Week Three: Regular life and Tampere

The week was relatively uneventful. I attended regular lessons at school: pottery, photography, art, and Wanhat dance. Wanhat dance is the Finnish prom, but with traditional dance. Girls and boys partner up (platonically most of the time) and take the class to prepare for the performance of the dance for the school and parents. It is a really big deal for the second year students in lukio (high school). The girls spend a lot of money on their dresses, hair styles, nails, shoes, after party clothes, and anything else to make their night better. The class is devoted to learning the fifteen dances your school has chosen. I take three classes of the dance a week with my partner and the rest of the class.

I started a new Finnish class which I like so much better than the other one. The teacher at this class actually gave us the time and practice we needed to understand the topics being covered. It is a two and a half hour class which is hard to sit through, but it is worth it since I finally feel like I’m learning something. It also made me realize that Finnish is still really hard.

Thursday I continued teaching at my host sister’s school. I went to the classroom of three different teachers and gave a presentation on my life in USA. I talked about my school, hobbies, friends, family, and everyday life. The students were really interested and asked questions. The teachers helped translate for the students that didn’t understand and everything went really well. I actually really enjoyed my time at the school and was excited about going the next week. I also made dinner for my host family that night.

Friday after school I went to Tampere, a city two hours north of Helsinki, with my host mom, aunt, and younger sister for my sister’s soccer tournament. I stayed in an apartment with my host mom and her sister while my host sister was in a hotel with her team. We went to dinner and had a relaxed evening in the apartment that night before we had to wake up for the soccer games the next morning. We woke up early and it was SO cold outside. We bundled up as best as we could, ate a quick breakfast, and headed to the soccer game. The first two games were in an indoor kinda heated building. The first game was a tie and the second was a win for my host sister’s team. We had a break before the next game so we went for lunch and to a tower in Tampere that allowed you to see over the entire city. The view was amazing and I had a really great time with my host family. The third game was in an unheated dome, it was hard to sit through because of the cold but they all played really well and my sister’s team won. The rest of the evening we explored Tampere and met with my older host sister when she came by train. I had a really great weekend with my host family in Tampere, but took a train home Sunday morning in order to meet up with my friends in Helsinki that afternoon.

Host sister’s soccer game