Life is full of surprises

Hey people :)

 

It's been quite a long time, yet again... and I'm sorry but I've been soooo busy that wow :D But now, I found the time I needed so I can write! (And well, my mom kind of forced me :p ♥)

Okay, the last two months have been really hectic. In short; I was for a week in Berlin with so awesome people that I'll never forget it!! I've been partying almost every weekend, 'cause my friends are still turning 18; I broke my phone; I've moved two times; I had fantastic Easter holidays for two weeks; I got an awesome guest from Finland; I got my second belt in kung fu; I was in Hamburg; my favorite k-pop group made a "comeback" (they released a new album) AND other big group I'm fan of, are finally making their comeback after almost three years ♥-♥!

My week in Berlin was just something really amazing! We were about 40 persons, our YFU team, couple of host-siblings and then of course we, the exchange students :) Our group was just simply the best :D A lot were from Latin-America: Mexico, Argentina and Chile, only three, excluding me, from Europe: Czech, Switzerland and Finland, we had also people from Asia: China, Japan, South-Korea and Indonesia. We spoke a lot of how our exchange year were so far, we worked in groups and tried to find solutions for difficulties in communication etc. But we checked the city too, and we visited museums and of course the attractions. For shopping we had also some time.

I made friends from all over the world, friends who are experiencing the same things as I, and understand me and we support each other. Our team was amazing too. They were really helpful and nice guys :) As I was there, with these wonderful people, I realized something; I'm not me with my host family and I'm not so happy as I could be. So it was the time to finally do something about it. I contacted my betreurin, she contacted YFU and I was told to ask my friends if I could be staying the last 3,5 months by one of them. I wasn't sure where I would end up, and actually I was a little scared what would happen when I'd tell about my decision to my host family and to my family in Finland. I stayed for one week at my betreuerin's. It was a cool week :D And then I found a new host family, the family from my best friend here in Germany ^^ Now I've been staying here for five weeks ♥

Like I already told before, we had Easter holidays! It was sweet. On the Easter days, I got to know the relatives of my new host family. That was nice and they were all really friendly and funny. We ate A LOT, we did egg-searching and in Germany it's tradition to have a Easter fire on Easter Sunday, that was awesome.

On the second week of my vacation my best friend came here!! ♥♥ I traveled with one of the brothers of my host mom to Hamburg and stayed there for a night (thank you!) and on Tuesday morning I went to the airport and picked Ida, my best friend, up. We talked and ate and checked Hamburg for two days and then we got here to where I live. I had missed her so much and it was just soooo marvelous to see her again. We had so much fun and I think it was cool that she got to know my German family. 

This week we had to get back to school.... but luckily we have next Monday free and I'll be going to Heide Park with my friends! :) I'm so excited. Next week, one of the brothers of my host mom has birthday, and as he lives in Berlin with his family I'm going to the capital again! :) And anime convention with Isabel is coming closer! 

Easter bunny went by :) (and I don't even know how many different new ways there is to write my name :D)

Easter fire

♥

St. Michaelis Kirche

Tanzende Türme (The Dancing Towers)

Hamburg

@ Hamburg Dom with my bestie ^^

In zoo

German Police horses in Berlin :D

Live stream from Twitter

My name in Korean

We did it!

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! 

I'm ready for 2015!

Decided to write now when it's still 2014! Well at least in most parts of the world, and here too. I hope everyone is having good time today and celebrating the start of the new year with friends and/or family :) I'm heading tonight to a party, where, I guess, is at least half of my German classmates. I'm looking forward to it ^^

And now that the year is ending, it means that I have just spent my first Christmas away from my family, my home country and that I've experienced something new and got to know the traditions of another family and country. My Christmas was good. I ate a lot of cookies and cake, both an important part of German Christmas. But not like in Finland, in Germany there isn't special Christmas food. It's a tradition to eat potato salad and sausages on 24th but that's it. 

Our Christmas tree was/is HUGE!

What made my Christmas this year even better, was that the packet my mom sent me arrived on time! It arrived on the 24th.... xD I was worrying so much already that all my presents for my host-family would suck 'cause, to be honest, half of them were in that packet. It was such a relief when it arrived! (And there were presents for me too ♥)

Nikolaus went by

Two times :D

Before Christmas, I had also my belt exam and I was able to pass it! So now I have the yellow belt in Kung fu. But the next time I was training, I hurt my ankle, that was Wednesday. On Thursday, I stayed home because I couldn't walk properly. My foot kept on swelling so we decided to go to see the doctor. On Friday, I went to school (it was the last day before holidays) and then we drove to Melle and one hour or so later I had a pair of new shoes and a cast for six weeks, yay.

My last fight without belt

2014 wasn't that great year. There were so many bad things that happened, so many catastrophes and everything.... Of course there were also many good things but even so, I'm really waiting for the new year! HAPPY 2015! 

And I'm ending this year with my host sister kitty who's manipulating ski jumping... :D

Busy days

Hallo,

I'm still here :D

Well it hasn't been more than two and a half weeks but feels much longer. I have finally time and inspiration to write again since we're having a day-off from school, YAY!

So, what I've been doing these weeks? A lot. I have finally decided that I'll continue with Kung fu, and have been training about two times a week. Sometimes I've had other plans on the day we have practices and sometimes there has been some other obstacles. Either way, I'm really enjoying my new hobby (even though it's really hard at times).

Most of the time I feel like this :D

Then I have had one really lazy weekend when I did seriously nothing. That was kinda nice to be honest :D It was like me back in Finland...hahah. But I have also had a weekend full of action (and eating, mostly cake). Actually, my whole last week was full. I was constantly going from one place to another. 

We were, with one friend of mine, in Melle and ate some french fries and cake. We also did some shopping and yeah, generally had fun and hopefully we're going to do it again. 

Last week, I was, for the first time here, at my friend's. We had a good time ^^ we talked and ate and sang and so on.

And I also tried on the traditional Oktoberfest dress, Drindl

On weekend, we visited my host-family's old riding teacher's riding school's open day or so. There we ate some cake and there was this little riding/horse show, and all kinds of things to see. That was on Saturday and on Sunday we had all of my host mother's family visiting and we ate brunch and played some games and so. :) Then we had to choose whether we would like to ride with carriage or go to a car museum, I rode the carriage. After everyone was back we ate CAKE ♥♥ 

The upcoming two weeks we have Herbstferien aka fall holidays! So far, I have plans with my friends; we are going to Hannover and shopping and some other things too. :) And with my host family, we'll go to this island, Spiekeroog, and spend there the second holiday week. We're going to ride Icelandic horses, and I'm really excited since I have one in Finland and I miss him pretty much.

I hope the next time I'll have more photos ^^ Tsüß!