Awww...Did The Dingo Eat Your Baby?...Heh. You look like a turtle.

Friday night I was in Tampere with Annina at this second hand store where we were looking for stuff. I found some uber cheap hats from Lapland that I picked up there, rather than spending 12€ on IN Lapland. So we were leaving, and these two guys came up and asked us where this store was, because we were speaking english. Turns out they were from Khazakstan, and in the circus that's in town right now. So we walked over to the store with them and talked to them for a while, it was really cool.

Saturday I went to Pajulahti Sports Center for a district weekend camp with the other exchange students in 1390. I met the 'oldies' from Australia and New Zealand, and hung out with the other ones I met in Karku. That was wicked fun. We played pesapallo, which is 'Finnish baseball' but it's insane. You have to bounce the ball on this circle before you hit it, and then you run to where 3rd base is in American baseball, then to first, and then way over to kinda by third again....and then to run around back to home. I'll try and make a diagram in paint during my break tomorrow at school. We also threw boots, which is apparently a Finnish thing too. Boot throwing competitions, woot. We went to sauna after dinner, a whole bunch of guys and girls in the first sauna thing they had (co-ed sauna=bathing suits. Sorry to disappoint some of you...lol). Turns out that THAT was a womens sauna, as some woman walked in to use it....Luckily we told her there were guys in there before anything shocking/embarassing happened. So then we all went into the men's sauna and just hung out there. We went in the lake too, and me and some girls had a water fight in the shower area. Heh, the showers here have the handle-shower things, and we were spraying each other. Wicked fun. We got the sauna up to about 120 Celsius thanks to the guys dumping so much water on. Ah well, it was all in good fun. We sang this german song too, which was fun. You have to sing in the sauna, it's just what you do. And there's always a part of the song where you throw more water on the stove, so it's always fun. Then after we got changed and whatnot, we ended up playing the 'Pony Game' for a good half an hour. It was so much fun. Basically, you run around on the inside of a circle of people singing THIS : "Here we go, Ridin' that pony, Runnin' round, that big fat pony, here we go, ride that pony, this is how we do it: front to front to front, oh baby, back to back to back, oh baby, side to side to side, oh baby, this is how we do it!" and during the front to front to front, you do that with the nearest person...it's like a dancing game. It's so much fun. Then we had a bonfire down at the lake, on this rocky point. That was fun, we made these pancake things in the fire, on these frying pans on big sticks. So that was fun, except for the fact it was fricking cold, and my bum was wet from the logs we sat on...and the smoke that went in my eyes, that made me cry...and me stepping in the big puddle behind the log that soaked my foot. But it was fun. The Rotarians went to bed at about 11pm, and left us at the firepit to hangout and whatnot. Then we went and partied in Raymond's room. He had a balcony. And 2 apples and a juice box. So we sat on the floor on pillows and hung out until about 3 in the morning. It was really chill, I mean, it was about 1, and the tutors came by to tell us to shut the door so they couldn't hear us talking. We finally left at about 3am ish, and went to bed. I woke up at 8 to Lucas (crazy 197cm blonde German) hitting our door with a wooden broom. So we went for breakfast, and 3 cups of finnish coffee(read:coffee so strong that you practically have to chew it. I'm not even joking) later, I was awake. Ish. We played some crazy games, and got prizes. I won this bottle of Finnish shampoo that smells like tar. Apparently it's good for your hair. I'll comment later about that. Heh. I took the train home from Lahti after getting a ride into town with about 5 other people and a Rotarian driving. So there were about 10 of us on the train. We got on the train, but we were in the 2nd carriage, and we needed to be in the 8th, so we had to walk all the way there inside...which was interesting. I hate walking inbetween the carriages, it's freaky.You have to press the buttons to open the doors, but you can see the ground under you, and it's just weiiiird. Then we switched trains in Riihimäki, and got on the 7th carriage and our tickets said our seats were in the 14th. We basically decided to take this empty compartment that we found, and hung out in there. Then when we got to Tampere we went to Hesburger and hung out and played some Playstation 2 until busses, and host parents came to bring us and our stuff home. I walked down to Keskustori and hopped on the bus...and now I'm here!!!

Pajulahti is a sports training facility just outside of Lahti, where they had the world ski jump finals in 2001 (I think). I saw the ski jump, and it's the highest thing I've seen in Finland yet. Lahti is also on this drumlin(another stupid english word I know) left behind from the ice age....My counsellor spent about 15 mintutes explaining this to me, but basically it's a mound of dirt that a glacier didn't push far enough before it melted, and it's there. It's along this line that separates the 'lake area of Finland' from the 'coastal area of Finland'. It's actually alot more interesting that I make it seem honestly.