#2.0 AFS Camp in Hailuoto (Oulu FIN)

Two weeks into my stay AFS organized a post departure orientation. I figured it would pretty much be a repeat of the one in New York, they would go over the rules with us again and then give us tips and answer questions as to how to survive this year. I was looking forwards to seeing more of Finland and to meet the other exchange students, but that was about it.I had no idea that it would become one of the most memorable weekends in my life.

My AFS contact in my school Viivi would also be going. She had just come back this summer from her exchange year in South Africa. She is the one who interviewed my host family, and she's the one I'm supposed to go to if i have any trouble. We decided to go together a day early so we wouldn't have to catch the 5:00 train the next morning. Her boyfriend has a flat in Oulu where he goes to the University and we would spend Friday night there and then meet up with AFS early the next morning at the buss stop.

My Dad dropped us off at the train station and Viivi and i went in and bought tickets. It is about 15€ one way for a student or under 16 to get from Rovaniemi to Oulu. It is a distance of 225 km and it takes about 3 hours by train. Oulu is the biggest city in Finland north of Tampere home to 130,000 people, more then twice the size of Rovaniemi. The train was nice, pretty comfortable and quite fast. We talked most of the way there, she told me about her time in south Africa. When we weren't talking i was gazing out the train window in awe and Finland's uninterrupted forest. Its just crazy how many trees there are. I love it! its absolutely magical, but Viivi was laughing at my enthusiasm saying that Finnish nature all looks the same. I even took somevideos out the window. At that time of the year everything was still in its summer colors of green.

It was on the train that she told me that we weren't going to be staying at a hotel in the city as I imagined, but staying in cabins on an Island off the coast of Oulu!!!! I got excited then. She also told me that her boyfriend was on a trip to Helsinki right now, but his roommate was still here.

The train station was in the middle of the city, you only have to walk forward from the train station to find yourself in the middle of the city surrounded by 4 story buildings on either side (that's really tall for Finland) She stopped and asked a question at R-Kiosk,which is like the equivalent of a 7-11.

We had to catch a bus that would take us to the place we were staying on the other side of town. We walked through the city center which feels really European, compared to Rovaniemi which was completely burned down by the retreating Germans during WWII and was completely rebuilt in a more modern way by Alvar Aalto, on of Finland's most famous architects. While in Oulu, with its narrow cobblestone streets and architecture from the 1800's made me feel like i was transported into another world. We past Finnish designer stores like Marimekko and Sepälää with big store windows showing the glamorous trends of the upcoming winter that i would never be able to afford. I wanted to stay and ogle at the city for a wile, but Viivi didn't want to miss our bus, so we walked to the buss stop. On the way Viivi saw someone she new, no
surprise there, Finland is such a small country that where ever you go your bound to see a familiar face.

We Fond our bus stop and got on a bus, the buss was about 2€ which is way to expensive and the reason why i walk everywhere in Rovaniemi. We go off somewhere and Viivi realized that she was lost, so we had to call Jukka, her boyfriends roommate, to come and find us and lead us safely back to his flat. I was a little intimidated by him at first, as I am by most Finnish people, but after he got over his fear of speaking English he was very nice, saying "make your self at
home".

A few things that surprised me was how many young people live in an apartment by themselves in Finland. A few of my friends from school do even though there only about 16. Another example of the independence given to the young by their parents. Also most of Finnish homes are surprisingly modern. Except for my home, which was built by my Host dad in the 80's. One thing all Finnish homes have in common are mud rooms. You MUST take off your shoes before going into anyone's home. There is also a place to put your coat just about anywhere you go, from restaurants, to schools or even trains always have the hooks on the wall for you to safely hang your coat.

We went out for dinner and then went back to the flat to sleep, we had a long day ahead of us. We got up early and fond a bus stop that would take us back into the center. The main bus stop is next to the train station, but you have to go through a tunnel under the train tracks to get there. We were some of the first people to get there. We even beat the AFS people. People started to trickle in Iwas really curious about them, and i wondered if i would meet anyone I knew. I was surprised again when the AFS volunteers arrived. No one was over 25 as far as
I could tell, unlike the meeting in NY where none of the staff was under 35. They got us organized and onto the bus.

All the while iIwas meeting new people from all over the world. Turkey, Japan, Brazil, Hungary, Italy, Germany, new Zealand ( I remembered her from the airport), Switzerland, Venezuela, Belgium, Thailand, France and then finally America! There was another American girl from Alaska that I remembered. Everyone was speaking English with each other, which I wasn't surprised by, but it was still really cool, i never realized what a bridge language English had become.We got on the Bus and Samulli the trip leader got on the PA and told us more about where we were going and what we would be doing. He had been an exchange student to Japan, and he spoke in almost perfect English. He told us that the Island we would be going to is called Hailuoto and we would be taking a ferry there and then drive another 20 minutes to get to the most western part of the island where we would be staying in cabins on the beach! I new this was gonna be good!

Everyone was talking with each other and Samulli kept telling us things, playing tour guide. When we got to the see,we had to wait a while for the next ferry, so they let us out to stretch our legs. The view was beautiful.We were right along the Baltic sea and you could see the coast line of Oulu and there were these huge white windmills for wind energy. We climbed back onto the bus and drove right onto the ferry, they packed about 30 cars onto the ferry!
Once we were on our way they let us off the bus again and told us to be careful of the cars because Finnish people really like their cars. The ferry ride took about 20 minutes, which was too short for me. Back on the bus they told us that in winter the sea would completely freeze and you could just drive there.

Once we were one the island they switched tour Guides. The new one's name was "Oll...lli" (Olli) He was quite a funny character. He had been and exchange student in Texas, which explained why his English was soo bad. He kept telling us his name but he reaaaaly exaggerated the double Ls. He just talked to us for a while which was really funny, he got the whole bus laughing at him and his English. And he had the funniest laugh ever! We arrived st a cluster of buildings that was the meeting center and the cafeteria. We went right into the meeting room and all sat down. The AFS staff was at the front and they all introduced themselves. There were..6 all together. Before they got the meeting started, they gave us some unfortunate news. There was no toilet paper in any of the cabins, and there was only one roll for all like 35 of us. So we passed around the roll and each took our share. After everyone had got some, Samulli told us that it was just a joke, and now we would have to tell a fact about ourselves for each piece of toilet paper we took. So that set the mood for the whole weekend, it was really fun and joke-i (is that a word?)

They talked to us for a while and then gave us the program for the rest of the trip. After that we Split into groups and did different games/ activities, like drawing a map of the world in the sand and standing where you belong, or saying why you wanted to come here (I hate that question). Then we went to the cafeteria for lunch. I wish i could tell you all the things we talked about, but that would take way too long. It was so cool to be talking to everyone. No one was shy and every one was friendly. I talked with the American and New Zealand girl, and every one listened in on our conversation, testing themselves to see if they could understand native English speakers speak. Everyone tells me that i speak perfectly and they can understand everything, but hardly anyone could understand the New Zealand girl except for us Americans. the Italian boys were on her case for speaking wrong English. It was great.

Then we got back on the bus and went to you cabins. It was beautiful!! they were right on the beach, you just had to walk over a hill and you were staring out over the Baltic sea. Olli told us that if we looked close enough that we could see Sweden, but you cant believe everything that he says. We split into smaller groups again, I was with the New Zealand Girl, the American girl, A boy from Belgium and a Boy from France. Our group leader was from Rovaniemi and she had spent a year in Italy. We talked about our host families with her, and we went through some worst case scenarios and what to do if they happened. then we stopped and had a coffee break. Afterwards we did some more talking in our groups, then we went and had dinner.

Back at the cabins we now had free time between now at 6:00 the next morning (they didn't give us a bedtime) So we went out and played on the beach as the sun was setting. It was mind blowing! We played games on the beach, and had races and stuff like that. The sand was really soft so i took my shoes off, even though it was icy sand. We went a few meters into the water from the shore, but it was freezing so we didn't say there long.

Later on that night, after the sun had set at about 9:00, all the girls had a chance to go into the sauna. We ran out in our bathing suits into the cold night to try and find the sauna house. We found it and there were about 15 girls who were there and wanted to go in. So we decided to go in shifts. We took a shower before, and right before we got in one of the Finnish girls there told us that traditionally one goes to the Sauna naked, and wanting to be as Finnish as possible we all striped down and got into the Sauna. We managed to cram 10 girls into this tiny sauna. Some one poured watter on the rocks, which instantly evaporated into clouds of burning steam that found a way to spread its heat to every part of your body. It even came clawing down your thought suffocating you with its heat. Overall its a very pleasantly purifying experience. After about 10 minutes of that, about 6 of us (including my self but excluding any Finnish people) decided to go for the full Finnish experience and go jump into the Baltic sea for a bit of a swim. We Ran out of the sauna house (bathing suits on again), just the shock of the night air was enough to catch your breath and make you pause, but we kept going, screaming all the
way. There was a small crowd on the beach watching us to make sure we didn't chicken out. We ran strait into the waiting waves.The shock of the water was like a million needles shoving themselves deep into every inch of your skin. I couldn't breath, i couldn't move the cold was so intense. After a few seconds i had enough, but the others had not, they wanted to go for the total submersion. We ran further out into the waves in search of deeper water, we had to go pretty far out to find any. When we made it out far enough we counted to 3 and all 6 of us went under at once. You know nothing of cold until you spend time under the surface of the baltic sea. It was 10000 times colder then when i first got in the water, we screamed coming back up, there was nothing else to do. There was no getting used to this water, you would litterly freeze while you waited. Even so we spent about 5 minutes in the water shrieking the whole time, I went under a few more times.

We ran back to shore, strangely the night air didn't feel any warmer after the sea. We ran past the astonished faces of the people watching us the crazy foreign girls doing something crazier then most Finnish people would do, but we didn't stop for them, we kept running until we were back in the sauna. Even with the scorching temperatures of the sauna it took us a while to defrost.We could have stayed there forever, but someone told us that our turn was up and the boys were coming soon.

So we got out and went back to our cabins to get dressed. We went out to a little gazebo type thing where they were having a camp fire and roasting all kinds of traditional Finnish things like mustamakkara (black sausage) and, of coarse Marshmallows. So we sat around the fire trying to speak in our two week old Finnish. "Missä on makkara?" "En tiedä..aha se on tuolla. Ole hyvä." "Kiitos!". We watched as it was the boys turn to take a dip in the sea. But there were only 3 of them who went, and they were only there long enough to go under once before they were running back. Psht we were so braver then them. The camp fire hose became more crowded as the boys got back from Sauna. After a while of sitting and talking, people started drifting off to bed.

Ashleigh (the New Zealand girl) and i took a walk. We ran into Olli who told us to follow him, we
did and he took us a ways away from the light of the cabins. It was a clear night and the view of the northern sky was spectacular. I had never seen so many stars, even in the mountains. He started to point out Finnish constellations. Then we saw Shooting starts or 'flying stars' as they are in Finnish. I made a wish. Then he told us to look at the very edge of the northern sky, there was something there, something long and bright blue that stretched out across the
northern horizon. He told us it was the Aurora Borealis!

Back at the Cabins, only 7 of us were left awake, and none of us wanted to go to sleep anytime soon. We stayed up together huddled for warmth on the freezing beach like penguins until 3 in the morning....Best Night Ever!

The next morning we hiked back to the cafeteria for breakfast and then had one more meeting with our groups at the cabins before we had to pack up our things and load up the bus. The bus ride back to Oulu was a sad one, no one wanted to go back home. Everyone was a flurry with trying to get every ones Finnish phone numbers and email addresses as well as last minute pictures of everyone. The Ferry ride back was mostly about pictures also. I felt closer to
some of these people that i had just met that any of the Finns i had known for 2 weeks. I was sad to see them go as they each got off the bus and made their own way home.

On the train home I found out that there were 3 other exchange students staying in Rovaniemi. One of the Turkish girls, the french boy and a Japanese girl. We exchanged information and promised to meet up again soon.

My Dad came and picked me and Viivi up at the airport. It felt weird to be back, like i was coming home.