Gary Halliday posted on June 17, 2010 08:26
So this month Rotary took us to Russia, we visited the grand city of St. Petersburg. It is an enormous city although not that old it still has many beautiful palaces and a fortress which are great to look at. We visited sites like the Hermitage, several churches, Peter the Greats chamber of Curiosities. We also saw a Russian ballet and some incredibly talented Cossack Dancers. There was lots of fun with the other exchange students on the busses and in the hotel as well as looking at all of the amazing sights. I took over a thousand photos and now that Eurotour is upon us I fear my camera might run out of memory.
So yes, Eurotour starts on Sunday the 6th and then we are away for 19 days of fun filled adventures and lots of time on busses. We make a sort of loop down from Sweden through to the South of France, across the top of Italy and then back around to end in Germany. There will be lots to see.
Interesting things that happened this month include my first experience rowing. In a row boat I didn't do too well but I got the idea down. It would come in handy later. I visited the family's summer cottage which happened to be on an island in the archipelago of the Southern coast. And by island they mean big pile of rocks. It was quite nice there although there wasn't a lot to do but it was good because the sun came out and we had extraordinary summer weather. It almost got to +30! School wound to a close, we had exams and then the fun things came along.
Eurovision: although Finland only got to the semi-finals. There was some very interesting music out there and they made of point of saying that they broadcast out as far as Australia! I haven't mentioned yet that in geography they think that Australia’s map of the world is upside down compared to the rest of the world so that Australia is on top. That was an interesting situation.
There was a school musical which was great especially considering that I could barely understand what they were saying, that only goes to show that they were good actors. The band was not bad either. After the musical there was some sort of an end of the school year song which they apparently sing in every school and for every grade. The next day was a games day.
The annual Norssi (my school) versus Ressu (our rival school) is a big event on the school calendar, everybody plays, even the teachers and some very old students even showed up. I was on the tug of war team and the rowing team. Lucky I got that rowing practice in. All in all our school won 12 events to 7 and there was great celebration. A newspaper reporter even came to watch and the next day the rest of Finland knew that we had won. Then there was a cool party and the next day everyone dragged themselves back to school to get their test results.
Now school is officially over and there are 2 and a half months of holidays everybody is happy and the city will soon be just about empty as people go to their summer cottages. It's a strange culture that they try to get as far away from civilisation and other people as they can e.g. summer cottage on an island. But they have fun and invite friends over. The next big event of the year is midsummer’s where they have giant bonfires and lots of drinking with as many friends as they can find. After that I am looking forward to going to one of the big summer concerts which I have been assured is a good way of experiencing some more culture.
Until next time,
Adrian.