I was at an AFS camp last weekend.

I took a train into Helsinki and found the AFS group fairly easy (I knew I found it when I saw John, one of the other US AFSers). He was talking with a Swiss named Valerio and a couple other people. Valerio was from the Italian part of Switzerland so he knew Italian, German, and English. He also struck me as a person who would get along with Chris Doughty very well; they seem so similar!

Soon after I got there we went back into the train station to the metro, the Helsinki-only train. After that we got off the train and onto a bus. The AFS counsellors accidently told us to get off the bus at the wrong spot so we had to wait fifteen minutes for the next one. I volunteered to walk, a few times, but they said no.

Once we got to the campsite we played some social games to get everyone acquaintanced. Lunch came after. For food it was a prime example of Finnish Simple Fare. Good warm bread, good warm cheese, good cold sausage, and good cold ham. We had the same thing for breakfast on Saturday and sunday.

The Sauna and general sociality was next. I lost my watch and glasses, but they were found so it didnt end up being a problem. I stayed up all night with a few people (Helin and Dennis- Turks, Timo- half German and half Finnish, John- from Massachusettes, Marco- from Oregon, Lucka- Austrian, Valerio- Swiss, and Antonio- Italian) and we ended up playing cardgames a lot, and Helin earned herself a reputation for talking a lot. I was pretty tired the next morning.

Saturday morning had equal measures of coffee, which I learned to just drink down fast thanks to John, and breakfast. The AFSers split up into small groups to discuss AFS things and experiences we had over the last three weeks.

In the late afternoon, though, I crashed and took a couple hour nap. When I woke up I missed lunch and was in a pretty bad mood that lasted until midnight (when I got to sleep again). I woke up at 9am on Sunday for breakfast. The rest of the day until we left at 1pm wasn't much different from the day before.

When I got home I slept from 3pm to the next morning at 7am, although I did wake up for a little while at 7pm and 3am.

Ive been here almost two weeks. So far it has felt somewhere between a blur and hideously slow.

The main thing I have problems with is learning the language, but things are slowly pulling together. In a month or two I think I might be speaking decently, but it's still a long road in front of me in that area.

School is different, and I like how the classes are set up. There are 6 time slots but not all of them are filled. On Tuesdays classes and on Thursdays I have 2, and on Wednesday and Thursday my first class is at 10 am. The rest of the days start at 8:30. Yay for being able to sleep more.

I got a 30 day bus pass that lets me use the bus as much as I want for almost 50 euros. Thats about 75$. Even then that is still cheaper than paying for each ticket individually which is about 3.50$ per trip and I take 2 trips every school day. Thats 7$ a day, and for almost 25 days a month that is well over 150$ a month. I still need to pay the 8$ for any trip I want to take into Helsinki, but that isn't too bad since I wont likely go in there often.

I havent taken many pictures either. I just havent had picture-taking on my mind. Sorry about that.