Entries (1-3)

These are the fist 3 entries so far.

Wednesday July 24, 2002

• Well, Here I am. 10 days and counting... kind of sucks saying goodbye to everyone but its a small hurdle. Everyone asks me if I'm excited and my automatic response is 'YES!' but suprisingly enough, I'm not so excited or worried. Just zen.
• Matthew Odynski
• jonnycakes2@hotmail.com

Thursday August 8, 2002

• Here I am, alive and well. The flight was long but fun. Lots of stares because of the Red Rotary Jacket. First of all, I would like to assure you that McDonalds is HORRIBLE all over the world. I was somewhat curious and I didn’t have much time so I thought, sure. The worst was the burger I had on Rye Bread in Tampere. Ok Ok , enough about the McD´s Chronicle's. Tampere is an awesome City, I suggest you look at a maps to see where it is. I have never seen cobblestone roads and 250-year old Churches before. Every shop there was like Camera shops or designer clothes and sunglasses, obviously tourist town, but was still awesome. I didn’t buy anything except for an Ice cream and a crappy rye burger at McDonalds. Thankfully I didn't spend much because everything was so much and my mind hasn't switched into Euros yet. Anyway, I am making lots of cool friends and other exchange students. I've decided that Brazilian women are the most beautiful in the world, that is next to the Finnish women...WWWWOOOWWWW. That should tell you enough. Here in Karkku, we are trying to learn Finnish but it’s really hard. Anyway, its time to eat to I had better leave. Thanks for coming. Send me dome e-mail and let me know what’s going on. Thanks --
• Matthew Odynski
• jonnycakes2@hotmail.com

Wednesday August 21, 2002

• Wow what a trip. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even sent anything home in a week (sorry Mom). I started school last week and now it is finally becoming a fun place. It is very true what they say that Finns are very shy, closed people - Because of this reason, it was hard to make friends but now I have made more than I can handle so its cool. I have a very light workload for these first 7 weeks – English, French, Art and Gym. My gym teacher is in the Guinness book for floor ball, he’s a crazy drill sergeant. First day we ran 2 km for a warm up but it was still fun. I have been busy with everything from going downtown and getting lost to meeting people and other Rotary kids. It becomes somewhat repetitive and monotonous having the rotary smile---all the time but I guess I have no choice and it helps. Like how I got my cell phone the day I arrived in Vuosaari for free. Or when I went water-skiing last night with my 3rd host family (it was awesome). Or how another Rotary guy is taking me snowboarding for a week in February. It all helps. My host family is really cool, they speak english-kind of- and it is easy to communicate, but the real struggle is Finnish. Wow, it is very difficult, even to read it hard. I feel so stupid because I can’t read any signs (properly) and I can’t even use the bank machine, although that may be a good thing. I am trying and studying and hopefully I can start to understand some things. Last weekend, I have a Finnish friend running the Helsinki Marathon. He’s 17 and he finnished-get it finn-ished, Yeah I kow that’s lame. Yeah I know that’s lame. I got so many of them when I left, they are embedded in my head. On Saturday, we are going to the Finnish – Swedish track games at the Olympic stadium. My host mom won free VIP passes so it will be really cool. I think I am going to go to this international English Baptist church on the weekend and there is a youth group that a friend is taking me to so I hope to have a good time there and stay on top of things in my spiritually life. Other than this, I am not doing much else. There are some friends coming to visit next weekend but that’s it. I am just really having a good time. I love it here. I hope to have a new entry next week. Thanks for coming. God Bless<><
• Matthew Odynski
• jonnycakes2@hotmail.com