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i leave july 3rd. shape up before i ship out.

so today i was sitting with some first graders, and i had a thought after listening to their conversation. it is easier to say "I love chocolate" than it is to tell someone "I love you". It's the same love, but still, it made me laugh.

Kaiki päivää minä haluan menee kotin Binghamtonissa mutta minä tiedän jos meninsi kotin, en olisi onnellinen (or something like that). C'est la vie!

Like hell I'm translating all of this into Finnish, time for you all to practice your English.

Soooo.. where have we left off in the Life of Johnny? One thing I've learned, is to Always Look On the Bright Side of Life... (I hope someone will understand the joke I just made, or else I will truely cry.). But seriously, I have learned to keep my head up, even though it rains here a lot and people tell me it's a stupid thing to do in the rain... Anyways... Yeah, I may have a bad day, or two maybe sometimes a week, but It's always good to know that it'll get better, which in itself helps me feel better. I think I really am starting to get a little homesick homesick. Before I was just missing the random thing here or there, but now it's all starting to compound. Between the holidays and the darkness always making me feel tired (pretty soon I will be going to school in the complete dark and coming home in the complete dark, yay), it's starting to take it's toll. Haven't cried yet, but Christmas may be a little hard, so please, no sappy stuff for the holidays. I move to my new host family next weekend and they seem very nice and very fun and very very candid, so I am excited about that. But there is one thing that will be a little strange for me and unfamiliar territory for about 6ish years, living with a father. My host father seems to be a very funny and nice man, down to earth with things pretty much together, so it should be good.

I'll be living with my host father, he works for DHL, doing some sort of training, my host mom who works at the local OP bank, my younger host sister who is 15 and goes to a school in Turku. There are also two more daughters older than me me who live and study in Turku. There are two dogs also, but I think they're the two stupidist dogs I've ever met. I can't think of much more to tell about my host family right now, but I will probably have more later since I won't be living with them until next weekend.

Now it's time to go back in time!

This past weekend I didn't do much, which is good because I've been tired. It's also forgiveable since everyone at my school is studying for the upcoming exam week. Today (Sunday) I visited with my upcoming host family. I had dinner with them, talked to Netta, my new host sister, watched some videos of the Old Dance, and went to watch some fireworks.

Saturday I went out with my new friend, Karo, to Turku to see the opening of Christmas Street. We got to Turku around noon, but the opening wasn't until 4, so we had a lot of time to blow, So she took me around the city some and showed me a lot of stuff I had never seen before. We went to a playground with some play things that looked like they were designed by Hunter S. Thomson himself. It was cool though, although Karo tried to push me off a couple of the structures. I SAW MY FIRST SQUIRRELL IN FINLAND. Seriously, with so much country and so many trees, I would have expected to see more, but no, the only squirrell I've seen in the past 4 months was yesterday, in a park with a sparase amount of trees, in the middle of a city. Look at my pictures to see what it looked like and what the playground looked like. After the the playground I was hungry so I went and got some kebab (best food ever). Karo just ate an orange she stole, how boring. Kebab was good and I didn't eat anything else until about 10 o'clock that night. Then we just literalyl walked around the city for like 2 and a half hours. We did sit some, and I bought a new pair of gloves because my other ones are falling apart. I was wishing before I left home that morning that I should find a thermos and make some hot chocolate and bring it to drink, but I never did. Thankfully Karo thought the same exact thing, go figure. I also had glöggi for the first time. Since I have been here, I have both eaten and drank something that tastes like how potpourri smells. Glöggijuoma is a very heavily spiced fruit drink with orange and berry juices in it I think and is served hot. It was really good and hit the spot because I was cold, even though it was about 40, it was foggy all day and the cold bit into me more because of the moisture. On the street before, before it was opened, there were some performers. The best ones by far were the little kids who sang in English. I got some video of them and I will try to upload it later. Now for the moment you have all been waiting for... the opening of Chirstmas Street. It actually isn't that amazing, but it's a fun tradition I guess, because everyone seemed to be smiling and having a good time. The street is behind the mall in Turku and is only open to pedestrian traffic. During the past week they have been hanging lights all along it. The opening consists of turning on the lights and then a very short parade where Santa is the last one to go by. Camera died for the parade, sorry, but there's some pictures of Christmas Street. Friday I went on a cruise with Leena, Cassu and Leena's mother, Liisa. It was only to Åland and back, but it was still interesting. I found Juicy Fruit in the shop on the boat and bought a 10 pack of it and now my room smells of it. I LOVE IT!!! I also found Mentos too! I got some Christmas presents for my friends too. But about eating on the crusie- it was great! the food is really nice and breakfast was buffet style. I think the coolest part about it was that I had champange, bacon, sausage, potatoes, eggs, more bacon and chocolate for breakfast. I mean, how cool is that. Then dinner was cool, we had buffet style appitizer and dessert. I ate some sort of tentical, it looked gross but tasted good and fishy, a lot of partialy raw fancy meat and some other things I didn't really know what it was, but it was good. Then I had a hamburger which was blech but the fries with it were good. I was a little sick from all of the rich and partialy raw food, but it was worth it. I think I went ot bed around 11, how cool is that?


Now by now, your probably asking yourself, who is this Karo girl. Is she Johnny's girlfriend, just a friend, some random girl he met on the street, a stalker... Well now you'll find out. To get this out of the way for some people that are dying to know (mom), she's just a friend but easy to connect with and talk to. Tatu, the Rotary man responsible for me, has a neighbour who he wanted me to meet. She was a foriegn echange student to America last year and she wanted to meet me. I was like okay, sure, I'm always up for meeting new people, the more the merrier. So after a long game of phone tag, this Karo girl finally settle on a day to meet. I gave her directions to my house, but I wait out on the street because it's hard to find my house during the day, let alone during the night. This car goes flying by with two people in it, they hit the brakes, turn around and come back, it was her and her mom, with Karo driving. We drive all the way to Turku without saying very much. But when we get out of the car and her mom drives off, she opens up and it was fun to finally talk to someone who had spent time in America instead of Australia like all of the other former exchange students I have met. She's pretty cool and laid back, but like most Finns, she is still partially cursed by the Quietness disease even though she spent a year in the US, I blame it on the fact that she went to Catholic school in Michigan (no offense Laine family). So we went to ''house warming'' party (it was really an apartment, but it's a tradtion none the less) where I pretty much just sat there with her friends and didn't say much. As the night went on, they warmed up to me and we talked more. Turned out two more people had been FES too, one girl had gone to Thailand and one guy had gone to Miama, both much warmer climates than Finland. Luck punks. They actually invited me to go to Lapland with them of the Christmas holiday but I don't think Rotary will allow it because I don't think there are any adults going. It's okay though, because I barely know them. After the party started to get loud and what not, we decided to move a club, or more aptly put, The Club (that's its actual name). We danced and I saw one of the Aussie FES there with her host sister and her friends. A good time was had by all and there was much rejoicing! Yaaaaay! Anyways, that's pretty much all I did that weekend. Sike! Me and several other FES had a Thanksgiving celebration. It was cool, but a little odd, but cool for the most part. I was supposed to get to my friends house in Turku around 12.30. I left home around 11 to catch the bus, but had to turn back and get the key for my bike lock. Low and behold, I miss the bus, yippeee. So I'm stuck in Nousiainen for an hour and a half until the next bus comes. I get to Turku and go to call my friend to tell her to wait for me at her stop so I know where to get off, phone is dead. Luckily I knew that there was a girl coming in from out of town and that another one of us was supposed to pick her up at the bus station. Another hour and a half of waiting though. Finally meet up with all the people in the city and we go to buy a couple of things and then wait for one more person ot join our group before we head out. By the time we get there, we have to wait 30 minutes for the next bus to my friends house. WOO! By the time I get there I'm 4 hours late, but it wasn't too big of a deal. However because everyone else was so pokey, dinner started a little late, which kind of ruined my plans because I was supposed to go to an international party of some new friends I had made the weekend before and well, I missed my bus and wasn't able to tell them that I couldn't make it because my phone was dead. Thankfully someone there had one of their numbers and I message them. Unfortunately, I found out they never got my message until they had been waiting for me for almost and hour. How cool does that make me seem? But yeah, I just ended up chilling in Turku for the night with all of the FES. Sunday, when I wanted to just go home and relax, involved yet more waiting for the bus. I got to the center just in time to see my bus drive off for the without me for the second time that weekend and ended up spending 2.5 hours in the city, waiting for my next bus. How fun. So I just chilled with the other FES until they all caught thei respective buses and then waited for mine.

Okay, I am done writing for now, because I've been at this for almost an hour and I'm getting bored.

If you decide to leave me a comment, keep in mind, I don't speak very much Finnish.

Minä olen amerikalainen ja minä olen kotoisin New Yorkista (en City). Minä tiedän ja puhun vähän suomea mutta minä haluan tieda. Suomea on kivä mutta se ei ole NY.