Täällä ollaan taas pitkästä aikaa! Sori on ollu nyt kyllä aika pitkäkin tauko mutta oon jotenkin menettäny motivaation tän blogin suhteen :o. Aika täällä rullaa jo kovaa kohti kesää ja ensimmäiset lämpimät päivätkin oon jo saanu nautiskella tenniskentällä, kun meillä tosiaan alko kevät lajit :) Oon ihan rakastunu tohonkin lajiin! Musta tuntu että kyllä valkasin ihan parhaat lajit, syksyllä lenttis ja keväällä tennis ! :) <3 MINNA jos satut lukeen tätä niin kyllä mennään sitten kun tuun Suomeen niin pelaan tennistä yhes ;)! Ajattelin nyt kummiskin tän postauksen tehä pää-asiassa enkuks että noi mun jenkkikamutkin sais vähän tietoo näistä kulttuurieroista! :)
All right, let's get started :)
I wanted to introduce you guys some of the culture differences that there is between Finland and the States. There sure is a lot more than this, but here's at least some that I have noticed. :) And notice that the things i'm writing about in this text is stuff that I've noticed in my host family and school. Things may be different in other families and schools. :)
1. Food in almost any aspect.
-Where Finns appreciate home made food made out of fresh veggies and meat, Americans prefer going to a fast food restaurant. In Finland, we almost never take our veggies (and meat) out of the freezer and just put them in the microwave. At least my host family tends to do that a lot.
-On the other hand, they do have a lot more options for vegetarians over here, which I'm really glad about. And you can eat healthy, but it takes way more effort than it would if I was in Finland.
-School lunch can either be really healthy or unhealthy. In my school there's a really delicious salad bar where you can make your own salad depending on what you like. They usually have some beans, eggs and seeds there to make it protein-rich. :) BUT there is also pizza, hamburgers etc. unhealthy food available _every_ day. Eww. I gotta admit that I do eat junk food every once in a while tho ;) In Finland they usually serve potatoes with some sauce and a regular salad (tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce). And they don't have like 4 different options over there like we do here.
-I love to drink my coffee black, but here most (all) of the people tend to put some nasty stuff also called creamer in their coffees. We don't even have that stuff in Finland. There are tons of flavors available in the stores when it comes to creamers.
-The food in general is way more sweeter over here than it's back home. They put frosting (another thing we don't have) on top of cinnamon rolls and cakes. I still haven't had a cake topped with whip cream and fresh berries while I've been here. They only have cakes that have frosting on top. I think it's too sweet. Also, american licorice is so sweet that I don't even know if i should call it licorice anymore.. No offense :D I had some of my Finnish ones at school the other day and nobody liked it. Yep, I bet it's because it doesn't have any sugar in it. :D
2. Clothing
-Nobody in Finland wears yoga pants I don't even think they sell them (?) and very few people wear pants that are boot cut.
-Backpacks are rare in Finland, especially among girls. We prefer purses and bags.
-I think Finns pay more attention on what they are wearing and think more about what others are thinking about them anyways.
-I remember the time I was like "I'll never wear a sweatshirt with leggings," because I thought it was hmm.. yeah.. :D But here we are, I guess America happened and nowadays that's like my fav outfit, soo comfy, I love leggings :P.
3. People
-People talk way more. I sometimes have a hard time with this one because I'm not used to talking all the time and I actually enjoy silence and don't think it's awkward at all :D. My motto is "Silence is better than bullshit" and it's so true, I think that you should keep your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say :) . But I think that it's amazing how people over here use small talk all the time and are so friendly to each other. Back home they would think you're insane if you talked to a person you don't know.
-I think that they have more drama over here among the teenagers. I've noticed that some people can really be two faced and fake. Don't get me wrong, you can find those kind of people from everywhere, but I think that it's still more common over here :/
-Some people actually are interested about foreign exchange students over here. I feel sorry for the people that decide to do their exchange year in Finland, where nobody cares about them. I'm going to tho. But I think it's because we are afraid to use our language skills and since the exchange students don't usually speak Finnish, Finns decide not to talk to them because they are afraid to use their English and make mistakes. I've learned that it really doesn't matter and actually little (or big) mistakes are kinda hilarious! I bet there's so many in this text too, but I really don't care :P
4. Sports
-I love it when Americans have sports at school and it doesn't even cost much to join in and the best part is that you don't even have to be good. You could start a sport in your senior year and you would be perfectly fine. I hadn't played volleyball much before, let alone tennis which I had never even tried before. The thing is that they have two or three different teams for the students depending on how good you are. Varsity is the best and all the seniors and good players get there. Junior Varsity is the second best. Most of the schools also have a c-team for the beginners. Usually people are not that competitive on JV or C-team, but on Varsity, they usually take the game on a whole new level.
-Back home being in a sport team is really expensive and you should start like at the of 5 in order to get to play when you are older. Of course they have some teams for the beginners even if you were older, but it's less common. And sports are not related to our schools at all.
-Hockey to Finns is as popular as (American) Football is to Americans. When The Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl, like 4/5 of our school students wore Seahawks jerseys and shirts and it was all about Seahawks. When the olympics were on, the teachers were watching all the hockey games from a big screen with the class instead of teaching. And I woke up at four o'clock in the morning just to watch the matches <3. I love hockey.
5. School
-Even tho I'm taking quite easy classes over here, I still think that American school system is easier than Finnish one. We get a lot of multiple choice test over here, and they test us every week. Back home, we only have one exam per class per month, but those exams are big and we have to know the whole picture. We have to write 2-3 essays that are 2-4 pages long about a topic they give us. We don't pay attention to the details.
-In Finland, we address our teachers by their first names and we might also give them some nicknames too :D. Over here we have to call them by their last names.
-In Finland you graduate from the "secondary school" at the age of 15 and after that you apply either to an upper secondary school or vocational school. I'm not gonna go to details, but basically upper secondary school is theoretical and vocational school is more practical.
I would call the high school here like a mixture of both of the schools in Finland. There's so many classes you can take in my school and so many different kinds! E.g. Marketing, Personal Finance, Business Communications, and you can even work in a student store!
-It bugs me that people over here are so over protective. At school there's some guards walking on the hallways and when all the buses arrive in the morning, the guards are standing over where the crosswalk is and they tell us when we can cross over etc. They also make sure that there's no people wandering on the hallways during the classes and they always announce when the class starts. You will also need a hall pass to go in the restroom and if you don't meet the rules you'll get detention.
In Finland nobody's gonna come after you if you skip the class, it's your own decision whether you wanna learn and go to school or not. Nobody's gonna tell you when the class starts and you don't get detention or need a hall pass to go in the restroom.
-We can use the books at school for free, but in Finland we have to buy our own.
-Over here it's inappropriate to smoke in the school area, while in Finland almost half of the students smoke cigarettes only a couple yards away from the entrance.
6. Random facts about America(ns) :)
- Americans have crappy public transportation, everybody has a car.
- It seems like trucks were the most popular cars over here :D
- We keep our shoes on when we get home.
- Nobody at my age lives by themselves yet and most of them find it weird when I tell them that I live by myself.
Now I gotta go to bed. Since there's no school tomorrow, I'm gonna go to the gym in the morning >:)
Nightnight <3
<3: Emilia
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