Getting Greener :D

The forest whilst walking Vilma:

In the city:

On the way home from school:



Post Snow photos/Adventures with Vilma and Venla

So the snow is now completely melted. Everything looks so very different! The following are photos taken in the woods near my host family house whilst walking 2 of the 3 dogs (vilma, the blonde and Venla, the black and tan, they are Hovawarts, there are none in Australia). The snow has only just melted so everything is in a very dull stage before everything starts blooming for this Spring.



Ice Hockey / New Addiction

Finland first won the ice hockey international competition since 1995, it was also the last time Finland won, that means there had been 16 year drought in the ice hockey department. Several times it seemed rain was on the horizon (don't know why I'm using a metaphor but hey, let's work with it) with Finland getting to the finals but always turned out to be just 'coastal stuff,' 'it'll burn off' 'nothin' in it' (to qoute my Dad on the topic of false alarms in the rain department) and it always seemed to be against Sweden in those finals.

Now enough dwelling on the past, my ice hockey watching carreer started on 6th May 2011, Finland v. Germany, not only was it a close game the entire time but at full time the scores was 0-0, now this meant another 20 minutes would be played in order for someone to score...no one did so then it goes to one on one with one player v. the goalie, where the selected player (Mikko Koivu for Finland) gets three chances to score a goal, the turns alternating between the teams (so one team then the other then back again etc until the 3 goes have gone for both teams) then there was a tie so this continued, until finally Finland won 5-4!! (nail biting stuff! I almost couldn't watch at the end)

Showing the last 13 mintues of the game, may get boring at some points so dont have to watch it all but have a quick skip through if your interested :)

Finland v. I can't remember.. - went to sudden death again, Finland won!

Finland v Russia - the awkward moment when Finland wins and a Russian guy at school had been saying that day 'no way Finland will win tonight, Russia is the best no one beats them, Finland will cry after how badly they lose etc' had to rub it in a bit the next day :P

Finland v. Norway - Finland won 4-1 another nail biter

Goal highlights (goals and near misses)

Finland v. Russia (again) - a very close game with nobody scoring until Russia did but then Finland picked up their game because they have proved they can beat this team (the Russian team... yeah kinda scary, those guys are huge!!! and the red uniform makes them look even more threatening) and once we got a goal ahead of them they got really angry and acting rashly (also getting agressive at one pont there was 3 players off) intead of using strategy anymore...and the goalie also gets extremely confused when Mikael Granlund goes scoring unbelievable goals like this one:

Aaaand winning this game means GRAND FINALS HERE WE COME!!!! ...versing Sweden but I wasn't worried :P

Finland v. Sweden International Ice hockey World Championship Grand Final - I estimate 95-100% of Finns were in front of a television this night! Things were looking down when Sweden scored the first goal of the game (at this point my host dad threw his hands up in the air and went to bed despite my saying 'its too soon for us to have lost, I have a good feeling!) but Finlandcame back fighting and ended up winning 6-1!!! according to one of my friends the next morning was 'National Hangover Day' haha and needless to say my host dad was quite heartbroken for missing the rest of the game. I am so glad I was in Finland for this, there was a massive celebration in Helsinki which was televised,and the general atmosphere everywhere was buzzing, really hard to explain but it was amazing :D

Video of goals from  the game - love how excited Finnish commentators get when we score!

The team arrive back in Finland (see some of Helsinki if your interested :P one of the main streets in Helsinki, beautiful arcitecture and on your left Stockmann the Department store of Finland :P)

And here are some very popular songs in Finland at the moment:

Poju - Poika (saunoo)

poika means 'boy/son' which is the nickname for the ice hockey trophy and the songs main point is that 'our son is now in sauna, lets sing and shout and drink champagne because our son has come home' and is generally an awesome song.

And my personal favourite:

Ihanaa Leijonat Ihanaa - I love this because it takes the commentary from the 1995 world championship game Finland won and remixes it into a song (same commentator as the 2011 game as well - Antero Mertaranta, set a world record or something for words per minute in commentating - just a little fun fact for you) Ihanaa means amazing/wonderful/great/beatiful and Leijonat means Lions (Finnish team)

part of the celebration in Helsinki (same song as above)

The Video that sums it all up:

And I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'I told you so!' to those that I said 'I know (not hope or feel or wish but know) that this year Finland will win the ice hockey again!' I'm like that octopus from the soccer world series haha!

And I'd like to thank Australia for not being a part of the International Ice Hockey World Championships so I can not feel guilty for being Suomi Leijonat's (Finland Lion's) #1 fan!!!

Eurovision Competition 2011

Eurovision is a song competition held every year between European countries.

This year Finland's finalist was Paradise Oskar with his song 'Da Da Dum'

'Da Da Dum' - Paradise Oskar

and this was his performance in the finals

Unfortunately Finland didn't win this year, it was beaten by Azerbaijan with this song 

'Running Scared' - Eldar and Nigar

There's always next year :)

Easter

Hyvää Pääsiäistä (Happy Easter!)

For the first time I am having Easter in Spring instead of Autumn, the snow is almost all gone except for certain areas around the city such as areas in constant shade, it is like I have begun my exchange all over again, in another place where there is no snow, new things keep popping out of the snow even in areas I thought I knew quite well. It is amazing to see how everything changes without snow.

what is left of the snow in my back yard

Finnish Easter traditions:

·         ‘Rairuoho’ – special grass grown in pots for approx. 2 weeks before Easter. On Easter morning these are then decorated with Easter eggs and fake baby chickens.



·         The Easter rooster – on Easter morning it is the rooster who lays the eggs and these eggs are made of chocolate, they are laid in a hat under your bed, or in our case, this year, on the kitchen table. I must say he has extraordinary taste in hats [a cork hat from Australia ;).

Easter Rooster

Easter hat

·         Painting eggs – with breakfast was boiled eggs, you decorate these eggs with either paint or textas and once you’ve finished you can smash it open and eat it as per usual breakfast... I was too attached to mine to eat them though haha

egg number 1: Finnish flag & 'hyvää pääsiaistä'

my portrait of the easter roooster

We had a large lunch with some of my extended host family, I made some hot cross buns the day before Easter as my contribution to the meal (also ‘Australian’ salad... exactly the same as Finnish salad but the lettuce leaves are left bigger, not shredded as much as Finnish, turns out this somehow affects the taste, who knew?) Along with the hot cross buns (not even heard of in Finland, gasp!) we had  makkara (Finnish sausage) and corn cooked in ‘grillikota’ - a separate little hut from the main house in which is a fireplace (centre) and benches around the walls to grill from – also salmon, other types of bread, salad and a little poro (reindeer) it actually didn’t taste that bad! Then for desert we had cheesecake.

my beautiful hot cross buns

My creativity in decorating the cheesecake with strawberries

Easter in Finland is such an amazing experience, so many different traditions and activities to Easter in Australia, I had an amazing day :)

''Just popping over to Sweden''

On Wednesday 20th of April I left with my host family and host sister's friend (Roosa) for Helsinki to go by cruise ship to Stockholm, Sweden. Yes, I still get excited over the fact that 'I'm going to another country!!' it still feels wierd being so close to neighnouring coutries haha.

As our ship (Silja Serenade) pulled out of Helsinki Port I sat with Hellu, Olli, Sara and Roosa in the lounge area for all the cabins in the same area as us and watched through the window as Finland disappeared behind us. A quite interersting conversation accompanied this moment, there was a Celine Dion song playing and I said it should be bad luck to play her songs on cruise ships especially after what happened to the Titanic, also something about the seagulls flying around the front of the ship actually being Russian robot spies listening to our conversation and when the time comes the seagull's beak will open and out will pop James Bond (pronounced 'Ya - mes Bond' in Finnish :P) like the crocodile in one of his other movies, also as we were at the front of the ship we kept debating as to whether we would make it through each narrower section on the way out of the port, good times good times :P

Our ship "Silja Serenade' in Helsinki Port

View of taken on way back aboard in Stockholm

Kareoke on the boat - ''Can't fight the moonlight' Leanne Rhymes

Spot the statue

In an alleyway

MArket Square - many people sitting outside enjoying the 18 degree heat and drinking coffee

cool old telephone booth

you rang?

inside the cathedral - where the Swedish Royal Wedding took place last Summer (last winter in Australia) - the awkward moment when I didnt know there was a Swedish Royal Wedding until this moment.

guard post near Palace



Im heading off on Eurotour today, I know I havent posted in ages but I just havent had a spare second, after Eurotour it is summer holidays so I will dedicate a whole day to updating my blog :) be talking to you soon Ana xox