Not as many of the American students came to Rauma day as I thought, but that's okay! I caught up with Fabian during the boat ride to one of the islands around Rauma. We talked all about our host families, what we've been doing during our three weeks in Finland. We met Meredith, another YFU student living in Finland for the summer. Together with our families, we walked through the island and climbed its lighthouse to see how beautiful Rauma can be!
It's always a struggle to get Lassi to smile for a picture.
We rode back into the old city, where we saw Claire again. It was so nice to catch up with her and with her and Fabian,it started to feel like the good old days. We spent the day walking through the colorful old city on cobblestone roads while listening to Rikka's tour speeches.
Claire wanted to show us her "golden sausage" dog!
At the end of the day, we headed to Fabian's house to eat lettus. However, we got a bit too occupied with the board game Kimble, the Finnish version of Sorry! The probability gods did not favor me that day and I had no chance of winning. We spent a solid hour yelling and laughing at the game before we sat down to eat mämmi. It's made out of rye bread, but it looks like something else, so trying it out for the first time was a little tough...
It looks like paska.
We were the first to leave since we had a long four hour drive ahead of us. It was cabin round two! We headed back to my mom's parents's cabin for the weekend. I finally went swimming in the lake since it wasn't freezing like during mid-summer! The main reason we stopped by our grandparents's was to help paint and clean up their cabin. So Mikko and I spent most of the weekend painting the walls of the sauna and kitchen house while talking the day away. I also took another shot at fishing but still couldn't bring the courage to stab the worm around the hook. However, with some time, I caught my first fish! It was small and cute, but not big enough to eat. Later, I caught another fish but when I was reeling it in, it fell off of the hook and back into the lake! I also caught a huge stick that got stuck on my line... However, I finally succeeded in catching another fish! It was just as small and cute, but it made me love fishing so much! I'd love to do it again in the US with my dad!
The real cabin time started this week when we drove to Ruovesi and moved into our rental cabin in a camping ground on a beautiful island on the north part of Näsijärvi. We've spent our week here with playing tennis in the mornings, rowing our small boat across the lake, and grilling in the evenings. This place got ten times better ever since we found out that alpacas and sheep are living here. Then this placed maxed out the greatness scale when we saw the alpacas swimming in the lake!
I found out that I'm horrible at rowing and great at getting blisters from it. One day, we rowed to the harbor and I smelled the delicious scent of sausages a kilometer away! I loved the smell of them, so of course I had to get one. But the girl taking our order gave me a funny smile when my dad said that the sausage was for me. He explained that these kind of höyrymakkara (steamed sausages) are only eaten by big fat truck drivers... Well I guess after dreaming about PB&J sandwiches instead of my future husband, this isn't really a surprise...
On Wednesday, we went for a hiking trip in the national park Helvetinkolu, which translates to "pass to Hell". It was actually a beautiful and lush forest, but the mosquitoes made it feel like Hell. I was bitten too many times and I was slapping my legs every five seconds to keep the bugs off. The reason why the park has such an ominous name is because there's a deep rock valley where if you look from it above, it looks like one long fall to Hell. We climbed the rocks up the valley and Lassi beat us all to the top!
Thursday was a bit cold for swimming and rowing, so Anne had a great idea of going to a big zoo in Ähtäri! Coming from the Detroit Zoo, I was expecting a stuffy and cramped concrete jungle, but Ähtäri was the exact opposite. The animals lived in a beautiful green forest far away from the city and the zoo itself was very spread out, so it felt like a repeat of our hiking trip (but without the mosquitoes). We walked on the trails into the forest, passing by snow leopards, owls, foxes, reindeer, and brown bears! The animals all looked satisfied with their living conditions so it was easy to see that the zoo was doing a great job maintaining their animals!
Today we rowed to one of the many islands in Näsijärvi - but it wasn't just any old island. Lierransaari island is where the last witch in Finland, Antti Lieroinen, was burned alive in the 17th century. My dad kept teasing me about curses and horrible deaths while we rowed to the island, so I was expecting some ominous dark place. However, the island was exactly the opposite and there was no creepy atmosphere. We chose a spot next to the water and my parents relaxed in the sun while Lassi and I hunted for cool looking rocks for me to take as a souvenir. It was a beautiful day to explore the island and we stayed there for a good two hours.
We rowed back to our cabin and met our neighbors once again! They're staying over for the weekend so we started the evening with a delicious meal with salmon, sausages, and chicken wings. After a good talk, we gave them a little tour of the camping ground. We took them through the amazing playground, the mini golf course, the trampoline, and of course, the animals staying here! Lassi showed their kids the alpacas, and we all went to see the sheep, goats, and dogs play around the camp. We ended the day with the true American camping experience - making s'mores! My dad, the health nut, hated the abundance of sugar in it. What a party pooper. I thought they were delicious!
A lot has happened this week but next week will be busy busy busy!
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