Big Ole Time

It has been a while since I have written. But I figured you wouldn't want to read about me attempting to study and getting distracted by Facebook and Surf the Channel (a site where you can watch almost anything you want for free! Don't go... it can be more addicting than Facebook sometimes).

Easter weekend was very interesting and different for me this year. We got a whole week of classes off, which was really great. I tried to spend most of it getting work done before my mom came to visit. Saturday I made a traditional Polish Easter basket with two of my Polish friends. We boiled eggs with onion peels to make then a brown/orange color (and then colored on them to combine my usual tradition of dying Easter eggs). Then, we covered the eggs in butter to make them shiny and put them in a "basket". Our basket was just a gladware bowl, but it worked. We also put frozen sausage, bread, salt, a sheep figure to represent Jesus, and some chocolate in our lovely basket. Then, we walked to the Polish Catholic church where we got our baskets blessed! Yep, that's right. I got a blessed Easter basket this year... very different from the Easter bunny. The church was packed, so sadly I did not actually see the blessing of the baskets, nor did I understand anything! The priest said everything in Finnish and Polish. Either way, we walked out of there with a blessed basket! I just thought that was so cool.

That evening we went to a big bon-fire that the Finns have every Easter. It was the biggest fire I have ever seen!! But all the little kids were dressed up as colorful witches. I won't go into too much detail about the tradition, but it has something to do with witches did a lot of bad things during Easter weekend, so the bonfire was made to scare them away. Now the kids dress up as cute little bright witches. The bonfire was on an island nearby.

Easter Sunday was very different from what I am used to. I mean this was the first time in my life that I did not spend it at home, going to church in a new Easter dress (which by the way the Europeans think it is silly that everyone gets a new outfit for Easter), and getting a visit from the Easter bunny (he just came late this year). I started the day off with eating our blessed basket of food and some really good Polish soup. Then, Abbie and I spent the rest of the day at the indoor waterpark! Yep, I spent Easter Sunday at the waterpark. It was a lot of fun though. I will say that the wave pool didn't seem as cool as it used too.

This Wednesday Mom came to visit! She stayed for 5 days. We had so much fun. It was really neat because we did a lot of things I had never done and had been meaning to do for a while. Her first whole day we just took a tour of the city. We were really lucky to have four out of five sunny days! The sun didn't mean warm weather, but it just makes everything a bit brighter. I showed her the harbor and the beach. Although I had been to both places before, I had never seen them unfrozen! All the snow and ice has melted, finally. It is still really windy though, which is what gets you.

We also went to the Opera. It was a Finnish opera about Finnish life. I thought it needed a better happier ending, but it was still fun. One day we also went to the zoo, which is on an island! We had an interesting time getting there. We rode the metro and walked a little ways to actually get to the zoo. However, to leave there was supposed to be a ferry that went back to the harbor. We waited for about 15 minutes next to the creepy Vulture cage, and then finally realized it wasn't coming. Then, we waited for the bus for about 15 minutes... and then realized we had the wrong time. So right when we decided to hike back to the metro station, the bus came pulling in. Let's just say it was an adventure. The actual zoo was really neat. We saw everything from pink flamingos to a llama that stared us down to reindeer!

Another day we went to the open-air museum that is an island that the Easter bon-fire was on. It was really cool. Its made up of different kinds of Finnish houses over time. It sounds weird, but it was neat. We just walked around the really windy island and looked at interesting wooden houses and barns. It reminded us a lot of Cade's Cove (minus the 11 mile loop).

Mom actually experienced the Finnish sauna twice! Although, one was a traditional public sauna in the city that was very interesting. It was really old and "authentic", but ended up just looking really creepy. It warmed us up from all the cold wind, so I guess it was worth the creepiness.

We ate out twice too! Which means I have eaten out twice in Helsinki in the whole 4 months I have been here. Helsinki is really expensive, so I just eat in and at the university cafeteria. The first time we ate at Memphis and the second time at a Finnish restaurant. I think the fact that a restaurant was named Memphis entertained us way too much. At the Finnish "ravintola" we had reindeer and salmon, which are both pretty Finnish.

It was great to see Mom and we had a "big ole time" as she would say. Now, I am back to normal life of attempting to study and get everything done. I leave for Stockholm, Sweden on Thursday. We leave on the ferry and spend two nights on the boat and one in Stockholm. Basically, I am going on my first cruise since the ferry is really just a big cruise. I'm really excited. Plus, rumors have it that it is a lot warmer in Stockholm than in Helsinki. Country number four, here I come!