Arrived in Finland!

Hello Everyone,

I have finally started my blog! Sorry for the delay in creating it, I hope you all enjoy it! I have arrived safely in Finland, I arrived here on January 6, 2011, and I am now all settled into my apartment in Mukkula, talo III,  in the city of Lahti, which is about 1 and a half hours north of Helsinki, (I think 'talo' is 'building' in Finnish).

 

The weather here is very similar to Canada, except I think there is a little more snow here, and yesterday, (January 15), was extremely cold! Its not a dry cold like Canada, but more of a damp kind of cold, and my hands are not quite as dry as they usually are in Canada.

I have some pictures of my residence and the area around it. My residence is right on the harbour, so it is quite a nice location. Here are some pictures of my residence.

 

If you are planning to come and visit me, hopefully these pictures will help you find my place.

The area around my residence is also quite interesting. I am close to the harbour and a campground, and both of these places are surprisingly active during the winter months.

These are people out in the middle of the ice, there was quite a lot of people doing many different activities out there, there were people ice fishing, walking, cross-country skiing, and some kind of parasailing, but I could not see exactly how they were doing it.

These are pictures of the harbour on the lake, it looks like it will be quite a nice place to go to once spring and summer arrive.

Here are the parasailer's, I think they are either using ski's or a snowboard.

This is a pool cut out of the ice, it is located right next to the sauna, the sauna is a traditional Finnish pastime, and is huge in Finland, you can find sauna's almost anywhere in Finland. You are supposed to go in the sauna first, and then jump in the 0 degree celsius water, brrr! There is a pathway that goes from the sauna to the water, and the steps have a little ice on them, brrr! They keep the water bubbling all the time, I think its to keep it from freezing over. If you don't want to jump in the water you can also choose to roll in the snow instead. In more traditional saunas, you are supposed to hit yourself with birch bark twigs, the birch tree is also a symbol of Finland, and there are a lot of them in Finland! This process of sweating in the sauna and then jumping in the cold water, than back into the sauna again is supposed to be really good for you. I have not tried it yet though!

These are pictures of the campground around my place, surprisingly a lot of people were actually there right now. You can also rent a cabin in this campground, some of which are pictured in the first picture.

Lahti is about the size of Burlington, maybe just a little bit bigger, but it has a big downtown core where most everything is located. Mukkula is just outside of the downtown core and is about a 10 minute bus ride from my school which is located downtown.

I hope you enjoyed my first blog!