Moi!

Mina nimeni on Mike. Mina olen americanlainen ja aion olla suomessa
kokonaisen vouden. And since I speak (or in this case write) Finnish like a
stupid foreigner, I will continue in English, with random lines in Finnish
designed solely to impress any readers. As I said, I am from the States, New
York State to be specific. I am the oldest of six children. I have recently
graduated from Notre Dame High School in the States and will be enrolling in
university upon my return. In the meantime, I have the exquisite pleasure,
mainly due to Rotarians such as yourselves, to live in Finland and
experience the Finnish culture for a full year.

Many people have asked me why in the name of God would I want to live in any
foreign country, let alone Finland, for a full year. The answer is quite
simple actually, after twelve years of school in the States I was tired; but
more importantly I realized that knowledge without perspective was useless,
and what better way to get an accurate perspective on the world, than to
immerse yourself into a foreign culture. As for why Finland, well I won’t
lie, it wasn’t my first choice. I had heard that the language was devilishly
difficult to learn, and looking at a map I saw that Finland’s latitude was
about that of Alaska’s – so I presumed that it would be bitter cold.
However, my Rotary exchange officer deemed himself to be an amateur
psychologist, and apparently I have a Finnish personality – so to Finland I
went.

In the States, when I told people that I was going to Finland, one of
several things might happen. They might look me in the eyes and pat me on
the shoulder, much like I had been sentenced to life in prison, and say
‘Mike I’m sorry for you, truly I am’. Or they might tell me to watch out for
the vicious polar bears in Helsinki, that have been known to eat men alive.
Or my personal favorite: they might say ‘Finland, huh? That’s in Africa
right?’ Well I am not sorry that I am in Finland, I haven’t been mauled or
mangled – let alone seen – by a polar bear, and I am fairly certain that I
am not in Africa.

When I first arrived in the country, I felt a bit like Jane Goodall studying
the chimps in southern Africa – for truly I thought the Finns did some
mighty strange things. The sauna for example – a room full of hot, sweaty
guys whipping each other with birch branches -  my first impulse was that I
had mistakenly stumbled across a gay orgy by mistake. The food can also be
unpalatable at best, and downright god-awful at worst. Salmiaki has to be
among the worst tasting candies in the Universe, and I pray to God that at
no other time in my life will I be offered pigeon for dinner.

But as time passed, I realized that despite their inherent quirks, the Finns
are really fun people. I have several fun, if not exactly fond, memories of
Finnish teenagers ‘helping’ me with my Finnish – apparently saying sina olet
kaunis poro is not the way to go about impressing the women. And in all
honesty, Finland is by far one of the most beautiful countries I have ever
seen.

As it stands, I have been in Finland for about two months, with ten more to
go (provided I don’t freeze to death when I go to Lapland in December – I
have heard that it can reach minus forty). Every night when I go to bed, I
try to reflect on how lucky I am that I am in Finland – so thank you to
everyone who has helped to make this possible. If you want to contact me, my
email is MVan4004@hotmail.com. Thank you again.