Karkku Camp

So after a grueling 30ish hours of flying Sarah and i arrived at Helsinki airport only to have to wait another 5 hours for the eastern states and South Africans to get in. Once they arrived it was straight on the bus to Karkku language camp which was about a 3 hour trip.

On Sunday morning we met the Finnish teacher for the week, Mimmu and got some info about the week and the sauna: "Where else can you get hot, sweaty and wet all at once?" ;) hahaha.
That evening we went to the sauna for the first time and i have to say that i am quite in love with it. We heated the sauna up to over 100C and then ran down to the frozen lake for a quick dip, then it was back to the sauna to repeat this process another 3 or so times.
After that it was time for the "evening snack" (just another excuse to eat really, we were eating about 5 meals a day at the camp).

Classes started for real on Monday and they were pretty full on but they seem to have worked quite well. We also listened to some Finnish music including some awesome Finnish reggae and the Finnish version of heads, shoulders, knees and toes. That evening it was time for more sauna and frozen lake swiming :D

On Tuesday night we went to a forest camp to cook pancakes and makkara (sausages) on an open fire which was not only fun but tasty. Then we chatted with Uncle Pena, who ran the camp and watched him wittle some flowers out of bits of wood.

We went into Tampere, the 3rd biggest city in Finland on Wednesday for some shopping and sightseeing. We saw around the town which was beautiful but the shopping didn't yield much except for us accidentally stealing some gloves (don't worry we went back and paid for them) and wandering around several womens stores wondering where the mens section was and why we were getting funny stares from everyone (it's probably not the best idea for two guys to hang around the underwear section in womens shops).

Thursday night we walked to Karkku town to attend candle church and then back for a night with the Finnish students of the Karkku school. There me, the other Australian guys and the New Zealander had a competition for who could Finnish a bowl of the foul tasting Finnish easter delicacy, mämmi ... i lost. Then it was time for our last sauna at Karkku camp :'(

After more classes and lectures, on Friday night we had a "cosy night" which consisted of people falling over chairs and a projector, Joona getting a little too friendly with the foreign exchangees, Jae stripping almost completely naked, Jim and Stacy's informative talks about herpes and lots of games.

On Saturday we packed and took a bus to Vammala to meet our host families and some of the people from Rotary. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone, almost like leaving our best friends again. Later i met both my host brothers who are really nice but do not live at home anymore. I really like my family and home here and i think that i will really enjoy my time here.

On Sunday i met my host dad Risto's mum (my mummi) and also his sisters family. My host aunty and uncle have young kids and they lent me some books for learning Finnish, they're meant for young kids so they have lots of colourful pictures to help me learn :P

Today i went in to school to get some papers and stuff to choose my subjects and i don't actually need to go to school until Wednesday because the students at my school are sitting exams until tommorow.

Thats all for now, i'm sure i'll have more to talk about once i've been to school on Wednesday.


Some pictures from Karkku camp, the trip here and the view out of my window at home.