My past weeks were great! I have been snowboarding, finally, without giving up and going for skis. For three days I snowboarded, and accorting to my friends, I'm already a PRO! It was awesome. We went to sweeden, this place called Hemavan with some people from my school. I didn't know them, cause they are from different classes, and people here are kind of afraid of talking to foreigners. But, my friend said she was going, and I decided to go as well. She got sick, and couldn't go anymore, but I didn't have anything to lose so I went anyways. I roomed with some really nice girls, and they were trying their best to teach me how to snowboard. It went great the first day. The second one we went to this really hard mountain, and this one of the girls, who was doing Telemark skiing was not that good either. We went once, and we did not feel like going anymore, cause we couldn't enjoy it. The view from up there was great, but the lifts they had there look like some kind of hooks, and one cannot go up without the snowboard. I really wanted to go back up there and take some nice photos. Angelo, really, you are lucky, I have never seen views like the ones I saw in Sweeden. Well, back to the subject, this guy came in a snow scooter and I asked my friend Anna, who speaks great sweedish to go there and ask if he could take us up there. She was very shy, so I went there and asked him myself in English, and he understood me!!! Anna couldn't believe that he took us there. We went all the way up, only waving at the people who were trying hard with their snow boards. He also took us down and left us at this cafe, where the other people were. We could not stop laughing. At the thid day, we were in the easier mountain again, but my body hurted so much, and everytime I would fall it would hurt so bad, that I just decided to stop. 

The weekend after that was also great. I went down to Helsinki to take the SAT with some friends from my school, and I met some exchange students friends there as well.It was my first time in the capital of Finland. We all went parting, visiting all the places and all that. Helsinki is much preetier from the place where I live. The difference is that during the Winter War, Oulu, my city, was totally destroyed by bombs and all that, and Helsinki still has some old buildings, which makes it look more European. It is also a city with 500 thousand inhabitants (wow, that's big!), being 5 times bigger than oulu. In Helsinki you can find Pizza Hut and even condensed milk in the stores. I was amazed, and started to play around and tell my friends that where I lived we did not have anything cause it was Lapland already.

The next weekend was awesome. On friday I went partying with my sister and some of our friends, getting home at 4:30 in the morning. Then, I woke up at six, because I had a meeting with Rotary in Rovaniemi, which is 3 hours northern to oulu. I was sleeping during the whole trip! It was awesome because we got to know the Australians who had arrived on the weekend before. There were 7 new students from Australia in my district. We went to visit Santa Claus, again, for the fifth time, and we went gold digging. Inside, of course because it was -35 celsius outside. I got three very small pieces of gold and an Amethist!!! I left by train, before everybody else because my family and I had a trip to Stockholm in Sweeden after that.

We went by boat, it was awesome, Stockholm is very preety as well. We mainly shopped when we were there. My parents wanted to go to so many stores, it was not even funny. It was too cold also, and I could not take pictures. Still, I had a great time! The boat was kind of luxurious, with swimmingpool, sauna, and all that on it.

I have also been writing many essays for school, and also for university applications and all that.I'll be applying for the University of Miami and FIU. I was going to Boston at first, but after I came here I decided I did not want to leave home anymore for that long.

I have been thinking about it, I haven't seen Puqui's reports for a long time. I hope she is OK. I really want to know how things are going in France!

I miss you all, and the weather as well, gotta go now, 

Love

Mariana