So goodbye I guess, see you some day!

Now we are going to write about the trip to Portugal, while trying not to cry.

The first day

We left from Ylivieska at nine in the morning. So we departed for our five hour train trip, boring as heck. Then we arrived at Tikkurila and from there took a connecting train to Helsinki airport. In the airport we ate stuff, don't ask what. Then from there we flew to Amsterdam and from there to Lisbon.

Our host families were waiting at the airport for our arrival. All of us were stunned by the fact of the people coming to kiss us on the cheeks, do you remember the finnish people private space? Then we went to our host families houses and went to sleep.

Second day

First in the morning we went to Parque das nacoes and did some icebreaker activities, for example orienteering. We made some random groups that all had one Finnish, one Scottish, one Spanish and three Portuguese people. Then we went to the shopping centre, ate and after that we went to RTP social media museum.

In the evening we had the bring a dish event where we danced and ate foods that the other countries had brought with them.

Third day

In the morning we went to the Lisbon story center and saw a 40 € sardine mug and a person dressed up as a Pikachu. After that all, we went to visit the Town Hall where each group asked a few questions from a representative.

In the evening/night we went to a party at Vitorinos house, of course we danced there and broke stuff.

Fourth day

This day we went to Sintra, which is a part of Lisbon and which is a abandoned castle. We had a kind of a picnic and Tomas and Megan had a juice war. After that we went to the Interactive News Museum that was right next to the place. After that we went to a beach and listened to a really interesting lecture about science and space stuff.

In the evening we went to a Portuguese girls parent's burger restaurant. And of course Tomas had to make a dance show and maybe a few splits in front of the employees and everyone in the restaurant. And surprisingly he made an impression to the staff and he got applauded.

Fifth day

This was the last day for us. We made presentations in groups and presented them and we got participation certificates. We went shopping and we took a lot of photos. Johanna cried way too much to behold and Jarkko didn't want to hug anyone. He was anti-social. And Patrik drank 3 cans of Pepsi which was way too much for him.

Sixth day

We woke up at around 2 AM and went to the airport with the host families. Johanna cried a bit more, Patrik cried inside of him and Julia cried outside and inside of her with her soul.

Our returning to Finland was humorous filled with bad puns and sore butts. We played a lot of Uno and talked about Turska (Inside joke), Jarkko made a baby cry with his smile and Julia made the baby smile again.

We had a lot of fun, made some new great friends, love you all so much. We will some day come back to you, so goodbye for now, SEE YOU SOON!!

Only a few weeks until the trip to Portugal!

Only a few weeks until the trip to Portugal! 

Today we are finishing with our articles and videos and other stuff. 

The Nordic World Ski Championships are going right

now in Lahti, Finland. And people are very upset about what happened there 

two days ago. Use Google if you don't know. 

Anyway, we have our winter vacation next week and 

many people are going to Lapland to ski or snowboard.

 And all the others are probably just laying in bed all week watching Netflix. 

Making video

Hello everyone!

Today we start doing the video yippee!

Other people start working with some recording and stuff.

I'm here writing to you guys!

I know, I'm a loner.

But the sun is shining and it's beautiful outside so i'm not complaining.

Disney!

Only a few us today here. We're polishing the article and listening to Disney songs! Yay.

Yeah, that's about it. 

Oh, we did also continue brainstorming the video for Portugal. Your gratitude for it will be Huuge. 

Our trip to Spain

Last week we were in Benalup Casas-Viejas.
We have written our experience here.

We arrived on Saturday evening, well at night so there is not much to say about that day.

Sunday:
We went to see the beach. It was quite sunny but windy.

You could see to Africa from there!

We climbed up a sand dune and saw an amazing view.

From there we went to a place called Tarifa.

It was a seaside town near the beach.

There we ate pizza and took a little walk.

On the evening we went to the hotel Utopia in Benalup.

There we met the other students.

After that we went back to our homes to get some sleep.

Monday:

Monday was the first school day. We had some icebreaker games.

Their school day is a little different than ours. They only had one break at about 11 o'clock.

They also didn't have lunch in school and instead ate sandwiches.

One activity was also making jewelry out of old computer parts.

Us girls went horse riding in the evening. We got some very nice pictures from there.

They boys had played Fifa and other games.

Tuesday:

We went to a place called Jerez. It was about an hour's drive in a bus.

We visited a university campus that was part of four different campuses.

They told us about the university and the life in Cadiz.

We also talked to an app developer.
We asked these people some questions that we had done on Monday.

This information was used in the joint articles that we wrote on Wednesday.

On the afternoon we went shopping and returned home at about 5pm.
On the evening we hang out.
We danced and teatched some finnish words to the others.

Wednesday:
We visited the City Theatre and we presented our articles and the videos.
After that we had a break, and then started writing the joint articles.
The articles were about our visits to the university.
In the evening we went to an old town named Vejer.
It was probably the most beautiful place we visited.
We took a lot of pictures.
Back in Benalup, we also went to a cafe.
We tasted some very delicious Spanish desserts.

Thursday:
Thursday was our last day there.
In the morning we went to the Radio Benalup.
We were split into 2 different groups.
Both groups interviewed the radio presenter. He told us about his job.
Then we went back to the school and finished and presented the joint-articles.
After school we decorated the school gym for the bring a dish -evening.
From there we went to the countryside.
We ate some paella. (it was reaaally good)
Also we played some ball games until it was time to leave.
In the evening we went to the bring a dish -evening.
We ate food from all of the countries and saw some flamenco dancing.
We also sang and danced together and hugged and cried.
The worst thing was saying goodbye.

Friday:
We left at half past seven.
We were all quite tired and the car journey to the airport seemed to go fast by.
The whole day was only travelling.
We all felt sad to leave but also happy to go back home.
Even more so when we saw all the photos that the others took that day.


That was our trip! It was a great experience and we had a lot of fun.
We made new friends and also learned a lot.
Hopefully we will keep in touch with all the wonderful people.
Thank you!

Surpriseeeeee

Today we are finishing the article, but surprise surprise, we'd lost 4 papers. Yay. 

Back to the street to have them answered. Nothing more special REALLY happened today...

So here, have a couple of memes. 

Back from Spain!

Today the students who visited Spain are back, and they are showing us pictures from their trip. 

One of the Finnish teacher (Sanna) brought the rest pf us some Spanish sweets to munch on. What the rest of us learned from this presentation, was: Nobody knows how to pronounce Vejer, nobody knows how old the "Old church" is, and it generally was just a blast. 

What else's happening? WOOOOORK!!!

Questionnaires, surveys, blogging, analyzing, writing, charts and all sorts of professional looking stuff. 

Weather? 

Well it's looking a lot like April right now, even though it's January. So that's a thing that's happening. 

Back to work we go!  

Starting the Portugal Project

In case you didn't know the exchange to Spain started a few days ago.

And what does that mean for the rest of us?

Things are heating up, we've been at WAR over the questionnaire results. We were missing a few of them, but now a ferw of us are resisting the weather, and going outside to ask people to fill them in.There are only 7 of us working right here, but, six of us will go to Portugal in March. Well, fortunately Fanni has already been to Scotland, so that leaves six. That was simple, wasn't it? No bodies, no blood, no murders. Only happiness, rainbows and sunshine. Well not sunshine (this is Finland after all), but you get the point. 

                               

I I Weather News I I

If you're lazy: http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/weather/kalajoki

If you're a decent human being: 

It's been fairly warm for a few days/weeks now, meaning that the majority of snow has melted, but it also has been cold, which means that all the running water has now turned into X-TREMELY slippery ice.

Several body parts and vehicles have been harmed because of this, and authorities have been informed.

Unfortunately, they also slipped, and hit their head, End of story, you're welcome. 

A Mandatory Post About The Weather

Today we are shooting... or at least trying to shoot some videos. We also took "beautiful" pictures of Kalajoki that we can show in Spain. All of our students that are going to Spain are soooo excited to make new friends and have an awesome week! It's quite cold and snowy here, so it's also nice for them to go someplace warm. 

Kittens > puppies

Back from Christmas holidays

We're back! We finishing the article for the trip to Spain. And we're also finishing the video for the trip to Spain. It's going to be F4BuL0uS!!!

Some brave young ones went out to the snow and cold to entertain people with our questionnaires. We hope they'll survive and come back.

Our trip to Scotland

It has been almost two months since we came back from Scotland, and now we have finally decided to write this blog post. Enjoy!

On the second of October we had to wake up really early in order to catch our first flight from Oulu to Helsinki. By “we” we mean Saana, Hilla, Helmi, Nelli, Miia and Fanni (and our teachers Sanna and Anna-Maija). In Helsinki we had a few hours to spend at the airport before our second flight, so obviously we had to get drinks from Starbucks.

We arrived in Edinburgh at 5pm, and then we had to take a taxi to Kirkcaldy, where we finally got to meet our host families.

On Monday we had our first day of school and we got to meet everyone. We played a lot of games in order to get to know each other better. We also did our presentations and had dance battles during the breaks.

After school our hosts Lia, Rachel and Catriona took us to the high street of Kirkcaldy. We did some shopping and just walked around. Kirkcaldy really looked a lot different than our hometown Kalajoki. It’s a lot bigger and the buildings are older and more detailed than the ones we have here.

That evening we went back to the school with our host families and brought some Finnish food with us (mostly chocolate and sweets). We also got to taste food from other countries, too. We had a fun night and we also got to enjoy beautiful music played by a bagpiper.

On Tuesday we went to Edinburgh and had a Q&A session with the editor of the Scotsman newspaper. We also had a guided tour of the offices of the Scotsman.

After that we had lunch at the National museum of Scotland and then we had some time to go explore the museum. After our visit to the museum we went to the Royal Mile and just walked around. It was great.

After school all the Finns and our hosts had a pizza night at Rachel’s. We ate a lot, played Just Dance and forced our hosts to listen some terrible Finnish music. It was fun.

On Wednesday we started to write our articles about our trip to the Scotsman and also did some crafting. After school we went bowling with the whole group and had a lot of fun, even though we didn’t win. We also got a new friend, Rasmus the Whale.

Thursday was the last day of the exchange week in Scotland. We finished and presented our articles and made some videos for the Instagram account (@eumediacitizenship).

After school we went to Edinburgh and had a fun evening shopping there. Edinburgh is a very beautiful city and we’d really like to visit it again!

On Friday we had to wake up at 3am. We had three flights that day, and when we finally got to Oulu, our taxi was late. Our driver had forgotten to come! We had to wait an extra hour at the airport, and when the taxi driver finally came, he was driving a bus! We had the whole bus for our little group and it was pretty funny.

The week we spent in Scotland was educational. We learnt a lot about media, Scotland and the other countries, their languages and cultures. There are a lot of cultural differences between our countries. For example, the Portuguese people were much more outgoing and expressive, whereas us Finns can be a bit shy and introverted.

The school was also quite different compared to ours. It was a lot bigger and a bit hard to get around. They also had some one-way corridors, which we don’t have here. In Finland we don’t even have dress codes and we can wear pretty much anything we want to, so the uniforms the Scottish students have to wear seemed quite unnecessary. It also felt a bit strange that the Scots don’t get a proper meal at school, because we get free lunch every day.

The everyday life in Scotland is surprisingly different to Finland, too. The Scots ate dinner later than we do in Finland. The houses were located closer to each other and they were smaller. Many of the houses were made of stone, whereas the houses in Finland are usually made of wood.

The week was really interesting and educational experience and we’ll never forget it. We made a lot of new friends and want to thank everyone for the amazing time that we had!

Welcome to the winter wonderland!

The snow has returned once again! But that's not the only thing that returned.

Our positive and innovative thoughts have returned. And with those, 

we've started to continue the articles and all that boring stuff. Bla bla bla bla blah. 

This week in the International club we're having tea (Kinda obvious, since Chloe (our teacher)

is British) and we're listening to music. 

Our composition about the week during which some of our students 

spent in Scotland should be about done now.

If it won't be posted today, it will be posted tomorrow. 

And if it is not posted tomorrow, it will be posted some other day during this week we're 

currently living as I am writing this. Now look at these beautiful photos I literally took

four and a half minutes ago, just outside our school building!

What a turn of events! (Not)

If you didn't guess from the title, we've been extremely busy. And I don't use

the word extremely lightly. We have counted, and analyzed, hundreds and hundreds of 

papers, and started to write an article from each one of them. 

But, we've bravely fought through all that, and (I think) the majority of us are still happily alive. 

Until now.

No snow, no ice, no letting it go. Only the dark, gloomy, dank and depressing November.

P.S: We're going to have a splendid article next week about the trip to Scotland.

Casual Tuesday in the office (not quite)

Hello!

We are finally back writing again.

We have been very busy lately doing the questionnaires and counting them.

We only have a few times left before christmas holiday, and we still need to count the rest of them and write the article and do the video and...... 

But it's pretty fun (well not the counting part but rest) so we don't really mind the rush.

The trip to Spain is so close now! EXCITEMENT ALL AROUND!

And Portugal is already couple months later!

And now the weather:

!! ALERT ALERT !!

!! SNOW !!
I REPEAT, WE HAVE SNOW

If you are enough early, you have started the christmas music already.

I think we all might be dreaming of a white christmas, 'cause baby, it's cold outside.

(ayy see what we did there (; )

But to be the depressing finnish people we are, let's mourn the rain that is coming tomorrow, and will melt all the snow.

 At least if you believe the weatherman.

But(t) we'll see you later!

*waves to the camera*

Back at it again

We just came back to school from holidays,

 and everyone is full of energy (or at least we should be).

Video making

Today we started to film our new video about the second article. Yeap.

We did that. Yeap. The guys below are writing it. 

Something else for a change:

The weather in Finland is getting colder every day.

No snow yet. :( Yet.

-THE WORLD CUP OF ICE HOCKEY HAS STARTED. 

Basically every Finn is watching that. Sometimes we have to wake up at 03:00 

in the morning or something like that to watch Finland's game, 

because the World Cup is in Canada, but who cares? 

Aaaaand here's a picture of Patrik Laine, Finland's "superkid", 

team Finland's youngest player. (and USA's Auston Matthews but nobody 

cares, he's not a Finn)

Topping the dancing child from last week

The mandatory blog post of the week, you're welcome: 

We finished the article and composed it into one little cacophony.
We also started planning the video, the set is looking nice.

And a kitten

And my dance move is...

Hi!

Today we finally have a new Magda.. wait I mean Chloe.
Others are still writing the articles whilst us bloggers are supposed to be thinking about the video.
The brainstorm is real.
We started today with a funny name game.
We all stood in a circle, and told our names one by one.
After you said your name, you made up a dance move and showed it to the others.
It's been surprisingly sunny this autumn, here North of the Wall.
Pumpkin spice and everything nice, we'll end this one here.

The 867th Tuesday of this millenium

It is Tuesday.

Our Greek teacher Magda left last spring (Valar Morghulis),

but our new Magda 2.0 is coming probably next week! Hopefully! Yay...

Her name will be Chloe (we think) and she is from the United Kingdom.

Last week we had a raffle where we decided who goes to which country, which will

be a surprise for you all. This week we're redoing the articles and the questionnaires. 

Some other interesting news, we also decorated our blogs homepage! Can you see it?

It's pretty lit imo. Amazing, we know.

Back to school!

Back to school!
Hi everyone!
 We are finally back in school from the summer holidays!
The summer was surprisingly warm and sunny, usually we don't have even two weeks of
warm weather the whole year.
School started last Wednesday
 and today we are having our first meeting with the international club.
We will continue working on the questionnaires we started last year.
As we wrote in the last post, Magda has left, and we don't have a new teacher yet.
So currently Sanna and Anna-Maija, our English (and Swedish) teachers are keeping the lessons.
Our "new Magda" will probably come later this autumn.
And since the last years 9th graders have left too, we have two new members in our blog team.
So we still have our two old members (Jasmine and Jarkko) and the new ones (Taru and Alina).
We are all looking forward to this school year!