American Pizza or not?

not

but we will get to that later

Friday was a lovely day. It was just a good last day to a nice week. School was lovely but then afterwards my friends (exchange student kiddos) met up to go see Annake perform with her Viola. Anneke is from Colorado and we are really close now. She lives in helsinki also so we see each other fairly often. It is really awesome because she was my roommate all the way back at Karraku!

The school day consisted of me falling asleep with Luis's jacket later realizing he captured the moment on camera. Also, I was super motivated in French. not a big deal but yea. My goal is to be able to order coffee in as many languages as I can. 

I came home after school to find a package from home in front of my door! Inside was everything I would need for thanksgiving. I always held thanksgiving with importance but nothing like I do now. I am realizing, especially since Halloween pasted, holidays are a family time in the States. Whether you realize it or not. But now I have a different family. And my mom wrote me a book basically on how to throw the perfect Halloween.. seriously. I also got some kick butt hats from my aunt, Oberlin Heritage news, and my grandma's cookies. I am a happy kid.

We met up and went to the performance. It was held at this little music school over in Espoo. She performed so well.

Walking out I realized how much we have a life here. Like, we have friends which we visit their performances. We have school and know how to do our banking. We get our medicines and things we need. It's one of those things where sometime you have to stop and realize it is happening.

Afterwards we went out to the American Pizzeria here in Helsinki. It was a let down. It was not american pizza. But at least we were together.

 You could tell by Anneke's stages that she was happy... then very sad.

Liz came back home with me and spent the night. We watched movies, learning along with the Finnish Subtitles. Thank goodness for Netflix. All in all, Friday was a success.

The visit of the Darling: Thursday

Oh the final day! Having her here made time fly so fast. I wish she lived closer so I can see her more. Next month though I will see her again.

We arrived in center by noon and in the next hour we:

• accidentally snuck into the parliament building ( I thought us following this man through a door so we wouldn't have to open it again, but that man was official and so was the part of the building we were in. Not the tourist desk. I walked in and everyone looked at us.)
• purposely snuck into the best music school in Finland only to find you need to have a card to swipe to get out... we were stuck. but eventually caught another door.

first sight of snow! it didn't stick but it was there. 

the parliament building...

Miguel came to town! He lives in the most northern part and caught a plane down to see us. 

coffee at the national museum means we go and visit the throne room

Kat came!

reuniting!

 We then headed to the Orthodox Church which is one of the two really famous ones here in Finland. It was beautiful.

go katherine go 

we were all kinda amazed at the curved brick

this view took us all by surprise. when you looked down you could see the chandeliers from the restaurants below and the sea was over the one side. and you could see all the roof tops

ehhh I love Europe. I love Helsinki.

so cute

There are wild hedgehogs here

So we wanted to go see the crypts and they were originally closed today... but we pulled the exchange student card.
we just rang the big door bell thingy to the gate where we said "Hi, we are exchange students. We want to see and learn. Can we come?" and they let us.

is it reallllyyyy a karaoke and dancing bar?

We all went out to a cafe afterwards for a final coffee before we all parted ways. It was good to talk. I truly adore these people. 

till next time my love

After saying good bye to my darling Katherine. I caught the train home and this little girl just sat right across from me. She was maybe five years old and was dressed in all pink. It was just the most perfect way to end this week. I came home to hot glögy and walking dead (host dad recorded it!! I knew they were cannibals!) Time to pack. I am leave tomorrow morning at 7 to travel(across the country! by myself!) to Kuopio to visit friends. Woo for a 6 hour bus ride...