing, but it was so much fun :D

Aside from all of my fun times, I am now starting to get very busy with school work. I have a lot of assignments coming up :S but I'll worry about those when I get back from our trip to the north :D

I'll talk to you all on Friday! 

<3 Hannah

Oulanka and Lights

This weekend I went on a field trip with my Humans and Environment class to Oulanka National Park. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive North East of Oulu very near the Russian border. We left at 8am on Friday and got back at 7 tonight. It was (as always) a lot of fun!

Above: Rapids
Right: Canyon

The class! Love these people

Finnish lakes are the most beautiful
lakes in the world!

Our activities for this trip consisted of eating yummy food, having a couple of very interesting lectures, hiking some trails, sauna, hanging out in the common room at night, and "crossing" the Russia/Finland "border". It's not technically the border, but it's very close. Russia is very strict with outsiders coming in so they have the roads blocked off. I guess in this picture, I'm more or less standing in no-man's land :P






Reindeer. Finland wouldn't be Finland without them. They are all along the sides of roads. You have to be careful while driving so you don't hit them. I learned on this trip that most all reindeer have an owner so don't just randomly shoot one. Sorry this picture isn't so good. It was taking in the moving bus :P I'll get a better one eventually!




The trip was really fun! But what put the icing on the cake was coming home and seeing the northern lights!!!! :D

SOOOOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!

They were very faint, but it doesn't matter! It was still an amazing experience and I can't wait to see them again!! :D :D :D

Hope you are doing well!
<3 Hannah

My Trip to the Arctic Circle

Today was so great! Me and six other friends woke up really early, rode our bikes to the train station, and went to the capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi!

A sign pointing in the direction of
major cities all over the world!

Line painted on the ground where the
"exact" latitude of the Arctic Circle is!

I was SOOOO excited to finally be at the Arctic Circle!

But more than one life long dream was reached today, because....

I MET THE REAL SANTA! and gave him a hug too! He is such a happy and magical person :D

me and Santa are homies

A picture of the real Santa with Nightwish!
They are an awesome Finnish rock band.

   









Today was full of many new experiences!

1st time eating reindeer meat!

It was such a good day! And this is only the beginning! I hope to be traveling above and beyond into the greatness that is Northern Finland very soon! But this was an excellent starting point :)
I am very tired after this exciting day so I must now say goodnight. Sooo... goodnight! :D

<3 Hannah