Farewell to Finland, Hello USA

Well, I've been back in the US for about 5 days now. It's taken a few days for me to adjust and to get back into the normal routine again. Let's be honest though, throwing off those scarves, gloves, hats, and coats was the easy part! I stayed in Kansas City with my parents for 3 days, and now I'm back in Utah to finish out the last two weeks until graduation.  I don't really have much to do for that, just meeting with teachers, handing in paperwork, and of course partying with friends!

Sidenote: Reunion with my best friend happened today! I really don't have enough words to say how much I missed this girl! We skyped very often, which I definitely needed. But nothing tops hanging out in person. So this was an epic reunion!

she packed us a cute picnic lunch and we shopped, ate, and talked for hours! It was wonderful!

So. The rest of this post is a farewell post to Finland, my trip to Estonia/Helsinki, and last feelings I had before I left.

Last Thursday, April 3, Leena and I left Savonlinna to spend my last weekend in Helsinki. Packing up was really difficult, I had forgotten how much stuff I brought along. Things that I never needed, and regretted bringing (cough hairdryer, straightener, so much clothes...) We ended up taking the bus to Helsinki instead of the train because of my luggage. It was about a 3.5 hour trip through the beautiful countryside of Finland. I spent my time sleeping and reading Seven Brothers, one of the best (and first) books written in Finnish about 7 brothers growing up in the forest of Finland around the 1800s. Since Finland was part of Sweden for a long time, Swedish was the language of education. Even though people spoke Finnish, it wasn't used in literature or academics at all. This book was a revolutionary of its time.

This was pretty much the view the entire time :)

The bus dropped us off in the middle of Helsinki, after which we had to walk about 15 minutes (with luggage) to the flat that Leena has there. It was small but cozy. She lived there for a time with her kids when she was studying for her specialization in Child Psychiatry (don't quote me on that I'm not sure if it's right). It's called the Tiger's Nest. :) It has orange and red walls. And chandeliers. And a sauna in the basement.

Friday we took a trip across the waters to Estonia! I was excited to see another city/country. We have some family friends who are from Estonia, and so I was happy to visit there to tell them that I traveled all the way to Europe to see Estonia!

At the port of entry-they didn't even check passports!

Apparently Tallinn it's one of Europe's best preserved medieval cities. (I am skeptic of that because I've seen some medieval cities in Spain...wait am I becoming a travel snob?? SO sorry, I take it all back.)

Spain or Estonia???

This one is Spain!

Anyway, it does have a beautiful skyline, cobblestone streets, cathedrals, and old buildings.

Outside the English embassy....I didn't see a US one.

 I loved the feel of the town! I have this thing with history. I love it. I love thinking about who lived before and how, and I love imagining what life could have been like on those same streets hundreds of years before.

The Orthodox Cathedral, built when Estonia became part of the Soviet Union

The town square

Estonia uses the Euro, too, so it was easy to buy lots of things :) 

Actually, I only bought three or so things....the rest were gifts that Leena bought for people!

I also loved the trip over and back. The cruise ship that took us over there was really exciting!

I had never been on one before and I just loved the idea of it.

 I also loved the buffet....

Saturday, I spent most of the day walking around Helsinki and seeing the sights.

Monument built to the national composer, Sibelious. (Who wrote the national anthem)

A Lutheran church built inside a rock!

I stopped by a few churches, the National History Museum, went into some shops, walked all around until I was beat.

National History Museum

The city's big, Lutheran Cathedral

The Orthodox Cathedral

Ok. Headquarters of Finland's best chocolate!!

I really loved Helsinki. More people spoke English there, and I felt like I was more able to get around by myself. There were so many fun shops to see and things to go do, that I loved it! Sometime in my life I would love to live in a big city for awhile. I'm sorry but I'm not sure Kansas City counts...I'm thinking more like Boston, NYC, Philadelphia...awesome.

Sunday we spent the afternoon with some friends in Helsinki and enjoyed being in each other's company before I had to leave. I asked Leena if she was ready to get back to her normal life (without an extra person in her house), and she just leaned over, patted my cheek, and said that she would miss me.

Monday morning we left for the airport at 4:30 for my early morning flight. Leena came with me, stayed as I checked my bags, and watched as I went through security. It was a bittersweet moment, knowing how much I love that lady but not knowing when the next I will see her again. It was hard, nostalgic and sad.

I have loved learning about Finland, about the culture, language, and getting to know the Finns. Clinical hours were hard, but I learned so much about global nursing and crossing those cultural boundaries. I learned to love in a different way that I have before. I have fond memories of sauna, ice skating, movie nights, swimming, baking, traveling, laughing, and crying with Leena. I feel like she is part of my family now, and I know that I want to visit her again.

Those times. They were fun. They were sweet. They were the best. 

Thanks so much to everyone who has read my stories, followed my adventures, supported me in the hard times, encouraged me to go and keep persevering. This has been a trip of a lifetime. I feel so much more confidence in myself and the things that I can achieve. I'm closing this last chapter of my nursing school, and I so look forward to the next. Fair warning, I will probably keep blogging! So stay tuned!

Much love,
Melanie

Saying goodbye to Sininen Talo

Well, I am officially done with my nursing clinical hours (cough: slave labor), and I couldn't be more excited! I've done 270 hours here in Finland over the course of these three months, and even though I am leaving a wonderful country and experiences, I am very excited for the next stage in my life. On that note, I might as well announce that I'll be working on the Renal/Organ Transplant unit at the University of Kansas Hospital AKA KUMed! Hooray!

Celebratory picture outside my last clinical place!

Back to today. On my last full day in Savonlinna, we had so much planned! We went to dinner over at another member of our church's house. I made quiche :) with salmon. That's the first time I've ever made quiche, or salmon. I'm definitely learning to "extend my horizons." I had never touched raw fish before this trip...but Savonlinna is most definitely a fishy area, so I have had to adjust! So we ate there and the missionaries came, too, and it was a great farewell to Finland where we listened to Finlandia, by Sibelious (the national composer).

Then we ran over to a men's chorus concert at the town's cathedral. I fell asleep (oops), but it was only because the music was so good.

And lastly, we went to the pool for the last time. Leena and I have gone pretty faithfully every Wednesday and Friday. I will miss swimming and sauna and Leena's company there. I had forgotten how much I love swimming. It helps calm my mind from worries, and actually, all those laps help me think and sort out my problems. And the sauna helps, too!

And now, I'm just finishing up my packing. (Clearly it's going well....since I'm blogging now instead)

Leena and I leave tomorrow afternoon to go to Helsinki, where we will stay until my flight early Monday morning. I don't expect to write again on here until I'm home. We are going to Estonia, and all around Helsinki. It's going to be a blast :)

This is my last night in the Blue House. The last night in Savonlinna. It was really hard to say goodbye to friends, places, ect. "See you later" takes on a whole other meaning. I don't actually know when that later will be, and that is something that is really hard to come to terms with. I've met some of the greatest people here that I love, respect, and look up to so much. I've learned a lot about nursing, and I've learned how universal human nature is. I've learned ways to try to break down cultural barriers, and  have learned to love so many people here.

A few days ago, I took a walk behind the castle (I know...again), and captured some of my thoughts on this experience in Finland.

See:

Fun fact: this was the first time I had blow-dried my hair in three months!

Just be aware this is super, duper, cheesy nostalgic. Don't judge me for it :)

Final Thoughts

I don't really think I have a full understanding yet of what I have gained here, and I think that will come as I adjust back into my normal life again. But that was the tip of the iceburg for ya.

Shopping Spree!!!

To be honest, I haven't done all that much shopping here. I hadn't really been into that many stores either. I realized last week that that had to change. I got done with clinical a little early today, and had two hours to kill before meeting my nursing instructor for a final evaluation.

Clearly I spent my 2 hours very well :)

The meeting with my professor was a little sad, mostly because she asked me to sum up what I learned, experienced, ect, what I loved, what was hard, and so on. I realized that even though things were rough, (I didn't always have the clinical placements I wanted, it was hard to communicate with patients), I would not have changed any of it. It all was to my benefit and they built upon each other. I am extremely grateful that I got to do this. I have opened my eyes more so than ever before to people of different cultures and backgrounds, and I think I will be a better nurse because of it.

Me and Sirkka

She was so sweet, and even bought me this cute mug to remind me of Finland. (These are cartoon characters that are HUGE over here!)

This evening my American friend Aaron and I went out to dinner, to celebrate me going home. He's been a good friend to me, especially on those days where I've needed to rant about things here, or talk about what I miss from America. He's been here for over a year already, so he totally gets all those emotions. We've had a good time together, and we enjoyed being able to slip into our "American phrases" as Leena likes to call strange metaphors and phrases that we have.

Some of the fun things we've done:

Playing cards...

Seeing the National Ballet perform with the local chillens;

And so, another day has suddenly slipped away!

T-minus 7....

I can't believe that I only have ONE week left! This time has snuck up on me, and I've decided that I'm not counting down the time until I leave, I'm making the most of my time left by reminding myself how short it is. And even though my computer is so slow, it takes hours to blog, who needs sleep anyway?? :)

This weekend we had Saarika's family over and it was so nice to see them again and spend time together. We just relaxed, ate food, and chatted, played games, ect, but it was a nice time together.
And yesterday we celebrated my friend Eva's (trip to Lapland) birthday by eating! Flashback to our fabulous trip:

Me, Santa, Zofie, Eva

And today was another great day! I have two more days of clinical left (tomorrow and wednesday!!), and it looks like this new place will be very interesting. It's an elderly home, but not a nursing home. More like assisted living. There is a nurse on hand that helps with medications, but the residents all have their own apartments. Some need help with cleaning and getting ready, but they are all mobile and can take of themselves for the most part. They even have a sauna there! I spent the morning doing the ladies' hair as they came out of the sauna. I learned that I should stick to nursing and not go into hairdressing. I'm really, really bad at curlers!

In the afternoon, I filled pill boxes. For hours. If I never see another stack of empty pill boxes and dozens and dozens of medicine bottles, I will be happy (at least for a month). It gave me a headache. But it was a good challenge to help me remember what all the medications are for.

In the evening I took a walk around Savonlinna, again to the castle, and just soaking up every moment. I dont' want to forget how beautiful it is here.

When I got home, Leena and I had such a good chat for over an hour (me sitting on the floor in my room), solving all of life's problems. I love talking to her. We always have so much to say and time flies by. I will definitely miss these moments when we are sitting on the bed, or in the sauna, talking about what matters most to us and what problems and stressors we currently have in our lives. I was surprised by how quickly we shared some of our deepest thoughts, and I will treasure these moments with her. I will miss her for sure when I am gone :(

Just a little bit of stagefright...to say the least!

Today I did the unexpected. I can't say that I'd ever imagined myself doing this, but it took me by surprise. It's been a hard thing to deal with the whole semester, but I figured it would mean a lot to those I was doing this for.

Any guesses??????

I spoke in church. In Finnish. Yeah be impressed haha.

Our building

No, I was asked a few weeks ago to say a small talk in church. In our church, every week members address each other, talking about experiences in their lives that have impacted them, quoting scriptures and messages from our prophet and other leaders. It's a time to gather strength from each other, and helps us all see that we have similar struggles.

Becuase of the language barrier, I haven't been able to really share my thoughts or feelings or experiences during lessons or meetings this semester. I felt like I didn't really have a voice in church. So I was really looking forward to having this opportunity for the other members to hear from me in my own voice, what the gospel and Jesus Christ mean to me.

As you can kind of see, it's a small building. One big meeting room, a kitchen, one class room, and office

I wrote it in English first, quickly used google translator (to give us a place to start), and then Leena corrected that translation. It was a big job, and it took a lot of time. She was working on it until about 10:15 on Saturday night, then her friend Antero stopped by the house (who happens to be a professional translator), who said he'd "read it over." Well, he spent another hour or so making it sound flawless in Finnish. Then I had to sit down with it and learn to say all the words. I knew the gist of what  I was saying, but some of the Finnish words are so long because they have less small words (like articles and pronouns), and combine other words together. So I stayed up until 2:30am doing that, plus we had daylight savings time.

Lovely candid moment Leena captured while I was practicing!

I was pretty nervous to say the least, even though there were seriously only 15 fifteen people tops.

I know that I didn't get all the pronunciation right, and I really was only reading the talk, instead of speaking, which I usually hate to do. After it was over I had no idea how it went. Until after the meeting, when two of the ladies reached over to me, took my hands and expressed how wonderful it was. One sweet lady said "It was music to my ears. The words and the content were just beautiful." One man told me that "You read Finnish very well." Haha, but I can't speak it! Finally, in our Sunday School class, the teacher asked the class to share moments where they had felt the love of other members in the branch. One lady that I've barely spoken to mentioned my talk, saying that she was touched that I spent all that time to learn to say my talk in Finnish, because it showed how much I cared for them to do all that work for just the 15 people there. When I was preparing this, I only prayed and prayed that they would be able to understand me. I had hoped that they would feel the emotion in my words, but I am so grateful that I was able to say my testimony and my thoughts to them in their own language.

Note, I was standing at the back of the room. 

The greatest thing was that our neighbor Pekka showed up to church to support me! He is the one that has driven me several times to the hospital and health center in the early mornings so I didn't have to walk. He doesn't speak any English, but he told Leena that Sunday morning he woke up and thought I would like to see him during my talk. Since then, he has told me several times how good it was. Positive feedback sure does make me happy haha!

I've attached copies of my talk in English and in Finnish. I talk about some experiences in my life that have strengthened my faith and testimony. I hope you read them.

Suomeski

In English