Sometimes I forget I'm in Finland. Or even Europe, for that matter, and the cars don't even drive on the other side of the road to remind me. Sometimes I'm sitting on the bus, thinking to myself (in English!) and someone will say something and for a split second I think "whoa! You can speak Finnish!! How cool is that?!" .....and then I remind myself- "You, dorko, are in FINLAND." And then I wonder why it makes any difference that I'm here rather than there. I still call Kansas home when I talk about it, and when I'm feeling particularly out-of-place I think of MY bedroom, back in the states, but at the end of the day when I'm back in bed, my Finnish bed, I'm just as content to be there as I would be in my own room at home. And so I think that the only thoughts of maybe-homesickness I'm ever felt are more habit that actaul homesickness. If that makes any sense to anyone.....kudos to you.

There are differences, yeah. It doesn't get dark until way after 10:00, (although you can see darkness come noticeably earlier each night), football is soccer, they don't put ice in drinks, (ARGH that one's annoying), everyone walks and ride bikes or takes the bus, so no one has more than one car if they have one at all, they DON'T HAVE RECEES, they eat potatoes with everything, they have Hesburger instead of McDonalds, (and it's way better, too), and guys wear tight jeans all the time instead of impossible baggy ones.

But notice how none of those are anything like "everyone has three arms" or "shaking hands is a severe insult" or anything. AFS prepped us SO much for this so-called 'Culture Shock', and now that I'm here I still have no idea what they were talking about. Yes, jet lag was a pain in the ass, but being 7 hours ahead is not part of their culture, it just IS. The food isn't anything special; they don't eat monkey brains or dog, or drink....I don't know, you fill that one in. Drinks are pretty normal. The style is a little different here, but I blend in pretty well and it's not like I went out and bought European clothes before I came, you know?

Oh well.....I gotta go now, but I'll try and write more later. And I'm GOING to get those pictures up today. Promise. =)