Finland and I

I just noticed that I haven't told you anything about me or Finland, so I'll do my best to fix it. : DD

This post is not so closely connected to my exchange year, but I will write about those things immediately when I have something new to tell you!

Here is some information and couple of pictures about Finland.

Finland is a country in the northern Europe

• The Capital of Finland is Helsinki.
• The population is about 5, 3 million.
• We have our own language, Finnish.  Finland is a bilingual country, so here are also people who speak Swedish. 
• Famous Finnish brands are Nokia, Marimekko, Kone and Fiskars

Other things which Finland is famous for

• Forests and lakes
• Sauna
• Lapland, where they have midnight sun, polar night and really beautiful fall colors
• Santa Clause, who lives in Lapland
• Ice hockey

We have four seasons, and each of them is very different;

Spring

In spring the daily temperature is about 10°C.  Spring starts in April or May, depending the place.  Spring ends when all of the snow has melted and temperature raises over 10 degrees.

Summer

Summer is the warmest time of a year, and the temperature stays above 10 degrees.  It can raise all the way up to 25-30 °C.  Summer starts late May in southern Finland and lasts until the middle September.  In Lapland it starts about a month later and ends a month earlier.

Autumn

In autumn the daily temperature remains below 10°C.  In northern Finland autumn starts in lasts weeks of August, elsewhere it starts a bit later.  Autumn ends when the first snow falls. In northern Finland that happens in September and elsewhere in October.  Finnish autumn is famous for its colorfulness.

Winter

In winters we have a lot of snow, and temperature remains under 0°C.  Winter is the longest season; it lasts 100-200 days depending on the place.  In Lapland the temperature can be -50 degrees, elsewhere the lowest temperature is something between -35°C and -45°C.

That's all this time, I'll write more soon, I promise!

Greetings from sunny Finland,

Liisa 

Route to Australia

I promised to send a post about my flights, so here it is.

The next thing I have to do is tell the travel agency what airport my first Host family wants me to arrive to.  When I've told them that information, they'll book me flights from Helsinki, which is the capital of Finland to Singapore (I guess that we're going to change the plane in Copenhagen), and from there to Australia.  We have to go to Singapore, because we have there some kind of camp where I'll meet all the other Finnish exchange students, and have the last training for our exchange.  In Singapore we have million things to do, for example night safari, training sessions, bamboo boat trip, tour in Chinatown and in Little India, trip to Sentosan, etc.  This all sounds so interesting that I CAN'T WAIT!  : D

If you want dates, here they come:

Tuesday 19.7. Helsinki-Copenhagen      (this flight takes 1h 40min)
Tuesday 19.7. Copenhagen-Singapore   (this flight takes 12 hours)

Wednesday 20.7. - Saturday 23.7.  time in Singapore

Saturday 23.7. Singapore-Sydney         (this flight takes 7h 45min) 

The only problem in this whole thing is that the travelling agency should book the flights now, but I don't know who my Host families are.  Therefore I obviously don't know where they want me to arrive, OUCH.  I'm sure that I will fly to Sydney, but do I need another flight from there to for example Newcastle???  I don't know, so I can't get the flights yet.  It would be good to book the flights as early as possible, so this is a very stupid situation!

I thought that I'm almost ready to go, but it's not only that pink suitcase which I have to worry about.  I have million things to do: those business cards, pins, souvenirs from Finland, visa application, vaccination, official certificates of my health conditions, and so on.  Argh, so nerve wracking! When you think you have done everything, you remember couple more things which you haven't...

a bit frustrated,

Liisa 

SINGLEton

I finally know where I'm going to spend my next year!  The city is called Singleton, and it's quite a little place.  I read that Singleton is located 200 km north west of Sydney and 80 km inland from Newcastle.  So it's just a little over one hours's drive from Newcastle and less than three hours' drive from the center of Sydney.  I've been searching pictures and other information from that place, and I really like it!  First I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to go to a big city, like Sydney.  Now, when I know something about Singleton, I'm very happy that I'm going there. I think that it's the right place for me, and I'm really looking forward to my exchange there!

Yesterday I was in my last training, but before I'll tell you about that, I will make (or at least TRY to make) a little summary about Singleton.  So:

• There is about 21 500 citizens.  It's fast-growing place, so the number changes depending the source
• Singleton lies at the heart of the Hunter Valley, which is famous for its wines and coal mining industry
• The summer is warm, 35-40 degrees max with overnight 15-20 degrees.  Winters are colder, 12-18 degrees and overnight -2-5 degrees.  I'm from Finland, so in my opinion those winters are very warm, too... : D
• Summers and winters are dry, but springs and autumns can be wet.  I'm realllly used to that gum boot weather, so no problemos. : D
• There are mountains and parks, and because I love nature, this is one thing I really like                                                  

This picture IS NOT mine, I found it from here.

And then I tell about the yesterdays 'training'.  This time it was the mandatory nationwide event, I guess I told you that last time.  We had many different lessons, which contained information about visa, insurance, rules, flights, and of course living abroad.  There were lots of experienced people, so the whole session was interesting, though it lasted so long.  The weirdest thing was trying on the Rotary blazers. I liked them. WHAT? Really, I can't believe it, but they looked nice. That was maybe the biggest surprise of the whole day : D

I got a lot of new information, and new things to do.  Now I have to name the airport where I'm going, so the travel agency can book the right flight for me.  I have to think about my business card (sounds a bit odd, but I really have to have them : D) and I have to make pins, too.  They said that I'll need hundreds of business cards and pins. Nice...

Now I stop writing and I'll tell you about my flights and things in Singapore in the next post! :)

Really excited,

Liisa 

p.s. This is a link to Google Maps, if you want to see the exact place: