Again I failed in writing my report and I am really sorry, but I was so excited with my new family, the trip to Lapland, Christmas and new years parties that I totally forgot. Besides I had my exams week and all my projects due to the past few days.

It's been half of the year already and I can't believe it went by so quickly, especially those past two months in which everything happened all at once. I heard from former exchange students that it goes even faster on the next months

In the beggining of December I moved. My new family seemed nice to me at first, but that was about it. My mom was not very talkative, my sister Suvi, who is 17, was just like a tipical finnish girl and did not talk much either. I did not know my dad because when I went to visit them he was on a trip. The house was very confortable and big. They seemed to be extremely organized, maybe a little too much. But I was wrong about everything.

My family turned out to be GREAT!!! My host dad is an extremely funny and hyper men. He is all the time asking me to go jogging with him, ice skating, going to watch hockey games, etc. My host mom really is a little too shy but after she got to know me things are going great. My sister, well, the only thing I can say is that she is a friend. An awesome friend. The first week she took me to a party with her friends, introduced me to everyone, who tturned out to be very kind and nice people. At the end of the party, one of them said that now I was part of their groupo of friends too. I felt really good. They invited me to go sking with them in March, and always when they are doing something the call me to join them.  A week after I was in the new family I went to a trip to Lapland for sking. All the exchange students from whole finland by Rotary were in that trip. It was the first time we met since summer, when we were in the language camp. We had many parties, 3 days sking, a celebration with fireworks of the birthday of Finland, sauna, swiming pool (I never thought I would miss swimming that much), visits to museums, art galeries, and the coolest thing: A reindeer sledge drive! I felt like Santa Claus. We also went to visit Santa, but I had done it before, so it was just OK. In this trip they also told us about Euro Tour, and it sounds very promissing!  

My Christmas was really nice, though it was cold. I got -25 celsius (something like -7 F) on Christmas eve. And you all are saying that this winter is really cold in Florida ha? We had a party at my house with my host parents relatives, and we went to the cemitery to put candles for the family members that had died, which is very tipical from here. That was when I totally froze. I thought my nose would fall off. We opened the gifts at night, and my family liked the gifts I gave them a lot. I also loved everything they gave to me. The funny thing about Christmas over here, besides the fact they open the gifts is the Afternoon of Christmas eve, is that they have three days of Christmas. It goes from the 24th until the 26. The 25th we wentto have luch at Mummo's (Grandma's) house, and went iceskating at night. But we came bac really early cause it was way too cold.

Between Christmas and new year I went to a summer cottage with my host sister and our friends. It was this really old house, with absolutely nothing besides electricity. The Bathroom was a whole in the floor outside of the house (what is a big problem cause its way too cold to go outside). The house had no electrical heating. We had to make a fire, and no running water. We had to take it from the lake, but it was frozen, so we had to take blocks of ice and melt it. It might sound horrible, but to tell you the truth I was missing that. We stayed there for one night, and it was awesome. We had a radio and danced a lot, for the whole night. 

In New Years I had a great time. The Brazilian exchange students prepared a New Year party in a town in South Finland, and invited me to go. It was a Latino party, the mexicans were there also. We started parting at 3 in the afternoon of New Years eve. At night we went to Sauna, and I took the very best picture. It is a picture of me in my bathing suit standing barefeet in the snow. We would go to sauna and right after that we would run outside and roll in the snow. FINNISH CULTURE!!!! Really, it feels just great! It was a weekend of dancing that was about everything we did in new years! In Brazil they say that if you spend the first day of new year happy you will have a completely Happy year. If it depends on that, we will all have a great time for the whole year.

When I came back home I had to study way too much. My exams were comming right after vacations. Those were the first exams I have ever done in Finland. That's how it is over here in the IB program. We take exams once every semester.

My next month is very promissing. You will see on the next report!

Love you all! Take care

Marian