Let's meet Finland -study circle

You are all welcome to learn about Finland and Finnish language! :-)

London

We were planning with my sister, Laura, that she could visit me on the beginning of May, before she starts working in Helsinki. Unfortunately we didn't find any suitable flights for her for those days so we decided to do something else - let's visit some another country together! So then we booked flights to London. I was surprised when found pretty cheap ones from Venice.

And yesterday after a loooong searching from the internet, we finally booked also a hotel. Every time when there was a good one, we noticed that they don't have rooms anymore or they are for one or three persons. Or without breakfast. Or something else was wrong. Hah! What a perfect websites they have for that...

I'm excited to see the London, never been there before :-) Three weeks to go!!

Easter

Yes, usually it's meant to celebrate Easter with family, but what to do when you are thousands of kilometers away from home and your family?

Arrange a get-together with other volunteers in Slovenia and spend time with 'volunteer-family' :-) So on Sunday we went to Ljubljana, to a youth center in Rakovnik. It was a nice place to spend time together by talking, eating&drinking (this time we forgot all traditional Easter foods and ordered pizza), playing billiard and other games. And really having fun - the evening continued all the way till morning, so much fun we had!

..So let's just say that this Easter was something completely different so far!

Planica

On Saturday, 23rd of March we went to Planica to watch ski jumping. The atmosphere on the area was awesome; people cheering for Slovenia with flags, playing harmonika and singing, dancing - really enjoying and having fun!

Unfortunately Finnish ski jumpers didn't make it to the final competition but never mind - we were cheering for Slovenia of course! The competition was really worth for seeing.

http://www.planica.si/home

Finnish ski jump on Facebook: Ski Jumping Team Finland

About Finns

Yesterday I found a good link posted on Facebook by my friend; 

10 Things not to do in Finland

Even it's a kind of list for people who are about to travel to Finland, I found it also a good way to compare differences with other countries.

I think especially the way of having a conversation is quite different when comparing to some other countries. Finns don't interrupt a conversation, rather stay quiet if they have anything important to say and don't feel uncomfortable if there is a silence moment in between having a conversation with someone. You might think some of these as negative but you can also turn it to way that Finns are good and reliable listeners. :-)

But there is one thing in this list which I disagree with. It's always okay to talk about ice-hockey - even we are competitive when playing ice-hockey against Sweden, it shouldn't be taken too seriously :-)

Angry Birds at school

I've had some presentations about Finland at schools around Ajdovscina. Last week and this Tuesday I also visited Danilo Lokarja school in Ajdovscina, we were singing and dancing two Finnish songs with kids - that was a lot of fun! And I was surprised how quickly and well they learned the lyrics, pronouncing words like real Finns :-)

So far I've visited primary schools in Budanje, Smarje, Podnanos, Goce and Lokavec. (I'm sorry that I don't have these s, z, c -letters with "roofs" on my keypad -  it's Finnish so instead of those I have ä, ö, å ;). I have a Power point presentation about Finland and show some videos - for example about northern lights and ice-swimming after sauna. And these seem to be something what they haven't seen before :) After the presentation we have a workshop and make Angry Birds characters from cardboard - kids have really liked them! I chose Angry Birds theme because it comes from Finland and kids know them and like the game really much!

I will add some pictures later :-)

Let's speak English!

Every Wednesday Urska and me are teaching English for children in Danilo Lokarja school after lessons. There are eight kids and they are from 5 to 8 years old. Even some of them can't read yet, they have already learned a lot :) 

It's always so nice to spend time with them!

For the previous lesson I prepared a map of a town. And then we taught how to ask directions like "Where is the bank?" - The bank is on the left.

Yeeees I know it's upside down! I tried to get it right way but it didn't work.
It looks right until I add it here, why...?