Welcome to Gaia! ::

Oi! You laughed at my stick things!! Lol oh I think I find this too funny...

Ooh i see now, with the picture of the twig thing, makes a little more sense now...just a little *shows measurement with fingers*

*makes whip noise* wichhhh wicchhhh

And Pikku...how can you possibly stay in a sauna for that long!

Found out something else that I found funny the other day, that biscuit in Finnish literally means "small bread" in English...

Wow, it really does look like I'm laughing at your culture, I'm not meaning to! I love it! I really do! heart heart <<
*digs self hole*...I'm gonna go over here now...

I love learning Finnish, it's so much fun ^_^

Oh before I go, I have another question...what's it like having swedish and finnish in the same country? I've just been reading about it it's like..hmm....
We have a similar thing here with Maori and English. Very similar actually, language wise and so on.

It's so cool, I keep having conversations with myself in Finnish (I usually talk to myself and have deep meaningful conversations and discussions with myself...hard to understand I guess) anyway, it's so cool ^_^ and when I'm talking to my friends, I replace certain words in Finnish ^_^

Oh (yeah I don't shut up) and I was writing this letter to my friend, and I managed to write a bit of it in Finnish, of course she didn't understand it, but that wasn't the point xp

Well I for one do most thinking in sauna... It's like a place where there's total silence and peace and no-one to bother you... different thing ofcourse if I'm with other people...

It's kinda for the same reason why I play at night 3nodding

I'll make sure I don't move to Turku then lol.

I got this other book out from the library, and it's all about Finland (obviously)...very interesting. I'm learning a lot about your history and things. Oh and the whole Sauna thing makes a lot more sense now...still the stick thing is..umm..hmm...I can understand why you use them and so on, it's just an amusing image coz they sticks look like whole branches from a tree...with the leaves obviously...

*cough* anyway... I really want to go to Helsinki already!

Oh would you guys know how hard/easy it is to get residency in Finland? I know it's really hard to get it in NZ, but I have no idea about Finland and it's really hard to search for information...

I'm late to the discussion as usual, but that won't stop me from saying what I plan to.

I think meatballs are Swedish, but let them have their nasty balls! We get the mashed potatoes and roasted reindeer. A fellow student of mine at an international school I used to go to was very shocked upon finding out that I eat reindeer, she didn't sever ties with me though. wink

I go to sauna about once a week, since the heating consumes a lot of energy and my parents are not happy with a big electricity bill. I'm a bit of a wussy when it comes to the temperature, I like it 75 degrees celsius not under not over. That's why I don't sit with my parent because they like it 80 or more.
As Pikku-Timppa said it's an oppurtune time to think and a great way to relax yourself. The birch branches that we beat ourselves with smell very nice and it also clean your body.

I don't think Swedish is a big problem. It's an easy language to learn, because it is kind of a mixture of Finnish and English. The rpoblem is, that Swedish people are moving to Finland thinking that they don't have to learn Finnish because we were once under their rule and we're a bilingual country with their language as the second one. It's bugging me. I think it's good that there are more and more people not learning Swedish. I used to wonder as a kid, why the Swedes don't have to learn Finnish.

I suppose getting an appartment in Helsinki should be easy if money's not an issue. But as it seems to me, you're a stundent with limited income, it may be a hard nut to crack. I still live at home so I have no experience on the matter, but there are the more expensive neighbourhoods and the cheaper ones. Maybe someone can tell me if they give you advice on these things when you finnish school?

I think getting a visa should be easy, but I've never gone through the process, so I'm not sure. At least people don't complain about it, which might mean it's not too complicated.

I use 'anteeksi' in small situations, but also 'sori', which is more like slang.

And as to who will pull the sleigh... A helicopter would be my choice! blaugh

eek REINDEER BLOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!