#Entry 4

Three weeks in the United States. Wow. It is only when I start writing a blog post in here that I realize how much time has passed. I am officially registered at Mac High for the 2016-2017 school year. Mom, Alex and I went to school to figure out the missing paper work and after a lot of thought signed me up for cross-country this fall. I don't know what classes I'll have and I won't find out till the day before school starts. Hopefully I will get to take some of the AP Bio classes I've been looking forward to. School will start on the 7th of September for seniors, the unlucky freshmen like Alex will have to start a day earlier so on the 6th. 

Two weeks ago I headed out to Portland for the first time and got to hang out with Topias. We did some back to school shopping and enjoyed some delicious pizza at Sizzle Pie. I also attended a pool party with my host family. It was a lot of fun and perfect timing considering it got to around a hundred degrees that weekend.

Before y'all get started, I know. Axia and sports??? It has been just as weird for me as it is for you, but I had to make a conscious choice to gain the infamous exchange pounds or make a desperate attempt to start doing some sort of physical activity after just playing call of duty with Alex for the first couple of weeks. For those of you that don't know what cross-country is, it is a running sport which differs from for example track and field mainly on the terrain the races and practices take place on which is natural, either dirt or grass, instead of a manmade track. The races are often 5 km runs for high school students. 

I started practice last Tuesday. In order to sign up for a school sport, I had to visit yet another doctor to fill out my physical examination form and make sure I was in good health. The second part was getting online and taking an impact test. I hope none of you ever have to take one. You basically have to spend a good half an hour answering stupid questions about yourself and then take a memory and reaction time test. After the okay from the doc we went back to school and found out my impact test had come out as invalid. Well everything else was fine so I was told that if I retook the test that evening, I could go to practice the next morning. Well I retook the test and started getting ready for bed as I had an early morning coming up. The stress and panic didn't really hit until I got into bed and had to set my alarm clock for 5.45 AM. The 'what have I gotten myself into' kind of thing. (For the whole first week practice took place at 7 AM and 7 PM)

I got to school on time and went to talk to the main coach (Downs) and found out that according to his app I still had some paperwork to be cleared out and had to go visit the athletic office after practice. The other girls encouraged me to come and watch practice anyway so I got to ride in the mini van to the park practice was held at. The girls on the team were really welcoming and immediately made me feel part of the team. After practice I went to the office to check what the problem with the paper work was and apparently it was nonexistent, so I was just told to attend the second practice in the evening. I was invited to go have breakfast over at some of the girls' houses and had heart shaped pancakes. They also extended an invite to go boating that afternoon, but I had my weekly Rotary meeting to attend to, so I had to decline. They promised that next time they'll go on a different day so I can make it too. 

During the evening practice I was finally faced with the harsh reality. Not doing any sports all summer has taken a toll on me. I am not in the shape I would like to be, not even close. I am easily the slowest on the team and have had to struggle to keep up even with the slowest girls on the team. The rest of the week consisted of me getting up really early and attending practice twice a day. By the end of the week the impact of all the physical endeavor was very visible. Not only was running twice a day a huge adjustment for me, but mom had dragged me to cross-fit practice on Monday and the DOMS was very real for the rest of the week. The pain I was in on Tuesday, I could have sworn could not get any worse. Oh boy was I wrong. Each day the pain just got stronger and the usual "just exercise more to reverse the effect" approach was only making matters worse. On Friday the situation progressed to a place where I could no longer walk down the stairs. Squatting was impossible. I would get home from morning practice and head to bed with the idea of just taking a short nap and waking up four hours later, only to have dinner and go sleep for another 12 hours.

During the weekend I finally got the indispensable rest my body had been longing for the whole week. Instead of going to practice on Saturday, I got to go to a district Rotary event with my counselor. I got to meet about one fourth of all the exchange students in our district and got to add a ton of pins to my blazer. Yesterday there was no practice so we went hiking with the family and got to enjoy what I consider to be perfect hiking weather. The trail was really pretty and had a cool suspension bridge and a beautiful waterfall.

This week practice will finally be held at a more decent time, 4 PM and once a day. On one hand the extra practice would not have hurt considering we have our first meet next Wednesday. I got the team uniform a couple of days ago and got myself a pair of xc spikes so I should be all set as far as apparel and equipment go. I'm still working on the mental and physical parts!

The plan for before back to school includes visiting the local water park with Alex, a Rotary picnic on Wednesday, which means I'll finally get to see Mari and going to Bend for the Labor Day weekend.  I'm really excited about all the activities we'll get to do in Bend which will hopefully include more hiking and kayaking, in addition to a visit to Crater Lake and a jump off a cliff into the 'chilly' water. 

I'm excited yet terrified of heading back to school. I haven't had to make a bunch of new friends at school since I've been in the same class with some of my friends back at home for over 10 years. They've gotten me through good and bad times and not having them physically by my side will be very weird. At the same time I'm excited to get to meet a bunch of new people and meet the 11 other exchange students that will be attending my high school this year. 

Wish me luck for that race on Wednesday; I will sure need it if I even intend to get to the finish line. 

#Entry 3

I honestly don't know how this happened. One day I was writing a blogpost and telling you guys I had a 100 days left and now here I am writing again but a good 100 days later and from the comfort of my new bed in Mac, OR.

A lot has happened since I last updated this blog. I'm just going to fast forward to the last days before my departure though. I had a final birthday/going-away party on Sunday the 7th of August with some friends and family, and headed out into the world on the 8th. Before flying to Oregon and moving in with my first host family I spent a couple of days in New York with around 20 of the other Finnish rotary exchange students headed to the states with me. 

We had a lot of fun and enjoyed every moment there. Our hotel in NY was located in Hell's Kitchen, not very far from central park, and had a beautiful pool on the rooftop. During our stay we had a couple of training sessions with our country officers and talked about culture shock; staying in host families; american culture; and the huge ethnic and religious diversity in the US. But the trip wasn't all lectures on the rules and quotes about adaptation, we also managed to include a bunch of sightseeing and exploring the city into our timetables. We visited Greenwich village, the Brooklyn bridge, Broadway, Central park and even made it up to the One World Observatory and got to admire the spectacular view of the whole city from above. On Tuesday night we went to see Cats at Broadway with Leona Lewis as one of the lead roles. Another one of the highlights of the trip was definitely visiting the NBC studios at the Rockefeller center. As a huge fan of Jimmy Fallon and the Tonight Show it was a great experience, though I have to admit I was quite bummed I didn't get to meet him during our tour. The cherry on top of the cake though was riding around Manhattan in our limousines before dinner and finishing up our sightseeing tour before taking the elevator up to a spectacular restaurant on Times Square called 'The View'. It was located on the 48th floor of a hotel and had an amazing scenery. The restaurant spun slowly around itself as we dined. A great way to conclude the trip.

Shoutout to all my buddies in New York and Topias who I dragged to Oregon with me. This trip would not have been even half the fun it was, had it not been with you guys. See you on the plane back! ♥




Topias and I got to Portland a little bit later than expected due to a delay with our last flight but were still welcome home by a huge welcome committee of both our host families, rotary club members and our country officer Dan. After we took care of the urgent paperwork we both went home with our host families. 


My first host family


Dan, Topias and I 

As far as as my new host family goes, I could not be happier. I feel very welcomed and even though I've only been here for a couple of days, the Gardner's have managed to make me feel at home. I'm really happy that my host family has a dog. Molly is the sweetest, fluffiest dog out there and almost as cute as my Leo. My host sister Emma left for Brazil today so we had to get up really early, around 4 AM, to take her to the airport. 

Next week I will try to take care of some of the school stuff that needs to be sorted out like signing up for classes, school sports and clubs, as well as, try to get myself a working sim card. I will also go to my host club's Rotary meeting on Wednesday to meet the rest of the club.

#Entry 2

Where does time fly? 100 days till I leave for my exchange! Leaving still feels very surreal. It feels like my departure is no way even close to soon and yet at the same time the more I think about it, the more I realise I am about to leave. There’s only 15 more days of school left until the last exam week of my first year of Lukio. My god. Once school’s out I’ll spend June here in Finland for the first time in very many years and then fly off to Italy for the whole of July, to get tanned and say goodbye to friends and family on that side of the world too.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the national outbound training in Lahti. It was great seeing some of the friends I’ve already made through our numerous groups on facebook and whatsapp. It feels awesome knowing there’s a bunch of people out there, who will be going through the same exact thing next year, who are only a skype call away. The huge community rotary builds for its exchange students worldwide, is one of the things I appreciate most about it. We’re all one big family.

Last week, I flew off to Helsinki to attend an art course with some of my closest friends. We had a ton of fun going to different art museums and monuments around the city and at the same time exploring a city not so familiar to us. As always I took a good 500 photos, which you can find on my facebook page. On Friday, after a very chaotic morning and almost missing my plane back to Oulu, I was off again. I flew to Tromsø, Norway to go visit my aunt. It was nice to go back after 10 years and see how things had changed. The city was pretty, but it’s the scenery that’s breathtaking. I recommend all of you to go visit if you get a chance. After an action-packed week it feels great to be home!

I recently also found out the city I will be going to in Oregon. It is called McMinnville, but it is often referred to as "Mac", which is probably what I'll stick to since the pronunciation of my future city is causing me more trouble than I'd like to admit (no, it's not as simple as it looks!). McMinnville is located about 50km southwest from Portland. It's not that far off from the coast either, about an hour and half's drive, which is really cool. McMinnville is quite a small city even compared to Oulu, it's population is about 35 000, but I guess the size of my future high school makes up for it -it has over 1500 students! Most of you know that I've always been in tiny schools, I attended primary and middle school at the Oulu International school with the shocking amount of 300 students from first through ninth grade and now I'm attending an IB high school with about 150 students. Next year will be a huge change, both in size of city and in size of school, but in opposite ways.

#Entry 1

Hello! Today marks 172 days until my birthday, the date of which I expect all of you to know, and probably the same amount of days until my departure. For those of you who don't know what's going on, you have a serious amount of catching up to do. Last autumn, I applied for an exchange year abroad through Rotary. I was chosen as the candidate for the Merikoski Rotary club here in Oulu and approved by the district in November. A couple of weeks ago I found out that I will be going to the States and last night I got a wonderful email from my country coordinator in the US and found out I will be going to the district 5100, which includes the northern half of Oregon and a small part of Washington.

When I found out I was going to the northern or western parts of States I was secretly hoping I would get to go to a cool state like Oregon. As appealing and commonly praised states like Florida and California are, I have already visited both in large amounts and long for something new and different. As a complete control freak does, I started maniacally googling everything there is to know about Oregon last night and I am hands down already in love. The hiking and other outdoor activities Oregon has to offer are amazing and the nature is mesmerizing. It's been a while since I last went hiking, but as I look back at wondering in the woods at a skiing resort in northern Finland with my former exchange student Mackie and think about all the fun that we had, I cannot be anything but hyped for all the new adventures to come.

The next 172 days prior to my departure will hold a lot of preparations and training to get me through this crazy yet fantastic experience I am setting myself up for. My district here in Finland, 1400, will organize two training sessions here in Oulu for us OB's (outbounds) and there will be a third national training session compulsory for all the OB's in Finland in a city down south called Lahti. The training includes revising the Rotary rules, the most renowned being the 4 D's -no drinking, driving, dating or drugs. We will also get personal lessons from our Finnish country coordinators on the cultural differences between the two countries and get to purchase our official Rotary blazers.

As most of you aren't that interested in the preparations I won't blabber any longer about that but if anyone is interested in applying, the process or just generally curious, comment below and I'll answer to the best of my abilities!

Here's a couple of photos of the nature in Oregon to help you put what I just said into perspective:

This photo is from Crater Lake, Oregon. It is a national park in the south.

I'm not sure about the exact location of this sight, but it's in NW Oregon.