Issue#1.1 The Trip There

The next day after breakfast and a last meeting with our groups where we ‘graduated’, we got on a bus with the kids going to the Netherlands, Sweden and Latvia, and headed to the Newark airport in New Jersey. The whole ride over, Heather had her video camera out and was furiously filming the New York scenery. “Look mama, real Asian people! Ain’t that just the darndest thing Mama?” And, “look at that! I bet you never did see anything like that in Kentucky!” It was very entertaining and kept me off my nerves.

We got to the airport with plenty of time. The AFS guide handed out our passports, which contained our visas, our tickets and our international student ID. The Finnish visa looks really cool! It makes it feel so official. We got through security ok, but the guy who was checking passports scrutinized mine for like 3 minutes! He even pulled out his little eyeglass! But he let me through finally. We had an hour to kill in the international terminal before our 6:00 plane left for Copenhagen. The AFS students who were going to Latvia and the Netherlands were also taking that flight. We would split up in Denmark and take our separate connections.
While waiting for the plane, us "Finland kids" practiced our Finnish. The Finnish language is not related to any Germanic or romance language. It is part of the Finno-Uralic language group. Its closest relative is Estonian and various Lappish and Sami dialects, and it is distantly related to Hungarian. So basically…. it will be very hard to learn! It has no future tense, no articles (a, an, the) and no gender whatsoever (they have one pronoun hän that means both he and she). Verbs conjugate and so does the word for no. There are about 15 different cases as well! So the words can get pretty long! They have 2 extra letters in their alphabet ä (like the a in cat) and ö (like the er in murder with a soft r)

The plane was massive! It had 2 seats by the window, then an aisle, then 4 seats in the middle, then another aisle, then 2 more seats! And there were about 3 sections that were about as long a small airplane. Luckily, I had a window. Next to me was Jenna and in front of me were Heather and Sean. We were all the kids going to Finland for a year. There were little touch screens on the backs of the seats in front of us. There were about 20 movies to watch and nearly as many radio stations. My favorite part of it was that it had flight information and outside cameras, so you could see directly below you on the screen, and watch the flight's progress on a map. We flew north over Canada, fell just south of Iceland, and flew over Scotland before landing in Denmark at 7:00 local time. It was an overnight flight that lasted about 7 hours, and I didn’t sleep a wink.

Finally we landed in Copenhagen. We realized that we had about 20 minnutes in order to catch our plane for Helsinki, and we had no idea where our gate was. We got our passports stamped at the gate, the first in my new passport, and the 8 of us began to race along through the terminals. The airport was massive. It looked more like a high class shopping center than an international express way. It had High-Fashion stores. We had to go through security again before we could get to our terminal. Then we had to race some more. The airport’s architecture looked more like a museum than anything else. We made it there with minutes to spare.
The flight to Helsinki was short, (only about 2 hours) but it felt like forever. The plane was nearly empty, so all of us Americans sat together and talked excitedly. I was still very nervous because I still had no idea how I would get to Rovaniemi, which is about 820 km from Helsinki. AFS USA told be that I would be taking a train, but that would take about 9 hours- and after my sleepless day, I wasn't looking forward to that idea. On the other hand I had heard from my host family that I would be taking a plane...So I would just have to wait and talk to the AFS people when I got there.

When we 8 excited Americans stepped noisily of the plane, it took us a moment to realize that the airport that was full of people was nearly silent besides us. We had all heard of the steriotypical 'Silent Finn' , and now I could definitely see where it came from.
The Air Port was clean and modern. All the signs were in Finnish, Swedish, and then English. We followed them to the baggage claim, picked up our 44 lb (22 kilos) bags, and made for the exit. More than half of the kids would meet their host families there. There were 3 of us that still had a ways to travel. We went down the escalator and met the crowd of waiting host families.

I went over to the AFS people (who weren't wearing their red shirts like the people in USA told us they would) And they told be that I would be taking a plane, and it would leave in about 45 minuts. I was so relieved! While waiting to get my ticket, I met two girls who came here from New Zealand. They were the first country to arrive, and we were the second. AFS told us that they were expecting about 200 kids from about 20 different countries to come to the Air Port that day!

Once I had my ticket, I made my way back through security by myself, and found my way to my gate. I didn't have to wait long before I got on the FinnAir plane! I was looking forwards to seeing my new country from above, but unfortunately everything was cloudy. When I could see, the only thing I could make out was an endless sea of green forests and the occasional lake.
The flight lasted an hour and some of the excitement had started to wear off, and I could feel the fact that I had been awake about 20 hours.

We broke through the clouds and I had a first look at Rovaniemi! -My home for the next 10 months. It was/is beautifull! It sits on the junction of 2 rivers and is surrounded by forest! They have a few beautiful bridges, and the town looks suprisingly modern. The plane landed. I got off and was greeted by a big sign that said, "Welcome to the official Airport of Santa!" I walked past the sign and searched the faces of the crowd for my new family.