Dawn Breaking

The trip to Finland was a journey in itself. first I had to wake up at four AM to get to Minneapolis for a flight to New York. I happened to miss that flight but managed to get a flight an hour later. After that, I was in New York. It was overwhelming to a degree because of the sheer number of cars and how different everything was. I found my AFS group and we took a van to a hotel for an orientation. Here I met the other people going to Finland; two were even from Minnesota, too! Anyway, the orientation felt long because I was so tired, but the bed in the room I had was very comfortable so I slept well. The next day we started our journey.

Our group, the students going to Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, took a bus through New York to the Newark airport. The flight took off at around 1800 eastcoast time and landed about 7 or 8 hours later in Copenhagen at about 0820 Denmark time. This flight wasn't too bad, but was long. I was in a seat next to the isle and was next to a Dane who happened to go to Mexico through AFS when she was younger, and her boyfriend went to the US through AFS. I thought it was pretty cool. We talked some until the plane took off.

The flight to Helsinki from Copenhagen was very easy. There were a lot of free seats, I had a row to myself, and only took about an hour.

My host parents and my new sister Rosa, who is 6 years old, were waiting for me. The other AFSers seemed to have more businesslike families or siblings their age, but in the end I don't think that would have been the best for me. My Finnish family is very lovely and caring. I wasn't even homesick until I was told by my hostmother that I could call my father with their cellphone at any time. I couldn't because that connection would hurt because I wouldn't want to talk to him without being with him. it would hurt too much.

When my hostmother and I went to my new school to sign up for classes, I was nervous because this is more public than the nice famil I live with. I was afraid of the what impression I was giving, and everything was new. It was like jumping into a cold lake. Thankfully I'm picking up Finnish pretty easily. My hostmother says I sound like a Finn, but that just makes me nervous because what if people think I know more Finnish than I do?

Anyways, that concludes my first blog entry after arriving in Finland.