Week Six: Wow

This week was honestly ONE of the worst weeks of my whole exchange. I’m not really sure why it just was. I felt terrible emotionally and really isolated. I was uncomfortable and really anxious all week. I spent most afternoons with Laisha before having to go home. I felt bad because I didn’t spend much time with my host family but I really just wanted to be alone and sleep most of the time. Finnish lessons frustrated me and hurt my head. I was frustrated and stressed about everything. I also taught at my host sister’s school for the last time, honestly I was sad I wouldn’t come back before I switched families. In an attempt to help me feel better I went to this really nice place in Helsinki to ice swim in the ocean (Löyly) with my host sister (from the first family) before she went back to USA. At Löyly they had two amazing and large saunas (both men and women so we wore bathing suits) and a central room where you could take a cold shower if you didn’t want to ice swim. We spent about two hours there and went swimming in the ice three times. It was amazing and incredibly relaxing way to end a bad week. It relieved a lot of my stress and made me feel a lot better about everything. I had a wonderful time getting o know my host sister better and talking about our opinions on Finnish and USA culture. In the evening my friend, Cata, from Argentina came to stay with me for the weekend. We visited my first family so she could see the little girls. Saturday we spent the whole day in Helsinki with one of Cata’s friends who was visiting Finland from Argentina and his Finnish friend. We spent the day going around the city, visiting different museums and had a really great time. We visited a hotel where you can see over the city and just spent time hanging out with each other all day. The whole weekend was really nice to end such bad week but it left me exhausted.

Miasma’s new exhibit (weird modern art museum in Helsinki)