Farewell

Ok, I was hoping I wouldn't need to do this, but I think it's the time now.  

I don't think I'll be writing my blog anymore, as sad as it is. I wrote the whole year and now I feel like there's nothing much to say, and the people who really want to keep up with what's going on in my life will still be able to do it, just some other way.

I thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed following my experience. I'm actually surprised how many people, from all different countries, were interested about my life. Thank you for that, and all of the nice comments and questions you've sent. If you still have something to ask about exchange in Australia, or the whole thing in general, just send me e-mail to liisa.eloranta@hotmail.com. (:

Thank you once more,

Liisa xoxo

My love

Tonight was a great night.  I got a surprise from Norway, my best exchange friend from last year.  I had no idea that she was flying to Finland to see me this weekend, so I was amazed.  Seems like people around me are fantastic in surprises; this is like when I got home from Australia and there were so many things planned for me.  These are the kind of surprises I love though, because I don't know that anything is happening so I have no time to be curious.  That's the worst bit when you know something is happening but no one will tell you what.  I guess I'm just not patient enough... :P

Now that I have my girl here, my last weekend as a child could not be better.  I'm turning 18 on Monday so I was looking forward doing something fun this weekend, and what could be better than this.  We haven't really planned yet what we're doing tomorrow, as I couldn't really see this coming, but I'd say we'll just spend time in Heinola so I can show her my home town.  She's already leaving on Sunday night, so we might go to Helsinki earlier the day to take a look at the capital of Finland.  So not too many plans, lets see how this goes! (:

Last weekend as a child :|,

Liisa

Autumn greetings

The weather keeps getting rainier and colder here, but I guess that's why they call it the autumn.  

I have to make an excuse that I hardly write anymore, but that's because I'm lacking time!  I have long school days and something happening every weekday.  On Monday I do ballet, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights I spend at the driving school and on Thursday I also do modern dance and on Friday I have another ballet class.  And if have I happen to have some 'free time' at the end of the day, I have to use it to do my homework.  See, not much time to do anything else!  :D

So my life is quite filled with things at the moment, but it's not bad.  I rather do something all the time than just sit around.  Therefore I filled up most of my frees in school, so I'm now a happy girl studying German! :DD  It's actually fun, and better than doing nothing for hours.

As I already told earlier, the autumn is coming to Finland.  It's a bit different here than in Australia, it does get colder and it does rain.  All the time.  Today I finally had a time for a run, and half way through it, it started raining.  Not like one drop here and another one there, I mean properly.  Nice season, got to like it.  Full of surprises!  

As busy as an exchange student,

Liisa

Sport day

Today I went to see the athletics they just organized here.  Some of the athletes were the same we sent to the Olympics, and for some reason they did way better now than they did there.  It was good to see some enthusiastic people doing something they love.  

The whole day was good, and unexpectedly  the weather has been great, keeping in mind what part of the year it is now.  Usually it would be way colder and rainy, but I'm not complaining, this is fine to me!  :D

Had a fun day,

Liisa

Autumn's here

Hello there!  You can most likely tell that I'm not posting as many things I used to, but I'm honestly so so busy!  Probably didn't help to ask for more courses, but seriously, I had over three-hour free periods twice a week.  So now I'm a happy girl studying the German basics!  How random is that, but it's actually a fun course, even though I never ever thought of doing it.  Good fun, and fills up some of the free time where needed.  Handy! (:

I just got a message from one of my Aussie friends saying, that it's about +30 degrees there.  I can only be slightly jealous as it's getting quite cool here, especially the nights.  It's hard to get used the seasons here, September means autumn again, not spring.  Upside down and from back to forth.  That's Finland and Australia, my two homes.  (:

I wish I had more time to write here,

Liisa

One week done

Phew, what a week, and it wasn't even a full one as we started on Tuesday.  It's going to be a big change compared to Australia. But to be honest, this is the school I've been missing for a year.  I like it here.

I'll write more about the school a bit later on when I've survived a week or too, because now I have to keep going.  Tonight is actually a really special night; the first sleep over at my little brother's place.  He moved out in the beginning of this week, and I can't wait to hear how he's settled in.  Good night coming after a good week, sounds good good good!

Happy student,

Liisa

Back to school

Today was my first day back in Finnish school!!!

This is our back yard, not the school.  Do not get concerned.

Last night I was freaking out, and this morning I was more nervous than when I started school in Australia.  Despite of all that, today was fine.  I was lost in my own school and knew nobody from my class, but it was fine.  I still have no courses in my time table, so that's my job for tomorrow.  I like being lazy, but that's a bit too lazy, even for me!  :P  

But listen to this; no restrictions about my hair, makeup, nails or jewelry AND no school uniform!  Mmmm I like this school.

I think I forgot to tell you last week, but I also started lessons for my driving license.  It'll take a while to finish, but I'm looking forward being on the road before Christmas.  Exiting!

Going to bed now because I'm a good student,

Liisa

Madrid part 2

I had never visited Madrid before, even though we've been going to Spain for 12 years.  What a capital, that's what I can say.  It is so beautiful out there, all the architecture and history, it is unbelievable. When you see a violin from 500 years before you were even born, and a building that has history of a thousand years, what else can you feel that admiration.  World has changed a heap since those days, but oh so many things have stayed the same for hundreds of years.

Mum and I had a lot of fun and spend some great times back together. The only downside is that we walked everyday, whole day, so my feet were literally dying.  But what is that kind of pain when you see something as wonderful as we did.

We went to many great museums with hundreds of famous pieces of art:

Saw some normal people...

...and some normal cars. :P

Got to see the life in Madrid.  This was a night during the week, got to love the place and the culture!

Oh and some more people, better not forget the spider-man.  I think this one had retired couple of years ago! 

Used a lot of metros, got around as much as possible, and spend a heap of quality time with mum. (:

Saw sooo many police cars because of the big demonstration they just had.

What a lovely trip, was good to see a different part of Spain.  

Back to school tomorrow,

Liisa

Madrid part 1

Better late than never, here comes the post about Madrid!

Mum and I had a little trip in a trip; during our time in Spain we took a train to Madrid to spend couple of days there.  We saw a heap of art, famous statues, fountains, buildings, parks, and the list goes on.    In this post you can see many sights, and in the part 2, I'll be telling more about my thoughts and how I liked Madrid.  Enough said, here come the photos!

Bear and the Madrono tree, the symbol of Madrid:

Puerta del Sol, the heart of Madrid.  This is where out hotel was located, also the home of the statue you saw above:

Metropolis Building, one of the landmarks with great architecture from the beginning of the 20th century:

Plaza Mayor, a huge (129 x 94m) area, which origins go all the way back to 1576 (bronze statue from 1616).  It's surrounded by three-story high buildings, having 9 entrance-ways and 237 balconies facing the plaza:

Monument of Cervantes, the Spanish novelist, playwright and poet who created Don Quixote:

Plaza de Cibeles, a big landmark and an iconic symbol of Madrid:

The Royal Palace of Madrid, this is where the king used to live:

The Almudena Cathedral, right opposite to the palace,

Parque de buen retiro, a park where lots of people go to spend time and relax:

This glass palace is located in the same park:

 

Stay tuned for the part two,

Liisa

Alicante

This post includes photos from our trip to Alicante.

We never even planned a trip like this, but so it happened that we didn't get the train tickets we wanted, as the train was already fully booked.  Therefore we ended up with eight hours to kill.  :D  

We went to the harbor, up to the Castle of St. Barbara with the whole family, and the rest of the time mum and I spent at the train station.  Actually a really good day.

Next time about Madrid,

Liisa

Quickly

Got back from Madrid safely after a wonderful trip.  Three days running around trying to see everything worth of seeing; hard task but I think we did quite well.  I'll make complete posts about that trip when I get home, so couple more days before that update.

Yesterday was my brothers birthday and today is my dads, so we've been busy.  If not otherwise, at least eating the cake :D  

So once again, I'll keep going, I'll make a proper post when I get home!

Couple more days before a proper update,

Liisa

Another home

I'm here in my second home.  Or I'm not quite sure about the number, there are so many that I get confused.  One of the homes anyway. :D

One full day in Spain and I remember again why I like it here.  I'm going to make a post with photos soon, it's just a bit harder here because I have no internet.  But at least you know it's coming...

So far the weather has been really nice, hot and sunny.  Actually so far it has been warmer than the Australian summer most of the times haha :DD

On Monday we're going to Madrid with my mum.  A trip in a trip, can't wait.  I'll tell more about that later on too.  (:

From here..

Enjoying the holidays,

Liisa

Off again

Just quickly letting you know I'm off to Spain today.  I'll try to update from there as well, but might be that I won't be able to as often as I normally would.  But I apologize, I'm in hurry so I really need to keep going!  You'll hear about me sooner or later!  :D

Hurryyyyy,

Liisa

Waffles

We often used to have waffles when I was a kid, so I thought I would find a nice recipe and put it here.  Quick and easy and hard to mess up.  :D

3 eggs
0,5 l milk
400 g of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla sugar
3 tbsp sugar
50-100 g cream / butter
(Some oats)
(Some lemon juice)

Whip the eggs slightly and add milk.

Add all dry ingredients:  flour and baking powder...

...and sugar and vanilla sugar.

Also mix in cream or melted butter.  I chose cream, only reason being that we didn't have enough butter.  :P

This is just my own additional step, I some times mix in oats.  I just like it better like that, you can decide to try it too, or just skip the whole thing and move to the next step. 

At this point you can leave the mixture to rest for a bit.  I left it for about 15 minutes still time, sometimes in hurry I don't, but pretty much every recipe tells to do it.  

Now is also a good time to check the texture and flavors.  If after resting the mixture is super thick, just add some milk to make it slightly runny again, if not thick enough add flour.  I added some lemon juice and bit of sugar and salt because I thought it tasted like nothing.  It all depends what you like and what you're going to serve them with.  But don't stress it won't taste like much even if it was correctly done, but at least you'll see if you added salt instead of sugar... :D

Heat up the waffle iron.

Add a little touch of butter so your waffles will come off easily when they're ready.

Add a layer of your waffle mixture

Wait till golden brown.

Lift off, add a tiny bit of butter and add some mixture again.  Repeat till none is left.

Serve waffles with pretty much whatever you feel like.  My pick was blueberries, some milk chocolate and sweet whipped cream.  Also jam, ice cream, banana and other berries work well.  Let your imagination fly!  (:

Yum,

Liisa

Decisions

Hello there!  I've been thinking about my blog lately; I want to keep writing, but most likely there's not enough to talk about 365 days a year, maybe not even half of that.  And as unfortunate as it is, some of the contents of my blog will change.  I'm not an exchange student anymore.  This blog will still be about my life, but as I can't deny that being an exchange student is not an ongoing part of my life anymore, I have to focus writing more about the other topics.  I will still be talking about my year overseas; even though it's over, it left a life-long impact on me.  My picture of world, future, people, or even myself are not the same they were before.  So yes, exchange is a part of my past now, but I'm left with something to carry with me forever.  

And also the people reading this are not the same anymore.  It's not only my mum reading what has been happening to me, now I have many people overseas reading too.  Some of them, who know what Australia is like, who would like to know more about where I come from and what are the things that made me like I'm now.  Feels hard to comprehend that some of my closest friends have never seen where I live, don't know Finland, have never met my family, and a year ago didn't even know that I exist.  :D

So in the future my intention is to write about my life after exchange; about many different kind of things, the impact of an exchange being the thing linking them all up.  Maybe stories about travelling, sharing Finnish and Australian recipes, or sometimes just catching up in my life.  So new contents, though never forgetting the year of my life, my biggest and greatest adventure. 

Honestly wish this caters as many as possible,

Liisa

Anniversary

Exactly one year ago was the biggest day of my life.  It was the day I was to leave behind my home, family and everything I comprehended as my life.  Becoming an exchange student was the biggest and most definitely the greatest decision I've ever made.  It is a big thing to do as a young person, but definitely worth it all.  I can promise, there will be bad days, but I can also tell that the wonderful times will be what you remember at the end.  I think spending a year, and more importantly getting a life on the other side of the world is one of those things you just simply cannot put into words.  It's too amazing.

See what it was like 365 days ago from here.

So happy I got to do it,

Liisa

Sky

Wow.  The sunset tonight was a bit extraordinary.  I've seen Australia been beautiful for so many times that I was close to starting to forget how beautiful Finland is.  Seems like there's no problem remembering if this is what it looks like!  :D

Still stunned,

Liisa