Sep. 05
Mom comes to Finland!
It’s so exciting to get to show someone around where you live. Although tons of people have seen pictures and heard stories, nothing beats seeing it in person. There’s not many “sights” to see in Joensuu so when I was showing my mom around the city it was more like, “This is the grocery store we go to” and “Here’s the university” and “Look, those are the people washing their rugs at the river”. Luckily, my mom is into that kind of stuff. She will get equally as excited about visiting a new grocery store as she would about seeing the Eiffel Tower - so that worked in my favor. And the rug washing, well she was ALL about that.
Sep. 03
Rome
Rome seems like such a long time ago. I guess it’s because we’ve been so many places since then. The words that come to my head when I think back on our time in Rome are: hot, gelato and ancient. I think that pretty much sums it up.
Jul. 31
Paris (and summer in Finland)
For all of those who have prayed, hoped and wished for warm weather to make its way to Finland, thank you, it has. Now if we could work on a little AC up in here, that’d be really cool (no pun intended).
Jul. 09
Gdańsk, Poland
WWe woke up at 5:00 am, rolled out of bed, stumbled downstairs to pick up our carefully packed breakfast and began our journey to Gdańsk. The first 2 hours on the bus were pretty silent. Occasionally you could hear a short mumbled conversation, but for the most far it was silent, with heads bobbing up and down, trying desperately to get more sleep. As we arrived in Gdańsk, heads began to perk up and eyes were peeled open to take in the new city. Our first stop was a boat ride and tour of some of the historical WWII sites. Seeing the city by boat was a fun new perspective as we watched people enjoying the warm sun and the colorful waterfront buildings pass by.
Jul. 03
Toruń, Poland
First of all, YAY we’re back in Joensuu! The past month has been full of fun times and great memories, but I sure was ready to be back in my own bed. The first two weeks of the trip I was in Toruń, Poland working with students from three other countries on an intensive summer course. The topic was building intercultural awareness in teaching English as a foreign language. We arrived late Sunday night after a 4.5 hour train to Helsinki, 2 hour flight to Warsaw and then a 4 hour bus ride to Toruń. Then early Monday morning we were up for the beginning of ten long days in class (don't worry, we managed to squeeze in some time for fun). There were nine other students from UEF that went on the trip, so I got to make some pretty great friends as well.
