After 30 hours of travel and a stop at a shopping mall for some food, I have made it to ARISE Finland! It is as beautiful here. If you have ever been to Muskoka in Ontario, the terrain here feels very similar. Lots of trees and rocks, and there is a lake just a 5-minute walk away. I was going to visit today, but I think I may take a nap instead. I am so tired.

I am staying in a house with 8 other girls. I was the first to be here as I arrived a day early. The rest of the girls should be here either tonight or tommorow morning.

I haven’t been here very long yet, but I have already noticed some differences, mostly at the market I went to. There are not as many canned goods, instead they come in a cardbord box, like a juice box. Super odd, but it seems to work fine and you just need siccisors to open it, so that’s nice. They also have these scales that print tags for you. So if you have something priced by kg you put it in a bag, take note of the product number, put on the scale press the number and a tag prints for your item(s). I took me a while to figure out what was going on and how it worked seeing as I do not read the language. Once I did though I found myself appreciating the system, I quite like it.

Tomorrow the program starts in full, and I cant wait to tell you about it. Until them I’ll be finishing up some projects to didn’t get done before I left and making some food. See ya later!