Summer Adventures

And just like that it's been three months since I've posted. June meant spending my PTO before it disappeared, and that turned into a lot of short weeks, long weekends with some travel and adventure. July and August have meant finishing up work at Hamline University, spending time with family and friends, and getting ready to leave. This summer has been a bit of a blur, so I'm going to use the photos I have to share my summer.

June

Michigan's Upper Peninsula June 14th-18th

Thursday: Porkies and the Yurt

This was the yurt we stayed in in the Porcupine Mountains. Camping in style!

Friday: Mining Tour, Hancock, and Marquette

We did a mining tour in at Adventure Mining Company on a very rainy day. I learned a lot about copper mines and the history of this area.

Had to get a picture of Suomi Cafe, though unfortunately it was just American diner food.

And had to get a picture with the Marimekko bench. People were not overstating the amount of Finnish pride in this area.

Saturday: Painted Rocks

I'll let these pictures speak for themselves, but I highly recommend Painted Rocks National Lakeshore. Even for a gloomy day, this was the part of our trip with the most memorable views. Our hike was about 9 miles, which was a little long, but totally worth it.

Sunday: Mackinaw Island
Somehow I failed to take any pictures of this eerily perfect little island. Personally, it was far too touristy for my tastes, but the mishap we had with the ferry on the way home may have tainted my experience.

Birthday Weekend and Pride

On June 22nd I turned 25 years old. Crazy to be a quarter of a century old already! It was a pretty low key birthday that Friday, I went out to lunch at a sushi restaurant. The remainder of the weekend was spent at Twin Cities Pride, where I got to see Monet X Change!

Meet and greet with Monet X Change!

Walking in the TC Pride Parade with my Alma Mater and Employer, Hamline University.

New Orleans June 28-July 2nd

My college friend was back in the U.S. and we got a chance to visit her and her boyfriend at her grandparent's home in New Orleans.

Riding the cable car!

July

Got to see a long time high school friend and the parents of another friend, visiting from Panama!

Got a group together to do a Harry Potter Escape Room for Rachel's birthday. A lot of fun!

Came home two different weekends, the second on we took some family photos. Guess our color theme.

August

What's a Midwest summer without some sweet corn at a county fair? I'm not sure what the face was about, but I can assure you it wasn't a reaction to the corn.

Not my last day of work, but my one picture with the (almost) whole Wesley Center crew. I'll miss you all!

August has meant saying goodbye to a lot of friends and family. I finished my job at Hamline University on August 17th. I Spent the weekend after with my sister, and now I'm at home just finishing up packing and getting prepared for the big move.

See you in a week Finland!

Six Years Later I'm Heading Back to Finland

Wow, it's been six years since my last post. My exchange student adventure ended shortly after that post (eight weeks if you were paying attention) and I haven't been a high school exchange student in Finland since. Let's get you up to speed on my life:

2012- Return from Finland. Begin school at Hamline University.

2013- Started taking Finnish classes at the University of Minnesota. Worked the summer at Salolampi, a Finnish Language Camp in Bemidji, Minnesota.

2014- Interned for the summer at the Halonen Museum Foundation in Lapinlahti, Finland.

2015 Spent spring semester at the American University in Bulgaria for my university study abroad. Returned to do summer research in Economics on Pyramid Schemes.

2016- Graduated and earned my B.A. in Economics and Philosophy. Worked odd jobs in preparation for my year in Malaysia.

2017-Taught English at SMK Seri Berang in Kuala Berang, Malaysia.

2018- Work at Hamline University as the Coordinator of Civic Engagement and the Hamline to Hamline Collaboration

So why am I reviving it now? Why not just leave it in the depths of the internet where it surely belongs?

I'm going back to Finland!

Starting in September I will begin a two years Masters in Economics at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity to further my studies and return to a country that means so much to me. I'll be living in Helsinki for two years, and maybe longer if I have my way.

Instead of starting a new blog to capture my adventures, this seems like a perfect time to revive my old one and reconnect with my original love of Finland. I'm reviving this blog as a way to face my fears. I really want to improve as a writer, but I hate the feeling of others reading my thoughts without any way to control the way they're interpreted. At the same time, I love reading the blogs that so many of my friends write. If they're brave enough to do it, I am going to give blogging another try as well. If you go back and read my past posts, keep in mind that I was 18 at the time. I've changed a lot in the last six years.

Last order of business: the name of my blog. This blog will no longer be solely about Finland, and thus I feel like "From Minnesota to Finland" is a little limiting and unidirectional. Please comment below with your suggestions of a new blog name.

Nähdään!

8 weeks and I wish I was counting up

 Yesterday May 1st was Vappu, the Finnish work holiday, but also marked the eight week countdown until my return home. I'm going to release some cliches here, but it feels like yesterday when I came to Finland, and yet it feels as though I have lived here forever. I'm not sure when it happened, but at one point I just started to feel like this was normal, this is home, instead of the beginning when it was all just a vacation for me.

Vanhojen Tanssi

So, if anyone reads this blog anymore, even though I pathologically lie about my intentions to update it, and you want to see some Finnish Culture in action, read on! Tomorrow at 7:00p.m. Finnish time ( or 11:00 a.m. Minnesota time) I will be dancing in the Finnish old time dance. You can watch it online if you would like to at this link mms://video1.edu.kuopio.fi:8080/iisalmi_live/iisalmi_live
If that is something you would be interested in doing, and you have no life enabling you to sit around and watch finns dance to strange music, you are welcome to it. I am also singing with a group of girls in the beginning, luckily my singing is better than my dancing. Hopefully that is true, otherwise invest in earplugs.

Presidents

Today is the first election for the next Finnish President. Now for all of my American readers, you are thinking "First?". Yes, first. The way that Finland narrows down their presidential candidates is far less confusing than the ever baffling caucus system. Here is how it works. The eight political parties, yes eight, choose their candidates. Then today the Finnish people vote for their favorite. Now if one of the candidates gets more than half of the votes today, he/she is the next president of Finland. However, because this hardly ever happens, the candidates with the top two percentages of votes run against each other in a second election which is two weeks from now.

The Finnish Presidential Candidates

Now as you notice with every country, most of them are old men. Now this is true, but what makes it cool is that there is actually women, and one of the old men is gay. I think the level of acceptance in Finland is what puts it ahead of so many other countries. Now the favorite seems to be Sauli Niinistö, but Pekka Haavisto is also suprisingly popular, considering his sexual orientation would turn a whole party of Americans against him. I am waiting now with my host parents to find out who wins, as they shut down the polling stations in 10 minutes. I will post more about the second rounds later, but I am super excited to watch this.

Stockholm and Helsinki

So over fall break, only about three months ago, I went to Stockholm and Helsinki with my first Host family. It is a very common thing for Finns to take a cruise ship to Sweden or Estonia for a day and then come back. It was my first experience on a cruise ship, and also a good way to know I really don't ever care to travel that way again. I didn't get sea sick, but my host father and sister did. Stockholm was a really pretty city, and the old part was what I think of when I think Europe. It was a really long time ago now so I don't really have any sly comments about anything. Instead I am just going to post some of the pictures I took of the trip.

Apology for 3 months

I'm sorry to all the people who want to know what is going on with my life. I'd like to say that I've just been so busy in the last three months that I haven't had time to blog, but that would be an obvious lie. I guess part of me just wanted to ignore the outside world in hopes that if I didn't tell others about my experience in Finland it would last forever. Now I am near the halfway point and am trying to accept that this won't last forever. In the next couple of days/ weeks I'm going to try to post some information about different experiences I have been having and things that I have been doing. I'll end this short post with a bit of what I have been doing. I made this movie in my art class with my best German friend Lena. In case you haven't seen the original this is based off of go to http://www.youtube.com/ and search for the one semester of spanish love song. I'm sorry this is in Finnish, but I can give you a translation if you would like.