Weekend of me Traveling Across Finland: Camping, exchange students, coffee

I TRAVELED ACROSS A EUROPEN COUNTRY BY  MYSELF AND DID IT CORRECTLY. still freaking out that I did this. A month and a half ago I would never have even thought of that. 

Tampere, Karkku, and then Vammala.

•  3 trains
• 2 busses
• 1 bike
• 2 km of walking
• 4 hours of traveling

 Met an awesome lady on the Onni Bus to Tampere. The bus let me off at a place where I didn't know where I was and she helped me find another bus to get me to center.  I then had to sprint to the train station to catch the last train heading to Pori. My stop was on that line. It was an adventure.

I got off the train and I swore I was in the wrong area and then I heard sam. Praise the lord for sam. The first thing he said was "Hi Ohio. Glad to see you. I have a hot meal at home"

I am terribly exhausted and was filled with fear of messing up traveling but I was safe in that moment.

First thing I woke up to . I love small farm towns now so much. The fog was so thick and there were cows. cows. I saw a cow again

Staying in a 150 renovated farm house was rad.

We met up with 30 exchange students from around Finland and we had a picnic where we all brought food from our countries. We ate at the top of this diving deck. Of course I made pb and js for everyone.

We spend the day playing foot ball and eating lollies.

We then went home and at this. The king of pizza.

Please note that we are using Haraldo's face for scale. There were whole slices of bacon on it.

I know know I understand the basics of spanish, portages, swedish, Finnish, and well of course English. This means with the help of context clues we can all communicate fairly well.

We ended up camping in the woods somewhere. I lack photos because well setting up tents in the middle of stinkin finland is kinda hard. I was one of three which knew how to. It was cold. Really cold.

Bussi back to tampere

I made it home by Sunday night. I was tired, hungry, cold, smelly and just filled with smiles. The week end was one of the best. I spent it with some of the best people ever. I traveled by myself across a country at the age of 17. Ah! I am doing this. This is life. I feel it all.

Tampere

So this past Thursday, the teachers gave us the afternoon off our lessons to practice our Finnish in the " wild" as they call it, otherwise known as Tampere- Finland's third largest city. It was a nice break from the usual five hour a day plus two hour lecture lessons. Once we arrived to the city, I was taken back by all the colors and the mix of old/modern. It was beautiful. First we took a guided tour of the city and they took us to a few points to look before a storm came in. We were lucky because we were able to watch the storm roll in from over the lake.

When we were driving up, I lost track of the number of sail boats

Alaska and Ohio!

After the tour was when the fun happened. I stepped off and all I heard was "OHIO!!!!!!!!", and I was actually picked up and they ran with me. They, as in the oldies (exchange students from the southern hemisphere). I knew them from the airport and we became friends... But really good friends... I then spent the day with them as they taught me the nuts and bolts of Finland. I even got a Finnish guy to teach me how to skate board! We watched a mime show and tried new foods.

Seen above is the rare account of Anna skateboarding

Belly dancers!! One had a tambourine! Music is everywhere and so are street performers!

Exchange student selfie!

Finland is quiet. Aussies are not. This makers for a memorable day... Even the sprinting through the streets to catch the bus (the public square had dancers we had to watch!)