Week Seven: Wanhat

The week started pretty normal with the idea of prom looming at the end. I stayed at school until 7pm just hanging out with my friend Kia (my school ended at 2:30). My first family also left to go to USA for two weeks. I spent most of the days trying to get ready for the prom. Buying hair clips looking for the right jewelry and balancing the work I needed to do and practices at the same time. I also had to feed the cat at my first family’s house when the neighbors couldn’t. I spent most of the week with Kia, she would come with me where I needed to do things.

Thursday was a really big day in Finland, not only was it Valentine’s Day or Ystävänpäivää in Finnish (Friend’s day- much better than Valentine’s Day), but it was also Penkkarit. Penkkarit is the last day of lukio (high school) for the third years (equivalent of seniors). All the third years put together a MASSIVE performance for the school and come dressed in crazy costumes. There was cake and doughnuts in the cafeteria and teachers giving speeches for the third years in the early morning. Around noon all of the third years got in large trucks (like garbage trucks) and threw candy at all of the younger students watching as the trucks left. It was really cool way to celebrate their last day and even fun to watch. Some people had their Wanhat that night so I went with Laisha to help Paola get ready for her dance.

The next day I woke up extremely early to start getting ready for the dance. I had a hair appointment at 9:30, had to get at school with my friends at 11:00, meet Laisha at 11:30 to do my make up, and take a bus to the venue to get to the dance at 12:30. Everything went well until I got to school, when I arrived everyone was already in their dresses and eating, but I hadn’t even put on my dress yet and didn’t want to before I had my make up done. Laisha was really sick but she still showed up to do my make up, but she was fifteen minutes late so we were really rushed. I also left my tights at home so I had to walk in my dress to the store to get tights, and walking without spiked shoes was almost impossible since the snow had melted and the refrozen, all the sidewalks were basically sheets of ice. I barely made it to the gym where the dance was in time and I had gotten the bottom of my dress a little messed up.

We had two performances that day, one for the school at one and the second at five for the parents. Laisha and Kia sat right where they could see me dance. It was really great to have them there but their were laughing at me the whole time and it was kind of distracting. The first dance went well for the most part, I messed up a few times and my shoe fell off at one point but it wasn’t that much problem in the end.

Between the two dances I took photos with my friends and then went to eat with Laisha and Kia at Burger King (I took off my dress of course). I returned to the venue with time to spare and put my dress back on and fixed my hair and make up.

The second dance was much more important. The gym was quite crowded, filled with parents coming to watch their kids. My aunt from my first family actually came and took so many pictures and videos of me. Afterwards she came to me and said “wow you must have really liked your partner, you were laughing and smiling all the time,” I started laughing at this comment I was making myself laugh and smile because Laisha and Kia told me I looked depressed during the first dance.

I went with my new Finnish friend after the dance to her home where we ate and got ready for the after party. We went to a before after party with some people from school for a short time and had a lot of fun before heading to the club in Helsinki (a lot of clubs allowed underage kids in for the night and were rented out to schools but wouldn’t sell alcohol to underaged people). The whole evening was really amazing I met a lot of new people, hung out with old friends, and danced almost all evening. I didn’t end up leaving until around three in the morning when one of my exchange friends met up with me outside the club and my host mom gave us all a ride home. Saturday we spent most of the day sleeping and hanging out. Sunday I didn’t do much, it was a chill weekend after a busy week, soon to be followed by a week off from school for our ski break.

Wanhat Pictures