One month!

As you can see from the right (counter) there's only one month until my departure to Russia! My flight will leave 23rd of August 9.25 am. It's a straight flight and I think it will go to Moscow or somewhere near it because I will have my departure/first orientation camp in Russia. It will last three days. I'm so looking forward meeting all the other exchange students coming to Russia all around the world and of course seeing Russia and my host family in Krasnodar. I will come back 28.6.2014. These weeks will go by fast and I'm already so excited!!

Love
Nella

Summer before my departure

This hasn't felt much like a summer holiday because I have been working all summer.. But I will get a lot of money what I need making this dream come true and that I would have some money to use in Russia too :) Anyway I have done something besides working too:

-I spend a lovely Mid summer with my relatives in my grandparents' summer cottage in the coast in a fantastic weather. It was really relaxing. What else can a girl hope for :) I have A LOT of pictures so there's no need to write what you can see in the pics.

-I ran half a marathon! (I still can't believe I made it)

(This was from the beginning. In the end I didn't look that peaceful :D )

-I have met my friends quite much <3 and I visited an amusement park called Linnanmäki in Helsinki with two of my best friends.

I love you my friend <3

+ I have been reading material got from AFS and filled my visa application and some other forms. As I read long documents telling about Russia and AFS's practises and rules in Russia I got really excited! I also read other exchange student's (who are leaving earlier than me) blogs and I felt like my departure is too very close! I felt so excited yesterday evening that I almost couldn't sleep last night at all :D 

  I can't wait to get to Russia but at the same time I feel stressed about the fact that there are only few more weeks until my departure! I have been thinking all along that 'there's still plenty of time until I go' but now I truly realized that these weeks will fly away before I even notice. I have been sending e-mails with my host mom in Russian which has been very interesting :)

  So this is what has happened in my life in this summer so far.

Love

Nella

I am supersuperhappy!

I found out my host family!!! Nothing can describe my feelings right now! I was so happy that I started crying in the middle of my work day :D My mom had seen the e-mail sent by AFS and she send me a text message and I called her right away. She told me what was said in the e-mail. I still can't really realize that I actually found out the family I will be living with 10 months!! 
  I will have a mom, a dad, two brothers and a grandmother! It feels so weird to say this! I will live near Krasnodar (20 minutes away, I'm not sure about the exact place) which is situated in the south of Russia. 
  ..and I'm also happy because now I have four days off work! Weekend + one day because of Mid summer (juhannus) + one day because of request :)))

Love
Nella

Summer and working

Now it has been two weeks summer holiday. I have been working in a nearby garden these two weeks five days a week and (at least at the moment) it looks like I will be working there whole summer. It is hard work and I wake up 5 o'clock every working day but it is also very nice. The working place, my bosses and my work mates are all nice :) Sometimes I wish I wouldn't have to go to work I could just stay at home sleeping and relaxing because it is summer but after all I'm very happy I got this job. Otherwise I wouldn't have the money for my exchange year! I could imagine doing a lot more crappier job to get money because after all most of the time working I kind of enjoy what I'm doing... I may say something different about my feelings at the end of the summer :D
  But because I wake up so early I have evenings off and I can do what I want to (if I have the energy for it :D ), and I also have the weekends off, so I have been doing a lot of nice things too in this summer like hanging out with my friends. Next weekend is mid summer (juhannus) so I have three days off (from Friday to Sunday). I will go to the coast where my grand parents have a cottage with my family and relatives. I hope the weather will be nice and I get some good photos I can post in here! I'm looking forward to that :))
  At the same time I am arranging things for my exchange - there's a lot of bureaucracy, things what need to be done so I can leave. You can see how the days are disappearing in the counter! Time goes fast and I will be in Russia very shortly. Before that I will be enjoying this summer in Finland, working but also relaxing with my family and friends, waiting for any news about my placement or family in Russia. I am almost in desperation already. I have waited for so long that I can't wait anymore but there's nothing else I can do and it drives me crazy! I hope I get some news very soon :)
  Sadly I have no pictures about this summer but maybe I can post some old pics about summer in the cottage in Finland ;)

Love
Nella

One exam week left: then summer!

Next week is our exam week.. Fortunately I only have three exams left! :) (I have had even five or six exams too) So this weekend I just have to study.. I'm so looking forward to summer holiday. It begins the 1st of June.
  I'm now studying in lukio (upper secondary school). And this year has been very exhausting! I have studied so much during this first year that I think I can't handle any new information anymore because my head is full of knowledge! Btw, here's a chart of the Finnish school system for those who are interested:

Education in Finland

Academic degrees	Vocational degrees				Typical ages
doctor	employment
licentiate
master	Polytechnic (new)				+2-3
bachelor	Polytechnic				+3-4
upper secondary school (voluntary)		vocational school(voluntary)			18-19
					17-18
					16-17
comprehensive school (compulsory)					15-16
					14-15
					13-14
					12-13
					11-12
					10-11
					9-10
					8-9
					7-8
pre-school					6-7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

In lukio we have six periods and at the end of each period we'll have the exams of the subjects we have been studying in that period (the exam week).

  After this next week I won't be in Finnish school for a year! It sounds so weird. It's not the best thing in my exchange that I will leave one year behind my friends.. but I try to think that it doesn't matter because I will have a great year and everything will be worth it :p

                                                             Just wish me luck! :)

Love

Nella

Orientation camp

I know that my blog has been very quiet lately.. I have just so much going on in my life - as usual :D I like when I have a lot of things to do :)

But this is the thing I came here to tell you:
I had the second orientation here in Finland (in Porvoo) last weekend (18.-19.5.2013)! The first one lasted only two hours and it was meant to my parents also. This one was just for the Finnish exchange students 2013-2014 via AFS. There were people who are going to Mexico, China, Thailand, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia.. and of course the other Finnish girl who is coming to Russia! It was really nice to talk with her :)
  There were also AFS volunteers in the camp who are former exchange students. They had been in the countries we are going to. So there was a girl who had been in Russia a year ago! She told us a lot about her exchange and it was really interesting. In the camp we thought and talked a lot: about Finnish culture and other cultures, next year's possible ups and downs (I'm sure it won't be that interesting and exciting all the time), our personal values and goals, for example. We also wrote a letter to ourselves to the future, those letters will be sent to us during our exchange.
  So I met a lot of new people during that weekend :) They were all very nice and we had a lot to talk about because we all had at least one thing in common: exchange. Many of them were very talkative so you had the change to talk as much there as you wanted :D

 I travelled by train from Turku to Helsinki. There was a bus from Helsinki to Porvoo.

  We (at least some of us) went to swimming - even thought the water is still very cold!

             The food in the campsite was really good! We also got some ice cream :p

                                             

  New people!<3

                   One is coming to Russia the other was in Russia (and then there's me!) :)

 

No, we didn't play football :D I think here we were playing some 'mental image' games.

     These photos get me on the summer mood!

Love
Nella

P.S I also added a counter to this site (on the right)! There you can see how many days are left until I go to Russia :))

Vappu - the first of May

Today we had no school because of Vappu. I think it's originally celebration of work. To me it just reminds me of the upcoming summer and gets me on a good, summer mood! Vappu is made from balloons, serpentiinistä (paper streamer), munkeista, simasta and other good food. Only one month school left until our summer holiday and after the summer I will leave! So not much time for that :))
  I baked  'munkkeja' (I don't know a translation for this, you can see them in a pic below) and drank 'sima' with my friend :) Hyvää Vappua kaikille - Happy  first of May  to everyone!

Finally some pictures to this blog ;)

Love
Nella