Tervetuloa Kevät! Welcome Spring!

This weekend, I enjoyed the wonderful weather, the sun was shining the whole time!
On Saturday, I watched my host family do some gardening, while I took pictures.
Also, I discovered that sweet water, called mahla in Finnish, can come out a tree when you drill a hole in its trunk.

 

 

On Sunday afternoon, my friends and I had a lovely picnic in Tampere. I must say, the chocolate cake I made was pretty good, so was the food the other girls brought.



 

Multilingualism

Today I wanted to talk about languages. I read an article on aeon.com about bilingualism and multilingualism (read full article here) which made my thoughts run away on their own.
I was raised in Dutch by my parents but always went to school in French. You could say I have been bilingual since birth. I have always been grateful my parents made that decision. Quite soon I discovered the perks of speaking several languages. I remember travelling to Morocco when I was about four years old and feeling proud because I could still speak to people on a different continent.
When I was about seven years old I started learning English by speaking with friends of my parents and my stepfather. Which was exciting for me because it meant I could speak with even more people!
And now, I am here in Finland learning Finnish...

I encourage everybody to make sure their children are bilingual because it enables speaking to people from all over the world. Speaking several languages also means getting to know several different cultures. If this isn't enough to convince you, let's look at it from a scientific point of view. Bilingualism is said to help in matters of social interaction and cognitive abilities. According to several studies, the brain of a bilingual child is more developed than the one of a monolingual child. Plus, bilingual people, supposedly, develop dementia four and a half years later than others.

I know learning a language isn't easy but I promise you it will be worth it! I recommend learning a language by listening and speaking the language as much as possible. Travelling to a region/country where that language is spoken, probably helps the most. (And here I am encouraging exchange programs...)

To conclude, I would like to thank once again my parents for giving me the opportunity to speak several languages!

Cultural weekend

How was your weekend? Mine was quite cultural. On saturday I went to see the movie "American Hustle" with my host sisters from my previous host family. It was very nice to spend some time with them, I appreciated it a lot. Plus the movie was interesting and funny at times.

On sunday I went to a concert, my host mother is in a choir. They sang songs from movies and musicals. During the first part, each member of the choir was dressed as a movie character (my host mom was Pocahontas), and in the second part they all had a cape and a mask, as in the Phantom of the Opera. For the second song they took off their masks, which made them look like monks, perfect excuse to sing "I will follow him" from the movie "Sister Act". After that song, the singers took off their capes and revealed their stylish clothes.

New host family

I have some news! I changed host family. My previous host family asked me to move for a reason that I completely understand - and that had nothing to do with me.
Now, I live in Takamaa, a small village about 7 km from the center of Ylöjärvi. The village of Takamaa is quite isolated, with lots of nature, which also means there aren't many busses but luckily I'm slowly getting used to that, and the weather is better so I can use the bicycle...
Currently, I am the only "kid" in the house, but my host parents (Birgitta and Pauli) have several kids who don't live at home anymore. I now also live with three cats.
Here are some pictures of my room:

Hiihtolomma - Winter Holidays

Winter holidays... Sounds like music to my ears! And here is why:

On monday, I went to Tampere to meet my friends. We showed the city to some other students who live near Seinajoki (Western Finland), and just hung out and made pictures... 

On tuesday, I joined my friend Afia and her contactperson Tiina. We went swimming, and I discovered I actually missed swimming... I promessed myself to do something about that...Then, we went to eat in a Japanese and Chinese restaurant. 

Afterwards, we went to pick up our friend Azusa at her home and we all went to Tiina's home where we had some coffee and we gave ourselves a treat since we had done some exercise. :p We later also played some games on Tiina's Wii Fit (playstation). 

On wednesday, Tiina, Afia, Azusa and I went to Vapriiki museum in Tampere. Vapriiki is a variation on the Swedish word "fabrik" which means "factory". Indeed, Vapriikki used to be a factory where they produced textile and also iron products, including locomotives and damask cloths of linen. Vapriikki offers many different exhibitions, such as the Natural History Museum...

Afia, Azusa and me

... the Shoe museum ...

... Innovations exhibition... 

... the Toy Museum 

... and the Finnish Ice hockey Hall of Fame. 

Thursday was a quiet resting day. 

Friday, I just hung out with Afia and Azusa in the city center of Tampere. 

Saturday, I welcomed my friend Joy. She is also a Belgian exchange student and she lives in Mikkeli (Eastern Finland). After picking her up at the station, we went to Pyynikintori with my host mother. Pyynikintori is a tower, at the base of this tower there is a cafe where you can have the best pulla (pastry) of Finland, and at the top you can see a beautiful panorama of Tampere. 

Joy 

Afterwards, I walked around with Joy in the center of Tampere, and showed her my favourite spots. 

Today (sunday), Joy and I went to the Muuminmuseum, it was so nice it brought right back to childhood!