Thursday 5/21 (my birthday!): Deirdre made me some chicken and onions with rice for lunch. After that Merel came over and we watched ‘chocolat’, and English movie. She had gotten me a crown since it was my golden birthday (21 on the 21st) and a jar from the Netherlands that is very common to have there. We went for pizza with Deirdre for dinner and they made me wear the crown. The place we went is always empty but of course that day it was packed and I had the crown! From there, we got ready to go to the bar. We walked to the city center with Nikos at 11:30 and it was still fairly bright outside. We met the group of exchange students that is still here but lives on the other side of town (and were celebrating Gunter’s birthday there) at Kharma night club...and they made me wear the crown there, too. One of the girls didn’t have the right ID so we went to Katze pub instead. We stayed for a while then walked home just after before 3am and in broad day light. Walking to the bar in daylight and walking home in daylight, I felt like I had been there for an extremely long time. But, Finland only has about 3 hours of actual darkness right now, from 11:30ish until 2:30ish.
Zdeneck, Nikos and Merel at Katze...Merel wearing my crown
Friday 5/22: I met with my Finnish mom today so she could show me how to make Pulla! (little did we know, they had planned for us to make a huge meal) We went to a HUGE kitchen at the city library. Elizabeth and Jaime and their Finnish mother’s, Perjo and Marja-Leena came, as well. When I got there Ritva, my Finnish mom, was pulling tons and tons of food out of her bag. We started the pulla and while the dough was doing something (raising, fluffing…I don’t know, getting bigger) on a pot of hot water, we started to peel potatoes. In the meantime, Perjo was making Finnish pancakes; Marja-Leena was making Lingon porridge...all for desert. Ritva was making bread rolls, cooked carrots and cucumbers. After our pulla dough finished on the water, we took our dough to the counter. Marja-Leena showed me how to roll it and what we could put in it. We had combinations with cinnamon, sugar, almonds, raisins, walnuts and applesauce. She also showed me the different ways to roll them. Then, we put the egg wash on top and cooked them. As soon as our pulla was done the Finnish moms had finished the rest of the meal. We had deer (that Ritva’s husband had shot), carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, salad, butter, rolls and gravy for dinner and pancakes, pulla and porridge for desert…all made from scratch…even the butter. We were cooking for about 4.5 hours. I was so full but as we were eating, our Finnish mom’s kept putting food on our plates when we would look away.
After dinner, I went to Jim’s(France) for his going away party/mine and Shane’s birthday party. After being there for about an hour, I noticed 3 guys picking up Shane off of a chair by his arms and legs and then the lights went off. Within a few seconds they had dropped Shane onto my lap then Deirdre and Jim came out singing with a cake for us. Deirdre also had a book for each of us that had pictures from the semester and everyone wrote in them earlier that day.
My pullas!
Pulla making
Saturday 5/23: I went over to Roninmaki for a BBQ and to watch a Rugby match. The match was Ireland vs. England. I have never watched rugby before, Marco (Italy) tried to explain it to me, I understood a bit but it is confusing. After, we had a bbq with me, Shane, Deirdre, Jim, Thaibault, Marco and a few others. We had a lot of food, sausage sandwiches, chicken wings, bacon, pork from Spain, and French fries. Jim made a sandwich with bacon and fries and referred to it as an American sandwich. I kinda looked at him funny and he said “this is what we associate with American foods” I told him that it wasn’t American and no one puts French fries on their sandwiches haha He picked up a french fry and asked me what we call it because the are not French. The guys have a map of Europe on the wall and everyone who comes over put a push pin where they are from. I had been there before but never put my self on the map because I’m not on the map. So, Marco drew the US on a piece of paper and put in on the wall way down from the Europe map so I could pin myself. We walked to Bar 14 after the bbq. Last time we tried to go here, I got a concussion, which of course made for jokes for the entire night :) But, that meant that everyone had to walk with me or ride their bikes slowly because I didn’t have a bike with me. As we were walking, Shane insisted to reenact my accident right where it happened. We stayed at the bar for a bit; I played pool with Jim and Thaibout for a while.
Sunday 5/24: Ritva picked me up around 2:00pm to go to her summer house with Perjio, Marja-Leena, Elizabeth and Jaime for the day. As I was waiting for them to pick me up, it started to hail. We drove for about a half hour then pulled over on the side of the street by a lake. The Finnish mom’s pulled a bunch of extremely small life vests out of the car and told us to put them on. We went to the lake and got in paddle boats and paddled our way out to an island where their house is…it is still raining. (We did not know we would be doing any of this…so as it was happening we were really confused) My Finnish mom did not think I had enough clothes on so she insisted that I put on one of her husbands sweaters…one that matched the one she had on. The moms had me, Jaime and Elizabeth make a cake when we got there. Then, the three of us went to the sauna they had on the island then we layed on the beach for a bit. The island is really pretty. My Finnish dad made sausages for dinner and Ritva made us some salad. We rowed back and our 3 Finnish moms sang “row row row your boat” the whole way back.
Jaime, Elizabeth and I refer to our times with our Finnish moms as “adventures with the Finnish moms” because we really never have any idea what to expect. They tell us when they will pick us up and from there we are just along for the ride; although, it is never a dull moment with them. For example, a conversation with my Finnish mom the other day:
Ritva: “Erin, what is your father’s name?”
Me: “Theodore”
Ritva: “Oh yes, I remember now, I looked him up in the white pages”
But they are wonderful ladies!
Us with our Finnish moms at the summer house
Me and Elizabeth with my Finnish dad
Perjio, Ritva and Marja-Leena paddling and singing :)
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