Tea Party!

We arrive back at the university (after lunch at Rainer and Leila's house) at 4:45pm, and we immediately head to Amy's flat to attend a Tea Party (which already started at 4pm). When we arrive we quickly put our apple cake (which was in the fridge overnight) in the oven to heat up. The table in the kitchen is crowded with every time of cake imaginable. The idea of the tea party was to bring a cake or sweet dish from your home country. Petra and I try and taste every type of cake, and we make sure we don't miss one! but it turns our our eyes are bigger than our stomachs and by the end of the tea party we feel rather full and there is no need to prepare anything for dinner!
Chatting and eating, and eating...and eating...and eating...and eating (in the photo from left, Michelle (North Carolina, Amy (SA), Sophie (France), Ceylon (Hong Kong), Dora (Germany), Daniel (Germany), Barbara (Prague), Petra and Wolfi)
Wolfi, after having too much cake (suffering from a "sugar high") hehe...
Our AMAZING apple cake!
Some more cake...

After the tea party a group of us decide to go ice-skating, as we are all suffering from "sugar highs" from eating too much cake! We go ice-skate at 6:30pm, in -20 degrees weather!! brrrrrrrrrr, it is cold but we make sure to ice-skate extra first to keep ourselves warm. Later on we start a snow fight with huge chunks of snow that we break off from the side of the ice rink...my ice-skating has improved considerably while I have been here and I am able to skate at quite a fast pace...which is much more fun especially if you are dodging huge chunks of snow that is being thrown at you...

Finnish church service

Today I decided to attend a Finnish church service. Daniel made arrangements to go with his Kummi family to the 10am church service so I decided to go along. I was very curious to experience a Finnish church service and to compare it to our church services back home. At 9:40, rather tired and in need of more sleep, Daniel and I walk down to the Lutheran Church which is situated on campus, just a 5min walk from our flat. It is a beautiful sunny (but icy) morning, I checked the thermometer before we leave (we have a thermometer outside our window & we check it everyday to see how cold it is) and it is an icy -18 degrees. We meet Rainer and Leila (Daniel's Kummi family) outside the church and proceed into the church. It is a small, quaint church and everything inside the church is colour coded either green or white. The organ begins the church service and we try and follow as best as possible, throughout the church service. Even though we don't understand anything, I find it a rather peaceful experience and throughout the church service I gaze out of the glass windows surrounding the church and watch the squirrels playing in the snow covered trees outside.

We also have communion and then after the service we are all invited to enjoy tea, coffee and, the very popular Finnish bread - Pulla - in a room adjacent to where we had the church service. We sit with Leila and Rainer and chat, drink tea (I had a delicious apple, cinnamon and raisin tea!) and eat Pulla. It is wonderful to chat to some local Finns, as I find that for the majority of the time, we are surrounded by other exchange students, so it is refreshing to experience some local culture.

After church Rainer and Leila invite both Daniel and I for lunch at their house (which is located 3.5km from the church). Rainer and Leila are a wonderful couple! At their house we all get involved in some baking and cooking. We first bake a delicious chocolate cake (I will definitely make sure to get the recipe!). Then we help with peeling of the potatoes for a potato, salmon, cheese bake that Leila was preparing for lunch. Throughout the baking and cooking we chat about Finnish culture and interesting facts, as well as answer questions about our own countries (South Africa and Germany)...

While lunch is baking in the oven, Daniel and I decide to play a round of chess. Both of us haven't played in years so we are quite evenly matched...we abandon our our chess match as soon as lunch is announced, by now we are rather hungry and eager to eat! The food is delicious! The potato/salmon bake is accompanied by carrot salad, three different types of Finnish bread served with creamy cheese & slices of apple and onions , a Russian type of sauerkraut (which actually tastes really good!) and a delicious red wine. After lunch we enjoy a really good cup of coffee (the best coffee I have tasted in Finland!) and chocolate cake. Rainer and Leila have a beautiful elegant house, and as we sit, chat and eat chocolate cake and ice-cream, we can hear the crackling of the fire in their elegant fireplace...

At sunset, they then drive us back to the university where we attend a tea party at Amy's (South Africa) flat...where we continue eating...