Gary Halliday posted on April 14, 2010 11:24
This month had lots of things happening; it seems to be a trend.
The biggest/most exciting thing was going to Sweden. I took a plane with my host family to Gothenburg for the synchronised skating world finals. Our team, “Team Fintastic” won by a fair amount, which was wonderful. The girls all celebrated and screamed their lungs out. We were there for two days and in the daytime I got to look around the city and see some sights including some very old churches and a military aircraft museum in a retired secret underground hangar. That was pretty cool. There was also an exhibition on Bollywood which was a lot of fun.
I spent a weekend at the Summer cottage where I took the opportunity to chop some firewood and go ice fishing. I even caught a fish. It was pretty small so not good for eating, but to fit out of the hole it had to be small.
It has been getting warmer, if I can use that word. It has been + degrees for a few days now, and just about all of the snow has melted. There is gravel all over the place which was used for grip when there was still snow, now it looks a bit strange. Spring is coming, there are birds outside my window which sing occasionally and grass has started to grow. The sun comes out every now and again and the time has come that there is more day than night every day. We have also had some sort of a daylight savings event here where the clocks were put forward an hour. That was not so good for school the first day but now I am used to it.
At school I gave a couple of speeches, teaching the kids a bit about Australia. Now it is exam time. I have had 2 exams, one for computer studies in which I scored 27/29 and one for maths which I sat today. I will also being doing the English test. It was so strange in class when we were practising doing 150-250 word “essays”. In my opinion that word should not be used with such small numbers. At least I had a bit of fun writing it. There were a couple of parties and a movie afternoon. There is also going to be a multicultural day but they are bringing in people to do the teaching so I won’t get the opportunity to share some Aussie culture. I also got to play drums with some friends who have formed a band, and that was a lot of fun.
It is Easter time and one Finnish tradition is similar to the trick or treating in America only that it is on Easter. The children dress up as witches (not sure about the boys though) and go door to door. They knock on the door and then recite a blessing, then, if you give them candy or something similar, they give you a stick. I think it was a symbol of spring coming as the plant had only just started to come up over the weekend so many kids just had ordinary sticks decorated with crepe paper and similar, colourful things. They were very nice and even posed for a photo.
I also visited an exhibition here in Helsinki on the drawings of M.C. Escher. He drew all sorts of mind boggling images involving impossible objects as well as transforming, tessellating shapes. It was quite an experience and by the end I am certain that my brain hurt.
A few days after that I visited the Fazer chocolate factory, an event run by Rotex which was enjoyed by all of the exchange students who attended. After our arrival we were encouraged to drink lots of water in preparation for what was to come. Next we were escorted to a room where we were informed about the foundation and running of the factory and of the Fazer brand. It is the biggest chocolate brand in Finland and also makes other products such as lollies and bread. They have done well and have a large share of the market in the whole Baltic region, even extending into Moscow in Russia. Then we were shown a video about the running of the chocolate factory. After this we finally descended into the factory and learned a bit more about the ingredients and where they come from. We also saw some of the older machinery. Finally we got into the actually factory. It wasn’t running that day as production had stopped and everyone was already on their Easter break, all the chocolates for Easter had already been produced. We were taken past all of the machinery to chocolate stand where we were informed that we could eat as much chocolate as we wanted provided we didn’t throw up. We sampled all of their very large variety of chocolates before everybody started feeling full. Then we were escorted back up, instructed to drink more water and then shown to the shop section. On our way out we were also given a gift bag. The whole experience was great and a good opportunity for us exchange students to catch up and even hang out for a while afterwards.
That brings me to the end of my adventures for this month. I will be changing families at the start of May, so that will be a new experience. School will be starting up again with more tests after Easter but for now I have a little holiday. Take care and Happy Easter, in Finnish Hyvää Pääsiäistä.
Adrian.