The Host Family

One reason I chose Finland was because how different it was compared to Australia in mostly every aspect. Australians be very friendly, and outgoing, Finnish people are very shy and like silence, SO much so that there language doesn't have such a thing as small talk. Therefore the people wouldn't walk up to strangers in a social event, like a party, and say Hello, how are you doing. No that just doesn't happen. This is why the Finnish people can come off as a bit rude, because at any situation they will choose not too talk. So when you hold the door open for someone they will most likely not say Thankyou, or if you bump into someone on accident while walking on the street, they won't say excuse me. Like when I was standing in front of the walk way, one dude just stood behind me for about 10 seconds until he just nudged me with his hand. So Finnish people can be a bit weird to Australians.

So for my first host family I was ready for a Finnish family where they wouldn't talk to me all that much, well that was not the case with me. My first host family was very talkative, open warm and friendly. So when we took the car trip home we spent the whole time talking about Finland, and its people, and I got to talk about Australia and its animals, and people, and weird cultures and lots of things.

It was great.

Then we got to the house, now I'm a big boy so I need a bit of space. In this apartment, the lights where quite low, so I would hit my head on them frequently, the bathroom is 1 metre by 2 metres, and the kitchen is half the size of my the kitchen in my house.

Though it may sound like I'm complaining, I wanted this, to be removed thoroughly from my comfort zone.

Another difference between Finland and Australia is the food and eating habits. I have found in Australia we have big breakfast, smallish lunch, and big dinner an hour or two before bed. However in Finland it is almost like they have a big lunch and everything else is like snacks, or a light meal. So they would have maybe breakfast, morning snacks, lunch, and then like 3 after snacks. It is kinda weird. Most of the time the afternoon snacks are mostly bread and stuff you can add on top of it, like cheese, and some meat. But sometimes it can be some other meal, like a soup, or salad with meat, or this very special type of bread which is not bread. It is called karjalanpiirakka, and it is like a small pie with a thin crust that has on the inside rice or something similar. It was very tasty.

Also very common is eating moose and reindeer, which I have had my fair share of now.

In terms of my room, the bed is a little smaller than I am used too, but I like it because it is small and therefore easy to warm.

Other than that, I have been enjoying myself immensely in being a complete Australian and doing everything that the Finnish people find weird, such as walking up to someone and just saying hello.

But that will be for the next time.

Anway

Kiitos for Reading

Stay Awesome

Fletcher Kendall