Am I really almost half done here??

I was Skyping with my Mom this past weekend, and she mentioned something about how I was almost at the halfway point here.  I played it cool like I do, but seriously?? I can't believe that in 2 months I'll be going home.  The past couple weeks have definitely been a little tough at times but the terrible "W curve" or "Culture shock" that everyone warned me about hasn't really panned out (yet!).  I've been sick for the past week and a half, which has just gotten to be obnoxious.  I never get sick at home, and when I do I turn into a total baby about it because I'm not used to it.  So being here and being sick has been tons of fun.  


Classes are still going well; my Finnish history class ends this Friday, and my cross-cultural psychology class started the other day.  I'm learning a great Finnish lullaby to perform for my music class, and in the last 2 days I've (finally) learned how to go grocery shopping and can sort of understand what food I'm buying!  A Finnish friend and I had a discussion about our favorite foods, and after he had no idea what hummus or guacamole was, I said I loved asparagus.  He also had no idea what that was, but told me about a great dish he makes that has a green vegetable that looks kind of like the stalk of broccoli but it's longer. Sooo I google translated "parsa" and evidently we were on the same page and they do have asparagus in Finland! So that's on my list next time I go shopping.


Oh, and I'm still taking Chinese, but I ask myself every day why.  It's kind of a disaster (which is too bad, because it's a really interesting language, the teacher just can't get it together), but we got to use sweet brushes to learn how to write the characters for numbers so it's not a total waste of time.


It's getting colder here, and I've heard that the first snow is coming in the next couple weeks.  It's also getting darker earlier, so here is the Finland that I was expecting!  But people still find things to do- for example, last week the entire student body (ok, only 5000 of us) had a giant bar crawl along the main street in town, and the point of the whole thing was to earn a "degree" by  drinking enough drinks (don't worry, Mom, there were non-alcoholic choices too).  Of course, being the good student I am, I graduated with honors.

Also I'm sure everyone knows about this by now, but in less than a week I'm going to Russia!  Pretty much so that I can pretend to be Anastasia.  I'm going with the Exchange Student Network at the university, and we're going to St. Petersburg and Moscow for a week.  Russia has never been at the top of my list of places I want to go, but I'm really excited for it, and it looks like it's going to be awesome.  There's lots of tours and performances we can go to and it's pretty much nonstop for the whole week.  Well, when I say I'm going to Russia, that is if they let me in.  They're Russia, after all, so I had to apply for a visa just to visit for a week.  And since I'm American the visa application was terrifying and at least twice as long (and expensive!) as it is for people from Europe. Great.  But hopefully there won't be any problems with that, and I'll be gone from the 17-23 of October.  After I'm back I'll do my best to update a little more regularly so that you don't have to read a book every time I update.


I'll leave you with a couple more pictures of town and the lake(someday I'll take some real pictures and do a big picture post- promise!)

See why I'm never leaving??