I must say that saying goodbye was tough. Before we left for the airport my sister joked that I shouldn't wear mascara... she was right. I thought I had it together... then the 30 minuet count down began. When it was time to say goodbye, my mother, father, sister, and liz smiled and hugged me. Walking though the gate it hit me. That was the last time I would see them for a year.
When I got to my seat, the man sitting next to me asked me what was wrong and of course I explained. He joked with me saying how they probably already broke out the beer!! He spent the rest of the time joking with me and he reminded me that this will be the year of my life. Right when the plane took off, I looked down. If you know me then you probably understand that I am sentimental and to be honest I watched until I couldn't see the ground.
After two hours we arrived in Atlanta. I got off and was determined to find my next terminal and fast. I took this strange subway creation and once I found it I also found an exchange student going to Finland. Her name is Felise and she is from the Bahamas. We are now good friends.
We then stepped onto the plane for Amsterdam, we faced the dreaded fact of the 8 hour flight. But it didn't take me long to hit it off with the lovely lady sitting next to me, Suzanna. She either loved my plane jokes or felt pity (let's go with the first!) She was going home to visit family in Denmark and she taught me Dutch, we watched movies together, and she helped teach me about long flights/how to survive them. She's a gem. She even made the food seem better. Suzanna held my hand on the landing and we just laughed because I AM IN EUROPE!!!!!!!
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| Amsterdam exchange selfie of course! |
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| The lovely Suzanna |
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| My reaction to an 8 hour flight |
Felise and I then headed across though customs and money exchange (by the way euros are strange) and we met a girl from Canada heading to Finland as well. Exchange students become close friends fast. THE BATHROOMS ARE CRAZY. THEY FLUSH WHEN YOU CLOSE THE DOOR. PROFE ROSIE WAS RIGHT. THE BATHROOMS ARE STRANGE AND THERE ARE TOO MANY BUTTONS.
We met up then with kids from Paraguay, argentia, USA, Canada, and a few others. We passed the time by playing Egyptian ratsmack and talking in each others languages. It was a blast. We boarded and there was about 20 exchange students on this small plane and we were all talking over the seats. Looking back, it must have been crazy to not be an exchange student on that light. After we took off, I fell fast asleep but I was lucky enough to wake up right before landing. I looked out and it hit me. There were tons and tons of lakes. As we got closer I saw the lines on the road were white and all the trees are pine trees. But the amount of lakes!!
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| First view of home |
We finally all walked off, grabbed our bags (mine was there! the peanut butter!!) The Finnish airport as scary quiet. All you heard was the bags rolling. And the Brazilian hahah:) When we left baggage, we were greeted by Rotary. then we waited till 7 with the other kids who arrived earlier. I met the most amazing kids. We all then left for Karkuu. I already know more than I did in the months preparing.
