It is just incredible how each year of your life starts going by faster and faster until you can barely keep up. Before I know it, it is going to be 2016 or even 2030, and that simply terrifies me. It is difficult even to just savor this hour.

And it is incredible just how quickly my time here in Finland has passed.

I have finally fallen head over heels for the Finnish culture. And I think that this is a product of having fallen in love with the Finnish language. It is so beautiful and unique to my ears. I have been taking Finnish for only a few months and my skills are extremely basic.

But hey, en puhu suomea, mutta ymmärrän vähän.

I had no idea that I would enjoy Finnish as much as I do. But I also can admit that is really difficult to learn. It stuns me that most Finnish people are very multilingual and many can produce Finnish, Swedish, and English with ease. Those are the basics and then they continue to learn other languages such as German, Russian, or Spanish.

I came out of Finnish class on Monday with a raging headache simply from spending 40 minutes conjugating several verbs in their various types. There are 5 types. Well actually there are 6, but apparently the 6th one is irrelevant (Thank God).

I have also been listening to a lot of different Finnish music. My favorite artist is probably the very Justin-Bieberesque Robin. He is about 16 years old, he has a dreamy voice that would make any teenage girl or adult woman swoon, and he is from Turku!! (Turku is where I am living)

So naturally, since he lives here and goes to high school here, my friend Sonia and I have had the natural desire to stalk him. We have yet to act on this desire but I could have sworn that I saw him at this restaurant Kaskis on my way to the university the other day. My heart jumped out of my chest, I realized that in fact it was not him, and then I burst out laughing and everyone around me must have thought that I was insane. OH WELL, they didn’t get to see Robin like I thought I had.

Here is a fabulous song by him called “Onnellinen”, which can mean “Happy/Fortunate/Blessed/Blissful”

I also really enjoy the Finnish singer Anna Puu who was in Finland’s Idols and the pop rock band PMMP:

I also enjoy just listening to Finnish conversations that I hear on the bus and reading out all of the signs that I see in walking around the city.

So all in all, Finland has captured my heart, eyes, and ears. I think that from now on I will always carry a small part of Finland with me.

‘Til next time,

Dat.