The Fog.

Before I begin this post, I'd like to share a series of comics I drew a couple of days ago that basically sum up the extent of my communication attempts with the people here.

But as far as good news goes, I have plenty. 

For the first time I feel like I could actually say I speak a little Finnish. Before I felt like I didn't really know how to respond to most things, but now I can sometimes understand questions and answers. Sure, I'm far from having conversations beyond "Mita kuuluu" (how are you), but mostly I feel like I'm getting the hang of the sentence structure and verb conjugation. It's down to more of a memorization thing. (or maybe I've just gotten the hang of the tip of the iceberg, and there's a secret life to Finnish that I don't know about) 

Yesterday there was a welcome party for the exchange students in my district, it was very fun. I got to meet with people I haven't seen since Karkku. It was nice hearing about their experiences in school and with their families. It was also nice hearing people speak American English, and being able to joke around and be understood. 

Here's a picture of the place we were:

It was in an Archipelago of Turku, on a beach in Ruissalo.

Now to tell you a bit about my daily life, every morning when I wake up there's a mysterious feel that looms over the area that I like to call:

Those two photographs are out my bedroom window, only about an hour of time in between them.

Every morning I bravely face the fog, and fortunately nothing terrible has happened yet. 

I apologize for the relatively short entry, but with thoughts of Moose to be seen and the many adventures to be had, I'd like to leave you with a piece of advice from Jim Morrison. 

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first." 

 Start a revolution, Northfield. I'll see you in 9 months, but you'll hear from me again soon.