Going Going Gone!

So I haven’t written in a few days but I have so much to say!

I only started getting nervous in the 2^nd ½ of the car trip to Sydney for my flight, before that I was just a little obsessive over being ready and as prepared as possible. But it was about time I started getting nervous haha

My plane left Sydney at 5:40pm on the 21^st Jan. 2011 firstly bound for Singapore.  It was on the plane and in the airport terminal I finally met other Finland bound exchange students, (as well as students bound for Austria, Belgium and Poland) my first reaction was shock as to how many of us there was going to Finland, roughly 15 left with me from Sydney. The plane trip to Singapore was reasonably uneventful, I spent most of the time watching movies/listening to music because I couldn’t sleep.

In Singapore we were joined by another 6 or 7 Finland bound students and a few to Austria. Managed to sleep a little on the Singapore – London (Heathrow) flight, and by a little I mean no more than 1 hour spread out over the 12 hour trip.

We arrived at Heathrow airport at about 6:10am local time. After going through customs (the English accents were really cool) we had a few hours before our next flight. I got a small hot chocolate from Starbucks to get some energy. I was given change in pounds so bought something to read on the Heathrow – Helsinki flight. We also joined up with 5 or 6 more Finland bound Aussies (around 25-30 of us in total). Wandered through the shops in the airport with a few other Aussies – Finland – saw a Finnish swimming team waiting in the terminal as well, went and told the other Aussies who said we should all go over and say hi (or ‘moi’ :P), came to a group decision of yes but we never actually did it haha they were on our flight though so those who sat near them chatted with them.

I sat next to a Finnish businessman who was really nice, we talked about Finland and Australia, he pointed out different things to me out the window such as frozen lakes in Sweden. Most memorable memory from any of the plane trips was descending towards Helsinki airport from Sunlight into cloud and fog then everything went clear and all you could see was thousands of trees covered in snow, it’s really hard to describe and no words or pictures do it justice, it definitely has to be experienced in person, I felt like an idiot because two Finnish girls were sitting behind me giggling at my reaction to the view. But I don’t care it was a really awesome experience.

We had to walk out in the snow from the plane to a bus to get to the airport – of course my huge jacket was in my big bag but it felt really refreshing walking in the cold in my rotary blazer as my only jacket, it felt really nice but I got a few weird looks from Finnish people. Got my big bag and got my large jacket out, then walked outside to the bus, it snowed a little but not much.

3 hour bus trip to get to Karkku (Orientation Camp), had supper was given room key then went to bed - a real bed, I almost forgot what that was haha

Thats all for now :)