What's up

Hey guys :)

The fewer my days are getting, the more I've got to do! Almost all weekends until my return flight are full. And during the weeks I have much to do too. Two weeks ago was 1st of May, and I was celebrating it with my friends. 

Last weekend I had an YFU-seminar, this time it was the Re-entry seminar. I got to meet really cool exchange students again and we spoke about how it is when we have to leave, and how it can be when we get back to our home countries. It was actually really good to speak about these things with our team(the volunteers who have already been in exchange and know how it is) and with people who are in the same situation as I. It made us realize that we're not alone. 

This past week I had only two days school :D On Monday the abiturients (the 13th class who are this year graduating) had their oral exams and the rest of us had off-day. Thursday and Friday we had holidays. My host little sister had birthday on Friday and the relatives from Berlin were here ^^ And we have been eating sooooo much cake again :D On Thursday we started to paint the garage's wall (actually we did already paint it white some weeks ago, and now we started to color our painting). Yesterday Isabel celebrated her birthday and we had fun :)

And 'cause Summer is coming and we have had really warm days already, I have been eating quite a lot of ice cream <3

Harry Potter, Ruhrgebiet, Movie night, Birthdays etc.

Heeeey people! :)
Long time no see, again... :D

I have been quite busy the last couple of months and I've had a LOT of fun! But like always, when there are good times there are also bad times. And when you're on exchange, the bad times make you really think about your life and what the people around you mean to you. What I wanted to say is: I'm so thankful to all those who have made me smile and laugh. Those moments are the best in life.

Okay that's that, now I'm gonna tell you what I've been up to! ;)

So, many of my German friends are celebrating their 18th birthday this year, which is awesome 'cause I get to celebrate with them ^^ Here in Germany it's a "tradition" to prepare as a surprise a plaque with some kind of a funny slogan and embarrassing pictures of the person turning 18 and then take it to their home at midnight. I find it awesome :D I prepared one of these with couple of my friends to a friend of ours and it was really fun! And 'cause it's the 18th birthday, all most all of them arrange at some point, often with two or three people together, big parties!

In the past months, my friendships here have grown closer and I've made a couple of new ones too :) With one girl - from the same martial arts school as where I train kung fu - we had an awesome movie night and we found out that we have many things in common! For example, we both watch anime and now we are planning to attend DoKomi in May. I'm looking forward to it! 

And then to Harry Potter! So, one of my host sisters lives in Duisburg in the Ruhr Area(Ruhrgebiet) and in Cologne(Köln) we visited Harry Potter The Exhibition! The weekend with my host sister and her boyfriend was so much fun that it was definitely one of the best things this year :) We did a lot and we saw a lot! And I fell in love with the Ruhrgebiet ♥ We visited Düsseldorf, Essen, Oberhausen, Köln and of course Duisburg. The whole area is just so awesome that it's hard to explain :D But shortly, there are these big cities really close to each other (10 minutes by train) and there's just everything! I came to a conclusion that after all, I'm a city-girl :D

I've been training kung fu again for three weeks now and in two weeks we're having our belt exams again! I don't know if I'll pass it this time. Six weeks without doing any kind of sport really sucks... or at least after that the first training sucks. At the moment, I'm so dead after every training session that it doesn't even make sense. I'm learning a new technique, the snake technique and it's so hard TT-TT But our master said that if I go through it everyday two times, I'll be able to pass the test.

Now that I'm talking about my future plans already I can happily tell you that tomorrow at 12.02 I'll take the train from Melle my destination being the capital of Germany, Berlin! I'll be staying there for a whole week and attend YFU's "Mittelseminar." After that, the up coming weekends are filled with birthday parties and soon we're having Easter Holidays. Two weeks without school, sounds good to me! And I may have some quite nice plans for the holidays ;) but I'm not yet sure so I don't want to jinx it!

Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral)

In Düsseldorf

The Hohenzollern Bridge in Köln

The Marauder's Map

A screaming Mandrake and me

The Horcruxes

AND my mom celebrated her 50th birthday! Congrats mom! Äiti mä rakastan sua ♥ 

AND I have been in Germany already for over 200 days o.o

AND happy late birthday for my brother and sister! 

Herbstferien, Spiekeroog, Geburtstag

Hallo!

The time is running so fast that I can't keep up with everything. But here I am, once again to write about some things and yeah, let's see. 

The Autumn break came and went, I had some time to relax and sleep long and catch up with things for what I didn't have time with school going on and so. But I did actually something too :D I was shopping in Bielefeld, we were with my host-family in Spiekeroog and I trained Kung fu.

I just love the ocean

There's this Icelandic horse stable in Spiekeroog and I wanted to ride with an Icelandic 'cause it has been quite a while since I last did, and I wanted to remember my baby pony back in Finland. We went with my host sisters and my host mom for a 4 hour ride, and most of it we rode along the seashore. It was quite amazing!

Hamingja ♥

Then I also turned, finally, 18 last week! :) I celebrated with my German friends on Saturday and then with my host-family on Sunday. Thank you everyone, it was really, really nice, even though I was a little homesick because, yeah, it was an important day for me and my family and closest friends weren't there. BUT I'm going to celebrate again when I'm back in Finland :D

Something from Finland

Vielen Dank Hannah und Philip

 Oh and I also suffered otitis and had to visit a doctor. But it wasn't such a big of deal, I ate some antibiotics for five days and some painkillers, too, and then it was gone.

p.s. I have a lot more pictures from Spiekeroog but Blogger doesn't want to co-operate with me and I'm loosing my temper.... but I still want to post this finally today, so here :D

Life

Hallo

School is filling my days and everything is feeling really normal, I can't be thinking: this is the real exchange student life. Some days are harder than others, of course, I'm tired most of the time and sometimes I feel lonely and foreign, but still -- not even for a moment -- I haven't thought of going home.

Last Sunday I skyped with my family and that was nice. Seeing that they were alright and just looking happy and all made me happy too. I didn't feel homesick, but seeing our dogs being there, goofing around as usual, made my eyes teary... I also showed my family my home here in Germany, that was cool :D

On Tuesday was Sophia's birthday and we had chocolate cake and these cute little cakes too. Unfortunately I wasn't able to give my present for my host-sister in time while it came from Finland and the packet was late. 

BUT on Wednesday my packet finally arrived! ^^ There were Sophia's present, some clothes, e.g. my winter coat and shoes, couple of books in Finnish, two dvds and of course some finnish food :D

In the end of the week I showed my host-parents my home town via Google earth. We also went to an YFU meeting for exchange students and host-families. 

All in all, my week was good. 

But this week the k-pop world has been shocked greatly. This girl group called 'Ladies Code' got into a serious car crash on the 3rd of September. One of the members, EunB, passed away at the accident place and four days later, today, another memeber, RiSe, passed away after being unconscious for the whole time since the accident. This isn't actually about my life, and I don't even know this group so well, but it has shocked me too, so much that I have cried more than once. 

Rest in peace EunB and RiSe. And for the other members, family and friends and of course the Ladies Code fans, fighting! 

I'm Fine Thank You - Ladies Code