Ski Jumping, Ballroom Dancing and Other Adventures in Finland

by Natalie Griffin, Greenheart Travel high school student in Finland

On Friday, I went to the Lahti with my friends Evelina and Hilla right after school. We walked to the bus stop and took a bus the rest of the way. We were going to watch Deadpool so we bought the tickets as soon as we got there and then left the theatre to eat. We went to a place that was like a mall and ate a bakery called Arnold’s. We ate amazing muffins and then spent time browsing through different stores.

We then decided to head back to the theatre and bought popcorn, soda, and candy and then proceeded to wait for the movie to start for 2 hours. Luckily the wait wasn’t too boring though because we spent the time talking and playing games. Eventually we were finally allowed into the theatre room and watched the movie which was great!

On February 18th it was a special traditional event for the high school students. They all dressed up in costumes and walked around in the morning with bags of candy which they threw at all the other students. They came to our classroom and threw so much candy in at us that my teacher put up a “shield” so that none of the candies would hit the girl sitting closest to the door. However, it was a lot of fun and by the end of the day we had a lot of candy!

The next day, we all went to the gym during our first classes to watch the older students preform the traditional ballroom dancing done every year. It was amazing to watch with all the girls wearing beautiful gowns and the boys wearing tuxedos with tailcoats. At the end of the dance routine anyone was invited to go down and dance too, but me and my friends stayed and watched.

After school I went to the Finnish military base with my host family to watch a ceremony of the people in the army giving their promises to Finland. It was very cold but luckily wasn’t too long and afterwards Joonas showed us around and we had buns and tea/coffee.

On Sunday, we went to Lahti to watch a ski championship which was really cool to see. There were people from many different countries there so I didn’t feel out of place at all, however I don’t think there were any other Americans. After the regular ski races we went back to our house to eat and then returned later in the day to watch the ski jump competition which was amazing to see in real life.