Alright, I said I would finish what is left to be finished, so here it is, my Lapland trip, the highlight of my November, which included only hours of November, but I cannot say highlight of December, because there is still a lot left of that to go.
So Rogério couldn't go on this tour, so it was just the five of us, Arik, Gustavo, Katie Luisa and I from Estonia. We left on a ferry at 3 on Thursday (Nov 30) and the ferry ride over was thrilling in itself. It was really windy, so big waves and the boat was wobbling around, which was fun for Katie and I, but everyone was not so happy about it. we got over to Finland and two Rotarian people were waiting for us to take us to pizza. dinner was good, we hung out at their host for a while and then the husband, Birger (i think) and the five of us got into a cab, a big van really, and went to where we were being picked up, which was the Helsinki Olympic stadium, beautiful place in the middle of the night, i wish i could have seen more of it. For the next 14 hours we were on the bus, catching up with the people in our district, who i hadn´t seen in 6 weeks, and as we went farther north, people who I hadn't seen since august.
We finally got up to Lapland, tired and cramped from the bus ride, but pretty excited, got some food, and then we were of to our choice of skiing, downhill or cross country, snowboarding or sledding. I had borrowed these little tiny trick skis from my last host family, which they told me were easier than the longer ones, but they lie!! the boots were a little too small, so my legs hurt most of the day, and although they were easy to turn with and i didn't trip on them, they went soo fast and had so little surface area, the whole first day i fell down every time i needed to stop. Needless to say, i was wet. it was frustrating for many of the people who had never skied (spelling, i don't know) and most people went home a little bummed out, but that night was a lot of fun, we hung out with friends, and went for a campfire thing, and we had a good time. This was also the first time we had met a lot of the ´oldies´, as they had come in January, and weren't at Karrku with us in August. They are a great group, mostly Australians with a girl from New Zealand and 4 people from South Africa.
Saturday was also skiing, but this time it went WAYY WAYY better. the two y´s were needed as it was that much better. Got the hang of stopping, and managed to be able to play a little more with the skis, and because of the length, i was always the first down the hill. I even skied down backwards at one point, because it was fun, and easy, and i wanted to say i did it. Point of Clarification at this time, this was more of a COP hill than a mountain, but it isn't really their fault they have no mountains. End of the day came, and we went home, sauna´d, and rolled in the snow, which was great, but sorta hurt at the same time. we had dinner, and went into town to hear a concert prepared for us by some Finnish kids, which was fun, but also got a little tedious when we just wanted to hang out and chat.
Sunday we went to a reindeer farm, got to feed some reindeer, and then we heard about the wildlife in Lapland, which was interesting, but due to lack of sleep, i may or may not have fallen asleep during the taped slide show, but in my defence, the mans voice was very soothing.
that afternoon was probably the most Finnish one we had. first we got out fitted with snow shoes, and wandered through the woods, which turned into an extended, moving snow fight, where no one was safe. the Brazilians especially could not get enough of the snow. we got to a place where we traded our snowshoes with another group, and got to go in reindeer pulled sleighs. it was like something from a fairytale, although a little bumpier and the reindeer have to work on their consistency. After the reindeer, we walked to where they keep the huskies for pulling the sleds, and we got to hold the puppies, which was really cool. we then got into little carts behind snowmobiles and got taken to where we rode the sled dogs. well, at least behind them.
that night we had more talent type things, but then we just sorta took over our wing of the hotel and talked, and hung out and at one point the Brazilians were trying to teach us how to dance, but i am afraid that those people derived from former British colonies are incapable of moving their hips in a dance like manner.
The next day we left Lapland and headed south, first stop, the arctic circle and Santa Claus´village. It was really neat to think i had spent 72 hours above the arctic circle. We didn't have the patience or the time to wait for Santa, so instead we recruited a bunch of little Finnish kids dress as elves, and took pictures with them, which was pretty fun.
that was the last important event on our trip, and we set ourselves for another 14 hours on the bus, which wasn't long enough, because the next time we would see each other was in April, and we would maybe never see our oldies again, as they all leave at the beginning of January.
That is my Lapland trip, typed out for the convenience of those at home, but also so my dwindling memory can have some sort of written recollection in the future.
Hope everything is going well where ever you are, and MERRY CHRISTMAS, and all those other holiday´s, but I am not going to be politically correct. Hope Santa is nice to you all.

FACT OF THE DAY:
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeers grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeers retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.
Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.
We should've known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

not my words, but I thought it was interesting.

Alright, part two of today´s catch up on blogging. Essya´s trip to Estonia and our fall vacation together. Essya, as most of you know, is on exchange right now in Hungary, and being the only person from home I know on the continent, as well as being fantastic and an amazing friend, we obviously had to get together, so she flew out here on Oct 27th so that we could hang out for a week. My host brother and I went to pick her up, all that great stuff, we were having a horrible rain storm, we went home, talked way too much. Exciting stuff happened on Saturday when we went out to the farm that my host mom´s, Tiina, friends boyfriend owned. It was really beautiful, and it started snowing, and we watched movies that night, then went to sleep. The next day we woke up, and went on a walk around the farm, which was more of a guest ranch type thing, quite beautiful, all sorts of different places to sleep and things to do. We then drove to his saloon, which had buffalo in the building that you could pet and all sorts of cool decorations. It was sorta like a petting zoo, and you could feed the pigs and different animals, pretty neat. After this we went to his new milking facility for the cows, which was pretty cool, not a great sound, but I met a true Estonian milk cow, which has no horns, and we even managed to get Essie to pet it. The really not pleasant part was when we went to the next barn, which smelled terrible. We then went to the Toila spa, which has 6 saunas, a play pool and a real swimming pool, and the 4 younger of us splashed around and had a generally pretty good time. Then we went to a hotel, which we were quite certain was a front for some Russian mob stuff, but it was pretty nice. Next day we went to Narva, which is on the Russian boarder, Essya saw Russia for the first time, I had already been there before, and it again was really cool to be that close to Russia, hard to describe. then we went home.
Tuesday was Halloween, and we went out to a party, although we left the costumes behind, but people dressed up, although Halloween really isn't celebrated over here. Wednesday Essya met Katie, Arik, Gustavo, Rogério and Zaki, the south African from YFU, another exchange program, and we went out for dinner, and then out dancing. We had a good time, but Essie, the fashionista that she is, wore lovely, skin bearing shoes, which we then made her wander all over the downtown of Tallinn in. Needless to say, her feet were cold.
Friday we went out again with Zaki, and some of his friends from exchange who were living in Tartu, which was great, because Zaki left on the 28th of November, and we needed to see as much as possible of him as we could, he was really fun to be around. Saturday Essya took our family out for Indian food, and my host dad and counsellor, Vallo, said that I should probably be able to see Essya in March, which would be fantabulous, (mix between fantastic and fabulous). We met my new host family that night, had dinner with them, and they seemed pretty nice, although the little girl, Lisanna didn't talk to me all that much, even if i tried my Estonian (i know now that she talks a lot and is really great).
Next day, Sunday, Essya had to leave, but not before we wandered around Old Town Tallinn, in and out of churches and other buildings. We had cake and pie at a really great café that I had found, and we hung out until we had to take her to the airport, which was obviously pretty sad, but it was better knowing I would see her in 4-5 months rather than 9 months.
That was my week with Essya in October, which was really great. I will write about November, which was pretty boring, and my Lapland trip maybe later today or tomorrow.
love you all and hope you are all doing well, getting ready for Christmas or whatever you celebrate, if not, not getting sick. Elisabeth

Okay, so this has not been done in a very long long long time, so I will start from October in Finland. We went to Finland for the district camp, with all the exchange students in our district, which consists of southern central Finland and Estonia. We stayed in Helsinki on the Friday night, (Oct 12 or something like that) and that was really fun. Eddie, Mexican, Beatriz, Brazilian and Victoria, American, met us at the ferry terminal with McDonalds balloons, and wandered around with us. we took some pictures at a big church and then went over to Suomalinna, which in finnish means finnish castle, which is an island that is in Helsinki, but is sorta like a cute, quaint little town in itself. There was the hostel that we were to stay in that night, and it was really nice, although for you hostelers, the kitchen was decidedly lacking. We then went back on the ferry, which is about a 20 minute ride, to where Katie was waiting, cause she didnt want to come over the first time, and we wandered around downtown Helsinki. We met up with some more exchange students, and in general we just walked and talked. By the end of our rather early night, we had taken to singing chunks of songs while wandering around the streets (well lit, dont worry). This may be seen as a little weird to people at home, but you couldnt possibly imagine what kind of looks the Finns were giving us, those quiet reserved bunch.
The next morning we got on the bus with the other exchange students, drove to Tamaasaare (spelling?) and after lunch and formalities, started to play leadership, working together games. Though the other groups worked together quite well, our group either had too many leaders, or not enough followers, which is a kind way of saying that we were all about as stubborn as donkeys and wouldnt listen to eachother. It took us about 8 minutes to move skis 30 feet, but our real downfall was trying to turn over a rug whilst everyone was still standing on it, which ended up being us standing mostly around the rug and then lots of falling over. Saturday night we sauna´ed and hung out with all the exchange students. we had no will to sleep, so at about 4 in the morning, a group of us decided we were going to put on a play centred around blankets that were being worn as scarves. there were very few people who were interested in this and we stopped and reverted to telling jokes, which, because of pure exhaustion, were quite interesting, my favourite being : why did the boy fall off the swing? because he had no arms.
Sunday came, and because we are in Europe, we had to see a castle, so we walked about 2 km down the road, which gave us plenty of time to catch up on what everyone had been doing, and the beautiful country side gave us something to look at, as well as the forest gave something for the canadian boys to run through as though the were auditioning for the next version of Lost.
The castle was quite pretty, very old, and falling down, but we had fun, working on our picture taking skills as well as catwalks, and posing with excessive amounts of warm clothing.
The sad part, as always, was leaving, and we all had to leave at 1, as us Estonians had a ferry to catch. We drove back, parted ways at the ferry terminal and boarded the boat to go home, and that was our weekend in finland.
I will write more about Essie coming and visiting, and of course about Laplands, but i will post this before it gets deleted for about the millionth time.
The weekend after that I went to a friend house who lives outside of Tallinn, and we celebrated our friend Annika´s birthday, which was a lot of fun.
Love you all, and I am so sorry (especially to you, Brian, Essya has been telling me since October to write) that it has taken this long to post this, my work ethic is sadly lacking, but I will try to be more consistent.