WEEK DIARY 29.03. - 04.04. 2007
Hungarian students and two teachers from our friend school Baktáy Erwin gimnázium visited Ii and Iin lukio in March 2007. Our common theme was this time the river which flows through Our village Ii. Here you have a report which tells you about the sites we visited together and you may find some feelings we got during the week.
THURSDAY 29TH MARCH
On a beautiful Wednesday, that was because we didn´t have to go to school, we had to be at the airport at 8 p.m. to check in. After we had said farewell to our parents we went to the concourse and we started an active waiting.
We took off, there were some very strange noises coming out from the plane, so we were a bit worried about it. But it all went well, the only problem was that we couldn´t bring any water to the plane with us and we parched.
We landed and changed flight, but it was difficult because of our teacher, she didn`t show us the right way to the concourse. After a short time, we found it, we took a seat and we went to explore the empty, dead airport. It took about 4 hours, then our teacher wanted to know that if some students of our group (Namely Gyuri and Thomas) knew their presentation or not.
There were some Arabic people who looked like terrorists and we were a bit afraid of them and tried to not to say national words like “terrorists” or “Arab”.
The flight was tiring because we weren`t allowed to sleep however it was dawn. Our teachers always woke us up and they said that it would be worse if we fell asleep. In the end of the flight we got a mild shock that all the lakes were iced up.
After the landing we met our hosts (Lilla`s host was Pauliina and Klaudia`s host was Hanna) and they took us home. We had a short sleeping break, then we were taken to the school. The headmaster welcomed us, told a little about his school and we got a guided tour by him. We really enjoyed it, it was so different to our school, because ours is much older and we don`t have that many kind of subjects as they do. Some students went to lessons with their hosts, but our hosts has finished this school so they didn`t have any lessons, that`s why we went to Hanna`s place.
We had fun there and drank coffee that awakened us a little bit. We could get to know each other more with asking personal questions like favourite music or boys. We took photos and we watched video clips as well. Then, we went to buy some postcards and we posted them. Hanna and Pauliina took us to the city centre which was strange for us because it`s a bit smaller than in our city.
We visited Feri`s host, because we wanted to give a little present from Lilla`s brother to her sister, Leena who was in Hungary 2 years ago. There were Attila and his host Jenita too and we played cards and were were taught how to bake a Finnish traditional cookie called “pulla”.
As the finishing of the day, we went to a pizza place. We didn`t find any pizza that we would eat that`s why we chose special ingredients to our pizza (tomato, ham and paprika).
So it was an enjoyable beginning of a beautiful friendship.
FRIDAY 30TH MARCH
We woke up early in the morning and were tired. The bus to Ruka left from Ii around 7 am. In Ii the sun was shining but it was cold.
In the bus there were us and some other students from Iin lukio. The bus ride took about three and a half hours and 300 km. The Russian border was about 50 km away. When we were travelling we saw some reindeers. On the way to Ruka the weather became snowy and windy. We arrived there and Teijo told us the instructions. We rented some ski-sets. Some of us were snowboarding and some of us were skiing. We had a lot of time to do anything. Some of us liked skiing, and some of us didn´t. We tried almost all of the ski-tracks, these were blue, red and black ones. The blue is the easiest one, the red is medium, and the black is the hardest one. Of course, we felt cold. There was time to relax a bit, and we went to the Piste-restaurant. The meal and drinks were delicious there. One of us tried here firstly the salmiakki. The weather became sunny and the clouds went away. We talked much to each other. In the afternoon we went to some shops to buy souvenirs, postcards, meals. We left Ruka around 5 pm. The ride home took almost four hours again, so we were back at the school around 8.15 pm. We were quite tired since we had been out all day.
SATURDAY 31ST MARCH
It was our day. We met at 11.00 in Oulu because we didn`t have any special programmes. At first, we went shopping to Stockmann where were some yellow guys walking around. We took lots of
photos of them and Ildi hugged the biggest oneJ. Some of us bought some souvenirs from Kauppahalli and from Stockmann where we also bought some clothes. Then we went to the streets and did sightseeing. We visited several shops, took dozens of photos and videos and after that we went to have a lunch. Most of us went to Amarillo which was a really nice Spanish restaurant with a really good-looking waiter at the bar and we couldn’t stand not to take at least one photo of himJ. The others decided to go to Hesburger instead. It was a very interesting visit and everybody enjoyed it. After a few hours spent in Oulu we went back to home. Some of us took a bus, others went by car. We arrived at home at about 16.00 where we had something to eat.
Everyone looked forward to the evening because it was Reni’s birthday and we had rent a cottage in which to gather around. We arrived at the cottage at 18.30 and we had a lot of fun, of courseJ. The cottage was full of stuffed animals which were looking at us all the time. We played Twister, card games, we had music and some snacks. We were tired, so we left the cottage at about 23.30 and after arriving at home we went to sleep as soon as possible because the next morning we were about to go to Martimoaapa to try cross country skiing and ice-fishing but it´s another story.J
SUNDAY 1ST APRIL
We went at 10 o’clock to school to start our day’s first thing together. It was a trip to Martimojärvi Nature Park. With us there were a few experts who told us about Finnish nature and Martimojärvi Nature Park. The trip was made together with nature reserve associations Iin Ympäristöyhdistys ry. and Kuivaniemen Luonto ry. The bus trip took more than one hour to one way. When the bus trip ended we had still about 1 km to walk to the lake. Thomas and Ferenc tried to ski and they though that it’s very difficult. There were some people who have made holes to the ice at the lake and they got small fishes.
The weather was quite windy and cold on that day so we played one Finnish game called puuropata. Everyone went around the big circle. One of us run behind others and dropped the mitten some one’s behind. Then they both ran to different ways to get first to the certain place.
The other people have lunch stuff with them and they gave us some sausages, sandwiches and something to drink like coffee, juice, tee or milk.
We went back to the bus and waited for the others to come back. Then we returned to Ii.
At 6 o’clock we met everybody again in the youth centre. There were two pool tables and many other different games. The boys liked playing with the pools. Thomas sang with the girls very much. Hungarian and Finnish girls were playing cards. Claudia and Reni talked to Elina’s brother Mikko. The boys played Play Station.
We enjoyed and we appreciate it a lot.
MONDAY 2ND APRIL
At 9 am, we went to lessons. First two of them were English, then one mathematics lesson.
After these lessons, we had a lunch at 11.30 am.
After the lunch, we took a car to wind power turbine factory called WinWind where we saw how to produce turbines for wind power plants. After that, we went to the hydropower plant Raasakka in River Ii where we had sightseeing to power plant.
After these, we went to the visit to Culture Residence called KulttuuriKauppila where we saw Sanna Koivisto’s works; statues, pictures, etc, etc... and Antti Ylönen´s and Helena Kaikkonen´s works too.
We are in the courtyard of the Culture Residence
Sanna’s dog, Nassu
In the evening we went to the University of Oulu to see a zoological museum and the genetics laboratory. After the University’s museum, we went to the pizzeria all together. We arrived in Ii at 9.00 pm.
TUESDAY 3RD APRIL
We went to school at 9 o’clock. We had couple of hours free time and someone went to the lessons. We had a lunch: sausages and potatoes. We liked it. After that we went to the river and we saw some fishermen fishing with net. There was very cold wind and after seeing them catch two burbots we went to Rantakestilä to see how to breed fish, it was very exciting and we saw white fish eggs and lampreys. We were told about the fishing in river Ii and shown some photographs of breeding system. We came back to school and we waited here at school for Finnish students. When they came back we went home. Almost everyone wanted to go to the cinema but some students couldn’t come with us, sadly. We came to the movie by bus. The trip was very long but we enjoyed that. After we bought the tickets and we went to eat to Hesburger Finnish fast food restaurant, we shopped too. We saw movie and we liked it. It was funny. Then we drove back to Ii. We went straight to sleep because we were really tired.
It was nice day for everyone I guess.
WEDNESDAY 4TH APRIL
We went to school at 9 o’clock. We started to write our reports of the week. After the lunch Hungarian guests went home and packed their luggage. At three o’clock we left to the airport because we had to be there at 4. We had to say goodbyes and we were really sad. We had a nice week together and we are looking forward to meet in Hungary this spring!
The flight to Helsinki left at six. It took almost an hour. The Hungarians guests had to hurry because they had just half an hour to get on the plane heading to Budapest.
