Niklas in the States

Back in Finland...end of one story and a beginning of another!

2008-12-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

Life after the year in MN

I've been here in Finland for almost 6 months and it feels like I left New Ulm a couple of weeks ago. A lot has happened here too and some moments to mention are; summer vacation, beginning of a new school year, weekends with friends, badminton competitions, birthday, cruise to Stockholm and a trip to Netherlands. I think I have finally settled to the normal life here.....the culture shock here is over :D

Today I received some cool stuff from U.S.A and it made me think of all the great moments during my year in NU. I think I have to end this story here and have another one in Suomi or somewhere else. There are many adventures to come and the year in New Ulm won’t be forgotten. The experience was something that I can be proud of and remember forever. I have so many good friends from the states and I will try to keep in touch with them a lot :)
Finally, here are some pictures from summer/fall/winter 08’ in Finland.

Niklas Harki

The End

Summer, Black Hills, Friends......

2008-06-06T12:55:00.001-07:00

Hello Hello !

After the weekend with all the graduation parties it was time to go on our last big camping trip. We drove the entire ay from New Ulm to Rapid city in South-Dakota. The drive was about 11 hours. On the way we stopped in Mitchell for the only building in the world made out of corn (Corn palace) which works as the Civic center in Mitchell. We drove also past the Missouri river. They have the famous Lewis and Clark trail there.

When we got to the Black Hills we unloaded the cars at Custer state park. We had our tents ready and everything was set up until it got dark. The next morning we did the wildlife loop with Buffalo and other animals. It was too foggy to do the hikes so we went to the Wind cave. It was really cool to hear all the stories and how the place has changed etc.

The next day we got snow and it was chilly out. We decided to drive all the way to Hills city and see the Rocks and Bones exhibit there.

When the weather got a little better we figured it was better to do some hiking before it starts snowing again. We hiked up to Harney Peak which is the highest point between Rockies and Pyrenees. On the top of it we couldn’t really see anything because there was still so much fog in the air but it was cool to do the hike still.

Next morning our plan was to go and visit the Chapel in the hills which is a copy of a famous Norwegian wooden church.

The full day in the Hills we spent on Needles highway and Mt. Rushmore. It was an amazing sight to see everything when the sky was finally clear. Mt. Rushmore in the evening was beautiful and it was nice to hear the story behind the whole monument and the history of the workers etc.

On the way home we drove through Badlands which was like the Grand Canyon In the middle of South-Dakota. We also stopped at a place called Wall Drug which offers tourists everything, and a little more :D

The trip was fun and Håkon’s parents were with us on this one too so it was pretty cool to see how they liked everything.

After we arrived we had some graduation parties again and then later we had a bonfire with friends on Håkon’s last day before he left. Håkon left on the 2nd of June. Peter flew 40 minutes before Håkon back to Sweden. We ate at Timber lodge steakhouse before they flew from Minneapolis airport.

During this week I have tried to clean up my mess in the room and started to get everything ready for going home. Still the most important thing has been spending time with friends. I’ve tried to spend as much time as I can with them. Today I have 10 days until I’m going away. There is still a lot to do and hopefully the time will be a lot of fun.

Niklas Harki

....AND WE ARE DONE!!

2008-05-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

GRADUATION!!!

NUHS CLASS OF 2008!!

We had our graduation ceremony at the New Ulm civic center 7.00pm on 23rd of May! It was a great time and the speeches people gave made me remember so many good times! This year has just been amazing and now it is all coming to an end...

We have still some time left and actually just today we had our gradation party and we have plenty of other people’s parties to go into :) There are parties all the way until June. It is great to see all our graduates going their own ways to colleges and so on…..As we go to our home countries.I have to say though that studying with our friends in a college would be so much fun!!

I will definitely be back in New Ulm and maybe, who knows, I'll study in a college in USA :D

So, this blog post just told the basic outline of what we have done, I'll do a bigger report when we get back from Mt.rushmore. I'll put a lot of pictures though because a picture tells more than a thousand words :D HAHa, also kind of tired because we have had so many great things going on during the weekend :)

CLASS OF 2008!!! -WE ARE DONE!!

Niklas Harki

School is over!!!

2008-05-21T23:29:00.000-07:00

Last week in School!

Last week we did many things for the last time in NUHS. We had our last Track practice, last choir concert and finally 21.5(Today) was our last day in school! We don’t have any school left now.
I ran the last time in Track practice last Thursday and it was fun to do it because I felt like I was really done with Track. I returned my team jacket and pants. I also had to give my gym locker away a little later….
On Friday Håkon had his birthday and we had a lot of people over to celebrate his big day! We watched movies and talked about random stuff for many hours.

On Saturday it was time to attend some people’s Graduation parties. I went to two of them and had fun in both. I was amazed by all the effort that’s put on those parties with the pictures, food etc. On Saturday evening I went to Madelia to hang out with friends….
Sunday morning we left to Hanska. They have a Norwegian celebration every year. Later that day I went to the last choir concert and then we continued to Applebee’s for Tyler’s birthday. We had so much fun with the big group of people!

Monday and Tuesday went fast with organizing pictures and getting everything ready. We stayed up late both days and Tuesday night I had to watch a movie for credit in World History. Today we had quite a relaxed last day with some tests and a buffet in International foods :P The food was really good! Tomorrow we will have our Senior breakfast and then practice for the graduation ceremony.

I’m ready for new adventures after High School!

Niklas Harki

10 days to Summer vacation and Duluth Trip

2008-05-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hey!

Last week we had fun with friends and school felt kind of nice because we knew that there isn't that much left. I also had another field trip with German class to the cities and we played handball and Hung out at Ty's before leaving to the North :)

This weekend we spent 4 days in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. We drove first to Spooner and continued all the way up to Duluth and a little further away to a lighthouse up the coast. We spent a day with our host family’s parents and other family members. The first day we took a canoe and went down Namekagon river. We ended up falling in the water in the middle of the river because we hit a tree, hahahah :D The river is really shallow so it was easy to get back into the canoe but the water was a little cold still.

On Sunday we woke up earlier for the trip to Duluth. The drive to Duluth was really cool already and you could see that summer is coming! Nick drove us all the way to Split rock lighthouse and Gooseberry Waterfalls :P In the spring there is a lot of water in the fall so it was a good time to go there. I enjoyed the views!! I will put a series of cool pictures from the falls and lighthouse on this post. Gooseberry falls and Duluth are on the shore of lake Superior, The biggest fresh water body on earth!!

Niklas Harki

2008-05-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

Prom 2008

1st of May was my last school day before the big spring formal dance, Prom. We went on a field trip to the cities on that same day. We took a bus to st.Paul and spent a day in the Festival of nations. After we had arrived from the field trip I went to pick up my tux.

A couple of hours later we drove with my hosts to pick up my prom date from Marshall. On Thursday evening we just hung out with friends. On Friday morning Kathy (Petter’s host mom) took us to Mall of America to shop and test the new roller coaster inside the huge Mall. We spent an awesome afternoon in MOA.

I like Mall of America a lot!!! When we were done with shopping and kind of tired we drove to the airport to pick up Petter’s prom date. That night we watched movies with our prom group :D Saturday morning was full of getting ready activities. Girls of course took their time (3 hours) to get ready :D:D We picked up flowers etc.

About 2 O’clock we were ready and went to the park to take pictures with people. We also drove to the brewery which was packed with people taking pictures. We met many friends taking their pictures. The afternoon was fun and funny at the same time since the picture taking panic was going on like a festival in the park.

We ate dinner at Petter’s house and our food was really sweet and the set up was cool. At this point we foreign people were pretty amazed how much effort is put on a high school dance. When we were done with eating we headed back to town and our hosts house where we took some pictures again :D After that we drove to Ty’s house and saw some friends for a while. We had a car ride waiting for us when we were done at Ty’s and we drove around with really old cool looking cars. Those same cars took us to Grand march also.

At Grand March we waited in the line to walk around the Prom setting, it was really sweet! When everybody had walked through the Gym and taken pictures with the photographer it was time to begin the school dance and after that the partying continued the whole night…..

April turning to May already!

2008-04-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Here we are already almost in May. The last day of April is tomorrow! There has been a lot going on as usual. I have had a couple of track meets. Those have been quite a lot of fun and I have ran faster all the time as the practice and meets go on. After a meet in Marshall we stopped at Godfathers pizza and ate a buffet. They even had pizza with candy on it!!(M&M’s), little colorful chocolate filled pastilles. I also met some friends that I know from Marshall in that meet.

A week ago our friends had a performance at the community center. This event was called Dittis and Desserts. I had fun watching their performances and I think it’s cool how many good singers they have in this relatively small area. They did a great job with the songs and some of the acts were really funny.
We wanted to see some of New Ulm’s German stuff one day and visited a gift shop called Domeiers. They have everything that you could ever wish for from Germany and other countries including Scandinavian gifts and candies. New Ulm has some really cool big German houses which have been renovated and they look really sweet.

Some days ago we also went to Mankato because the weather has been pretty nice on a couple days. Still, we had snow even last weekend which is really unusual for New Ulm. It has been weird to have such cold weather when May is almost here. In Mankato we went to a baseball batting cage and did a couple swings on a golf range. The batting cage got stuck quite many times but was really fun. The faster one was hard to hit though. Golf range was my 2nd time ever hitting a golf ball so it was something new. After all these activities we ate at a restaurant called Timber lodge steakhouse. We ordered huge steaks to see the all American dinner! :D

School is going pretty good. Some of the classes are more boring than in the beginning but still I enjoy going to school and seeing all the people. Our gym class is always fun because we do a big variety of sports. In International Foods we are going on a field trip on this weeks Thursday to the cities. The event where we go is called festival of nations.
Last weekend we went paintballing with some friends and it was really cold. We did a couple of rounds and 200 paintballs each. It was cool and the price wasn’t bad because they had a paintball sale day. Our friends had another concert on Sunday and we went to watch that. They performed a big music medley. We got to eat dinner there also. Our friend had his birthday also last week so we went to Applebees and celebrated with a big group of people.

I can really feel that the spring is coming right now and this weekend we have our spring formal dance. It will be really fun and we also have Friday off from school. We have a countdown for Graduation in our schools wall. I think today we only have 15 days of school left until we graduate. Next month will be cool with all the events and things happening! We have our own graduation party too. Let’s hope everything goes well next weekend and in the upcoming track meets.

Niklas Harki

2008-04-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

March------>>>>----April

After Hawaii I had a lot of make-up work in school and we started to practice track again on the next Monday. My time in that week went pretty much with Homework and a couple of movies with some track practice. We also had our first Track Meet. It was held indoors in MSU, Mankato. The distances were a little different on some races because the length of the track is different indoors. So for example a hundred was a sixty meter race.

The weather has been pretty cold and track practice is not that much fun when it’s so cold out. This week it has gotten a lot better though. We had a day with 70 degrees!! :P

Two weeks ago we went to Mankato and stayed over at another exchange students house. That evening we played tennis, videogames and some other random sports. We also headed for the best Ice-cream place near to New Ulm, Cold stone Creamery! They make like everything that you can create with Ice-cream.

We hanged out at Christian’s( Norwegian Exchange student) friend’s house too. They had been to Finland last summer and showed me some pictures were they stayed etc. I live just right by the houses were they stayed so it was really funny to see the pictures, cool! We saw Minneopa falls which is the next state park from New Ulm Flandrau state park.
We went to rotary club’s banquet too the week after we arrived from Hawaii. It is a banquet for the top 15% in our school. I’m not in it :D, but still we got to go which was really nice. The students who have worked hard during their High School year got nice prices and Diplomas. We also ate a dinner with all the people.

I have been at the cinema a couple of times when our friends have worked there during the week. It’s always fun to do something instead of nothing :D!!

Ida ( a Swedish girl ) had her birthday last weekend. We had a lot of fun at her place and there were many people playing crazy games and having fun. She turned 19 years. We made these little drama skits and it is so fun to make them always!

I visited also Madelia and hanged out with kids from Madelia High School. Madelia is a smaller city just next to New Ulm. It is located maybe 20 minutes from NU.

On sunday we traveled to South-Dakota to see our host brothers recital. He sang for an hour, the songs were from musicals, operas etc. After the concert we went to Nebraska and ate in a restaurant which had a Walleye buffet.

This Week finally it has gotten a little warmer like I said and we have had some tough Track practices!!! It feels kind of crazy that my year is already in half away through April! We are looking forward for all the things to come, prom, track meets, weekends, graduation and just all the fun things that will take place during the last 5 weeks of school.

I got also my Graduation stuff in the mail and sent those to friends and family. Tomorrow is our first outdoor meet in Track. I will run the 100 and 200 race.

Niklas Harki

Hawai'i

2008-03-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hawai’i

…………..March 12th-21st…………..

It was time to take a longer break from school and we had planned this break a long time ago before 2nd semester even began. Our flights to Hawai’i were from Minneapolis to Denver, connecting to Phoenix and finally to Honolulu. We had ordered the tickets with the lowest price that day so the time our flight took off was really bad for our host parents. We stayed then a night in Minneapolis before we took off at 6am. That way it was a little easier for everyone to get back to their normal sleeping rhythm. We flew over the Rocky Mountains and also some nice views in Arizona before landing to Phoenix. The way to Honolulu was basically water of course then.

We arrived to Honolulu at 9pm and were late because we got the wrong boarding pass in Phoenix; still happy that made it there the same day though! A shuttle from the airport took us to our hotel and there we met people from New York and some other people we have met during the year! It was an awesome feeling to see everyone again. Our leaders thought that we had to sleep the first day a lot so we had to go to our room early. We couldn’t really wonder around Honolulu that day yet.

Next morning we woke up and went to Perry’s Smorgy to eat breakfast. They had a buffet with all kinds of foods and the best thing was fresh pineapple! This is the place where we would be eating breakfast the whole time during our stay. First day’s first activity was a bus tour around the island and we actually spent a good 6-7 hours on that trip! We stopped for some amazing sights and familiar places. We made a couple of stops in places were for example Jurassic Park and 50 first dates were filmed. Our longest stop was a beach on the north shore of Oahu. We played volleyball, Soccer and of course swam in the sea. After our stop at the beach we went to an old surfer town Hale’iwa. They had some great Shave Ice there which is Shaved ice topped with loads of flavored syrup. We continued to Dole’s big pineapple plantations and got to wonder around the place for a while. After this it was time to drive all the way back to Honolulu and eat at the Hard Rock Café. Our evening was just free time for us so we went and bought surf shirts and swam in the ocean at night while they had their Aloha Friday fireworks at Waikiki beach.

Second day we woke up early to get into Chinatown, we had a picture competition with some items to find and take pictures of them also. We basically looked like hyperactive tourists in that place because we tried to complete our tasks in time. The locals gave us some funny looks while we were fooling around Chinatown. One of the hardest tasks was to find a fortune cookie. We thought that the reason for it was that it’s not really a Chinese thing, more like an American-Chinese tradition. We searched for one cookie forever and usually the answer when asking was: ‘’what is a fortune cookie? Never heard?!?! Take an Oreo!’’ :D:D We finally got one from a café where a lady who was not Chinese was selling Ice-cream, hahahhaha :D We ended up placing second on this competition. After Chinatown we had our first time surfer’s lesson at Waikiki. It was a blast and everybody enjoyed doing it! We took some awesome pictures of us that actually looked like we could surf pretty good, but it wasn’t that great for the first time :D Some people got little coral cuts and those actually hurt more like they looked like they would. In the evening we gathered to a park to have a pizza buffet. This was the evening when everybody got to know each other better and we made a lot of new friends. We shopped at Waikiki in the beach stores and went to International market to see what they had. There was also a movie at the beach but it wasn’t that great so we figured it would be nice to gather at the hotel around the pool and just chat with people before we had to go to our rooms.

Third day morning began EARLY!! We left to Pearl Harbor at 7.50 or so because they line would get really long if we would have gone there later. Fortunately we got there early because there were already people to fill out a 30 minute line into Pearl Harbor. We waited a couple of hours to get in the boat that took us to the U S.S. Arizona War Memorial. It was pretty amazing to see the ship still underwater there, untouched. This was our big day at the beach and we spent hours in the water and at the beach just having fun and relaxing. In the evening we left with a bus to a Luau which is a Hawaiian traditional food celebration. They had set up a show and some exotic foods for us to try. We had a lot of fun as a big group there and the sunset at the beach was beautiful that day! This was the first night we ‘’sneaked out of our room’’ because we thought we didn’t have enough time to just chat with people :D

Next day was an early morning, again. We left probably at the same time to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling! This bay is the most beautiful place in Oahu I think!!! We saw a big variety of fish and corals etc. Some people even saw sea turtles…we missed them. Our underwater camera took pretty good pictures. We had a lot of free time during the day after snorkeling so we decided to rent surf boards and do some more surfing at Waikiki. Late our dinner was at Bubba Gump’s! They had some games and activities for us in the restaurant. They had some time for us to shop in the Mall where we were eating( Ala Moana Center). We liked the stores there a lot!! After eating dinner and shopping we took a bus back to our hotel and went to a room to have a crazy time!! :P This night we didn’t go anywhere since we were pretty tired of those two early wake up calls.

We had to wake up next morning a little later and we actually made it to breakfast! :D Our morning’s activity was to hike up Diamond Head Volcano. It pretty much is included in the skyline of Honolulu. The views up there were just amazing and of course it wasn’t boring to hike up since our group had a lot of fun during that hike :D That day was also our so called free time day and we went to the beach and I ate a sushi lunch. In the evening room 446 got an idea to rent a limo and that’s what we did then with 15 people. We took a tour in the mountains just to go there and see Honolulu at night! It was a memorable hour! Some quotes during that drive: ‘’this limo is not a dance floor, this is a taxilimo’’, ‘’open window is illegal’’, ‘’you are shaking a lot’’, ‘’Low, low, low, low’’.

Our final destination of the evening was Perry’s, hahahaha :D We had dinner coupons for the restaurant so we ate a quick buffet dinner and had a good time :D We made it to International market this evening also and spent a little money for souvenirs. We were pretty energized that night so we decided to have a ‘’party’’ in our room! So, we stayed up until 4am and then slept a couple of hours :D

The last full day we just relaxed, walked on the beach and our only real activity for the day was a catamaran ride in front of Waikiki beach! That was a cool ride. During our free time that day we cleaned up our rooms a little and got ready for our goodbye party at planet Hollywood. Our party at Planet Hollywood was just great!! The group seemed even better after having all the N.Y.C people and all the new people! We partied until 1am at Planet Hollywood and continued to our hotel and had a room 446 party. Before we even knew some people had to leave early in the morning :S

We said goodbyes and during the day we had to say many of them because our flight was the latest back. We made a quick trip to the post office and the last visit at the ABC store. We sat with the people at Waikiki for an hour before our shuttle took us to the airport. In the airport we still had a chance to meet up with some people and eat together before taking off with the plane at 7.30pm and then our trip was over….
The flights back to Minnesota seemed short because I basically slept all the way back, even though with the stops we arrived to Minneapolis 24 hours later. I enjoyed Hawaii so much! We had some experienced that make me laugh every time when I think about them.

Awesome, Thank you everybody for this amazing trip! :)

Niklas Harki

''Spring break'' trip with the family

2008-03-08T17:18:00.001-08:00

Whitecap Mountains

4.3------5.3

On Tuesday it was time to pack our clothes and drive up north to Wisconsin. I left school after third hour and we drove through the cities all the way to Spooner where my host parent’s family lives. We spent a night there and in the morning we continued to Whitecap Mountains in Wisconsin. Around 1pm I was skiing and just took a little tour around the area. My hosts went cross country skiing the first day. They have really nice runs and they are much longer than in Mt.kato (close to New Ulm). This will probably be my last time skiing in the U.S during my exchange year. We have a cool hotel where we stay and in the morning we can ski straight from the door to the lifts. The air temperature here is 20-30 Fahrenheit. We are probably going to get a lot of new snow for the second day because it’s snowing at the moment and this should continue until tomorrow. I have to finish some homework this evening. We will also go to the spa area (hot tub and a pool).

6.3

Our next day started with a nice breakfast in the main building. We took a couple runs down in the easier slopes to warm up for the expert ones. I like to go fast and do small turns while going down a steep slope. The easier ones are fun to go down with a bigger variety of skiing, like backwards, big turns etc. I liked their ‘’third’’ mountain which was called the thunderhead mountain. The slopes in that one were a lot steeper and there were some off track runs too. Some of the runs were very icy so it was kind of hard to do a lot in the steepest points. The weather in the second day was sunny and the sky was blue. The sun reflecting light from snow made my eyes close, it was bright outside!!! In the evening I went to hot tub and pool area again to warm up a little bit after the cold outside air (It was sunny but not warm!). I wrote some postcards which I bought from the gift shop and finally went to bed early to be fresh in the morning.

7.3

Friday was the last day in Whitecap Mountains and we had a good time skiing in the morning after breakfast. The day was sunny and pretty cold again. After 3pm it was time for us to drive back to Spooner and pick up my sweatshirt and jacket (I forgot them there :D !!!)
We continued from Spooner to Minneapolis-St.Paul airport to pick up Håkon. He went to a California tour with explore America while we were skiing in Wisconsin. Time was about 1am when we arrived home from our trip. Next week on Thursday morning we have a flight to Honolulu!! The reunion with people will be awesome!

Shut up and Ski!!!, Niklas Harki

Badminton tournament----Winterfest-----End of February

2008-03-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! We had to turn the page from February to March already!!

A couple of more weeks in February went by and it was already over. It is March 3rd and last month was full of activities as usual. My classes are going well and surely we have had enough homework! :D
So, after the week we started practicing badminton with my friends we had the tournament. We started playing two weeks ago on Thursday and won the first round. We actually made so good in the games that we received a spot in the final. In the end we took the championship with Tyler and I was really happy for that. We even got subway gift cards from our P.E teacher. Also there was a picture taken to the yearbook.

Two weeks ago on Sunday we had an opportunity to jump into a hole in the ice at St.Peter. The money from that event went to a fundraiser. The event as called Polar Bear Plunge and the idea was just to walk a little ways from the beach to the ice and jump to te icy water. You also had to swim just a little to get back to the dry land. After the jump there was a possibility to go to a hot tub and of course we went :D
We made a trip to Mt.Kato again because they had a special day there. If you brought 5 food items to them you could get the rent and lift ticket for a cheaper price. The day there was a good time. We jumped from all of the jumps and spent the whole time skiing until they closed.

The same weekend we had a meeting with our area representative. It was cool to see all the exchange students in this part of Minnesota and compare experiences. We also went to a house that had just thousands of cow items. A lady had collected them since she was little.

Last week in school was our Winterfest. We had dress up day for every day of the week. Monday was the jersey day, Tuesday was western, Wednesday had a Hawaiian theme, Thursday was for ugly sweaters and the last day was of course the purple/white day. It was fun to participate in those again, reminded me of Homecoming week. Friday was the day for our pep-fest. Our student body had ordered a hypnotist for or school and it was really amazing to see a show with hypnotism. I don’t believe in hypnotism that much but I think this time I actually might believe that the show was true. They had over 20 volunteers to go in the front and they would have had to practice the show hours and hours if they wouldn’t have been in the state if hypnosis. This is why I think that they actually went through all the things unconsciously.

This weekend we had our Hockey sections Final and unfortunately we didn’t make it all the way to state tournament. It was really hard for some of the kids since they had hoped for years to have a spot in the tournament. The weekend went by fast and now I only have 3 hours of school tomorrow because we are leaving to Wisconsin for a ski trip. It’s going to be cool to ski and then in a couple days from that we are already flying to Hawaii. I received a cool packet from Finland with a lot of things ! :P We had our first track meeting and We bought shoes from an outlet mall in a city called Owatonna.

Hopefully the weather will be great in both of the destinations.

This is life, Niklas Harki

A month of fun times :)

2008-02-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

Hi!

It's February already and the air keeps getting colder :D I bet the temperature will go up in a couple of weeks, hopefully. My new classes have started with fun moments and a more relaxed feeling. We have done even some Finnish food in international foods. In advanced PE we have played badminton and it has been great for me to play a game that is my main sport with friends from U.S.A. We have gone to the hockey games a lot and it seems that we only have a couple left. Girls hockey team has to win a game and then they are going to state tournament. It would be awesome to have our team going there.

I received a nice packet from Finland with a hockey jersey in it. Also letters and little video clips have been a nice way to tell me what’s going on in my home country. Day after day it seems that Finland is further and further away. Still, I keep in touch with people with e-mails, letters etc.
We had a ‘’Locking’‘ with exchange students and it means that we were staying up all night long in a building with a bunch of people. During the evening we also went bowling and ate food , ate, and ate food :D

One day I was amazed when somebody got picked up by a limo but I guess the family owns it. I have seen it before in school’s parking lot but I didn’t know why it was there.

Last Wednesday we went skiing with school to Mt. Kato and that was something to experience, I love skiing and especially with a nice group of people. We did all the slopes and jumps and one thing I noticed was that the ski lifts didn’t have safety bars. All of their lifts were chair ones and I’m used to having the ‘’anchor’‘ lift in smaller ski resorts. Our bus left to Mt. Kato at 8.10am and we came back 3.00pm so we didn’t have to study that day!! :)

I have been in Harman park playing hockey with friends and it’s really nice to do outdoor sports when the weather is nice and sunny, not too cold. Some days the temperature has dropped to negative degrees in Fahrenheit!! :S Harman park is a cool place to play because the statue is up on the hill and it’s kind of in the middle of New Ulm actually.

The big football finale Super bowl took place also and we were in a little party watching the game. The experience was good and the game was good entertainment for a Sunday evening. The winner in this game was New York Giants.

Last week after swimming I went to bake some Finnish cinnamon rolls to another exchange student’s family and we had a blast with that :D They have a membership to anytime fitness and we exercised that evening also.
In the weekend we left early on Saturday morning to Sioux Falls and went to watch the Falls and did a couple other sightseeing must see things. Sioux Falls seemed like a cool city and this time the weather was freezing so we didn’t wonder outdoors that much. When we drove down there from New Ulm it was hard to see the car driving in front of us because the wind was blowing the snow so hard.

This week I finally caught up in homework. I was sick for three days and during that time I missed a bunch of assignments. We have gone to a couple of hockey games and today I actually played badminton with my friends after school. We are gonna have a badminton tournament in school this month!!! :) Me and Tyler are gonna dominate the tournament :D Yeah, we’ll see what happens with it. I’m going to be ready with swimming 28th of this month and then track begins in March after our Hawaii trip.

We are looking forward for that trip so much. I have had such an great experience with my year that all these extra things make it just a dream of mine. It has given me a lot.
I can’t wait to see what happens every day and the time is running so fast. I have 4 months until I will take a step in the airport in Helsinki.

Thanks for all the letters, cards e-mails etc. for me. They are always great and I have saved all of them and we’ll see what kind of a hall of fame that will be in my room back in Finland :D
Regards to everyone and hopefully everything is going well with your year 2008 also.

Niklas Harki

2nd semester......

2008-01-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

Hello my friends!

Today we had our first day in school after the 4 day weekend. My finals were all ok, nothing special. There were a lot of questions though!!! I think this semester will be a lot more fun in school. My classes are more fun and some of them seem more like an activity type of a thing than a lecture with a lot of notes. 3rd hour all seniors went to the gym and we had a speech about graduation. It was nice to get a catalogue which has products that we can order for graduation. We are going to be a part of the graduation ceremony but we will not get a normal diploma. Our diploma will be from STS and it is a special one for the exchange program.

I also made prints of my senior picture :)

It has been pretty cold here this week and I hope that the temperature goes down a little so I can go skiing. Now I only have to buy new notebooks and stuff for this semester and I’m pretty much ready to begin my second half of this year in New Ulm.

The 4 day weekend gave me a lot of energy after some long days in school. I’m very excited for all the events happening during the second semester. Track season begins in March :P

Over these past weeks I've learned about two characters called Ole&Lena. They are Scandinavian and living in Minnesota. People here know these jokes about Scandinavian people very well. I will just put here a couple as an example. They spell a lot of words in a funny style to make the jokes more effective :D

1.
One night, a torrential rain soaked northwestern Minnesota. The next morning the resulting floodwaters came up about 6 feet into most of the homes there.Mrs. Johnson was sitting on her roof with her neighbor, Lena, waiting for help to come. Mrs. Johnson noticed a baseball cap, floating near the house.Then she saw it float far out into the front yard, then float back to the house; it kept floating away from the house, then back towards the house.Her curiosity got the best of her, so she asked Lena, "Do you see dat der baseball cap a floatin' away from da house, den back again?"Lena said, "Oh yeah, dats my husband Ole; I tole dat lazy-such and such he vasgonna cut da grass today, come hell or high water!!!!

2.Ole and Lena got married. On their honeymoon trip they were nearing Minneapolis when Ole put his hand on Lena's knee. Giggling, Lena Said, "Ole, you can go farther if ya vant to"... so Ole drove to Duluth.

3.Lena passed away and Ole called 911. The 911 operator told Ole that she would send someone out right away."Where do you live?" asked the operator.Ole replied, "At the end of Eucalyptus Drive.""Can you spell that for me?" the operator asked.There was a long pause and finally Ole said, "How 'bout if I drag her over to Oak Street and you pick her up der?"

Niklas Harki

Holidays are over and next semester is coming!

2008-01-12T20:14:00.000-08:00

First semester in school almost over !!

It was time to go again into school after the break. I have enjoyed these classes a lot; however it is great to have something different now when the second semester starts. I have been in the hockey games, spent time with friends and family. Swimming is easier than in the beginning. The strokes that we use in the practice feel more natural etc.

We will now change the 7 classes that we had to other ones and those will remain until the end of the school year. These are my second semester classes :P

1st hour: German 1
2nd hour: Drama
3rd hour: Speech
4th hour: Advanced PE
5th hour: International Foods
6th hour: Biology B
7th hour: World History 2

Hopefully it will be great :D

This weekend we made another trip to the cities and went to Como Zoo, Minnehaha Falls and a gift store with products from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Germany and Denmark.
We left very early in the morning and it was snowing in New Ulm. By the time we were in Minneapolis the sun was shining. We drove into to a camera store and then continued to Como Park. They have a great Zoo in Como and some very neat exhibitions.

We saw many animals again, also African ones. The Zoo also had a cool big garden with plants from all over the world. I thought it was quite funny when a map besides the polar bear area said that they live also in southern Norway :D:D It seemed like there would be polar bears in Oslo. We didn’t have any polar bears in Finland and I’m glad that they had that fact right. Maybe the whole Norway was colored just because there are polar bears in Svalbard which is a part of Norway. We saw the polar bears playing in the Zoo and it was awesome.

When we got to Minnehaha falls it was time to eat lunch and then go and hike a little around the falls. I went down the icy stairs to take a picture of the beautiful frozen waterfall. Going down the stairs was kind of fun and it was fast to just slide. When it was time to get back up it seemed that there were a doubled amount of stairs :D I got a nice picture though. Somebody had gone to the restricted area and painted to the ice with some orange spray paint.

We got back to the old part of Minneapolis before dark and visited a gift store which had so many familiar products again. I personally liked the book about Tapiola as a very interesting thing to see there. It seemed so cool that they have a book about my part of the city in a little store in Minneapolis. They had Moomin products as well as Fazer Chocolate. The coffee cups which have a definition of the word SISU and a Finnish flag are very common here :D I have learned more and more about Finnish immigration to the U.S during my year; it has been interesting to see how much heritage this part of The States has.

We drove then back home in the evening and it is time to do some homework tommorow before school starts on Monday. Finals will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, wish me luck :D

Jenkit kuittaa, Niklas Harki

NEW YEARS EVE

2008-01-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

NEW YEAR 2008!!!

We had our party with friends and we also watched the ball drop in N.Y.C :) It is fun to see how people celebrate New Year all over the world. Our night was something that I will never forget, we had so much fun. We played games, ate good food, made crazy jokes, went to hot tub and even rolled in the snow with only swim trunks on! This was an amazing experience and hopefully everyone else had a fun evening too. We counted seconds from 60 to 0 before it was midnight. The next day we went to Perkin's for a breakfast and after a while I had to sleep a little more because I was so tired :D The evening was worth of staying up all night! Happy New Year 2008 everyone :)

The ball in N.Y.C drops every time when the year changes. This year was a special one because they had made a makeover for the ball because it was the 100th time when it dropped. It is now the biggest LED light in the whole world I think :D Not sure, but that's what I heard. Year changed all over the world!!!! :)

>>>>>>>DECEMBER >>>>>>>

2007-12-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

>>>>>>DECEMBER>>>>>

Hello! It's Winter after a long break of writing into my blog :D

December went really fast and that’s why I’m now a little late with updating. Last month was full of activities and fun events. I’ve watched school sports and hung out with friends. Every week there is usually at least one hockey game where I go. It has been chilly outside, temperatures are between 0-34 Fahrenheit. We have quite a lot of snow on the ground. In school everything is going well and it’s almost time to start the second semester!! It means that I will have 7 new classes in my schedule. The classes that I have currently will end. My year is going very fast at the moment and I hope that next the next half will be as sweet as the first one was.

Hockey games have been the best! I have been almost in every one of them. New Ulm has a good team and we have won most of the games. Many people from school attend the games and it is a good way to meet them also.

Mt.kato-the closest place to ski. It was cold and windy but skiing can't be anything else than fun !!

We went to this nice seafood buffet.

I made Rice Crispy treats with my host family!! :D

I also got my class ring in the mail. New Ulm seniors rock!!!

Christmas break started on Friday the 21st. The first days I hung out with friends. I got so many packages and cards from Finland, it was cool!!! I sent some to people also and gave friends cards and Finnish music in school. Also talked to people who are going to Hawaii and we are really excited about the trip. I bought a new phone and now I don’t have Virgin mobile anymore :D:D Our host brothers came home for the winter break. There were a lot more college students in New Ulm during the Holidays because they had their long break. We watched a couple of movies also and just relaxed before Christmas Day. In the evening on 24th we ate a nice dinner and got our Christmas pants which Mary Ann made herself.

In the morning on 25th we opened presents and there were lots. I got some very nice things and it was fun to experience Christmas in the U.S. In the evening we drove around the city and watched Christmas lights and decorations. One yard had a light display with a music synchronized show. We played Monopoly until 2am and in all the day was a fun family event. The next day we went to see National Treasure 2.

After Christmas we drove up to the cities and stayed there for the night. First thing that we visited was a sculpture garden in front of a modern museum of art. They have a very famous sculpture there which has a spoon and a cherry. It creates a nice image with Minneapolis skyline on its background. After the visit in the sculpture garden it was time to go into IKEA. We

explored the store and all the furniture there. After the cashier there was a Swedish gift store which had so many products that we could find from a normal store in Finland also. There were many brands including Abba, Felix, Kopparberg, Marabou, Daim etc. The list is huge!

We ate in a restaurant which had huge sandwiches and I couldn’t finish my dish :D Our hotel was really cool and we watched a movie in the night because the TV was so big :D:D

In the morning we headed for Minnesota Zoo. They have a huge Imax, aquarium, outside display, ‘’fake jungle’’, bird section, and some other fun things to do. Most of the animals are there even in the winter. We went into a dolphin- and a bird show and in the bird one an owl flew so close to my head that it’s wing flapped my head. We spent almost 6 hours in the Zoo and after the visit it was time to drive back home. When we came home it was time to hang out with friends again.

The days before New Year were just so cool and the time spent was in the most memorable section of this year’s things.

New Ulm is getting ready for Christmas !! :D

2007-11-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!

This is just going to be a short post :DD: We went to see a house on garden street and the sights were awesome. This one house had an amazing variety and amount and Christmas lights already set up. We will see how things continue but this is just amazing and I thought it was possible only in movies, but I guess it’s very true :D We walked in NU also and took some random pictures.

Mall Of America and Birthday

2007-11-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

17th Birthday and MOA

Last week we only had 2 days of school and we decided to go to the Mall Of America on Wednesday. Nicholas and Dimitri came home on Tuesday evening. We left home early in the morning and arrived to MOA approximately 11am :D

I was really excited to enter the biggest shopping mall in United States :D Inside the mall they had a big hall in the center which was the place where the amusement park located. There were four big extensions for bigger stores like Macy’s. All the other shops were in four floors around the amusement park. It was pretty easy to find our way there.

I bought some nice clothes and we even visited the underwater world which has the largest shark exhibition in the world. We ate dinner in a nice restaurant called Twin cities grille.
We also had to try a rollercoaster inside the mall. It was a weird feeling to be in a coaster inside and especially when it wasn’t that small. We spent the whole day inside and when it was time to leave it was snowing outside.

I believe it was the first time when the snow stayed in ground for a while. It has been colder and colder all the time here. The record is already -15 Celsius degrees.

24th of November it was time for my birthday. Actually we celebrated it already on Friday with friends. In the morning we went with Elio to Owatonna and Cabela’s. We ate there and watched the crazy shopping going on. It was the day after Thanksgiving so it is the busiest day to shop. It is called the black Friday here in the U.S and usually stores have crazy discounts and other things to get the people come into their place.

We returned from Owatonna to New Ulm to watch the parade of lights. They had vehicles and other things, like our schools marching band lit up with Christmas lights. It was pretty cool to see a lot of people in New Ulm downtown since it’s usually empty :D

Mary Ann had made a beautiful cake for my birthday and it was so good. Chocolate and mint and of course some Finnish flags for decoration :D:D We watched movies and had fun on Saturday. In all, I think Thanksgiving vacation was a lot of fun and I got some good memories from it.

I also received information that nearly all the STS students are coming to Hawaii on March 13th. It is going to be a blast.

Niklas Harki

2007-11-25T19:20:00.001-08:00

Some more Christmas Carol pictures, text is in the older post below the pictures :)

Christmas Carol

2007-11-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

NUHS PRESENTS :

Christmas Carol

Christmas carol’s premiere took place in New Ulm middle school’s auditorium on 15th of November. I had the opportunity to be a part of this amazing production and the process of making a High School play. My part in the play was actually divided between two characters (Peter and Fezziwig). My favorite line in the production was: ‘’No more work tonight – it’s Christmas!’’.

We had a person who built the sets and made the lights for this production. We had people who took care of every item that was used during the play. Also a dresser was necessary. I will always remember the days when we went to Perkin’s family restaurant to eat after practice. Also our backstage entertainment was something that will be in my memories a long time :D Christmas carol is a play originally written by Charles Dickens’. It is a true classic.

We had to take care of our own clothes etc. backstage and it takes a lot of hours to make the play to come alive. It took us about 1 hour 45 minutes without the intermission to run through once. Some weekends I worked with the cast 7 hours a day. We had all the grades in the play from freshmen to seniors. There were 56 people involved with the play and most of them were students, teachers or parents. A ticket was 8 dollars for adults and 5 for students to come and watch our play. We had nice crowds and everything went well.

We also had a cast party after the show on Sunday. We had to remove all the pieces of the set and then it was time to go and bowl in the bowling alley with cast and crew.

If someone is not sure what Christmas carol is, here is a link that should explain the story for you :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol

It was an awesome experience to be a part of Christmas Carol

Christmas is coming soon, according to Target and Wal-Mart at least :D:D

Niklas Harki

VALLEYSCARE AND HALLOWEEN !!!

2007-10-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

SPOOKY.......

VALLEYSCARE...The weekend before Halloween we took a trip to Valleyfair. This time it was turned into haunted amusement park (Valleyscare). They had many haunted attractions and some areas that were only a walk through with scary effects. In most of the areas they had real people in their costumes haunting the crowd. The whole park was decorated with pumpkins and other traditional Halloween decorations. They had smoke machines everywhere and sometimes it was impossible even to see where your friends were. This allowed the actors and actresses to make great jumps out of the smoke in front of people and scare them big time ! :D We went in to four different haunts (Hellside farm, The Asylum, Chateau du Damne and Carn Evil).The Freakiest one was Carn Evil with all clowns and circus music. In that maze there were smaller people dressed up in clothes which were the same color as walls :S In Asylum they had just an endless variety of different rooms with ‘’mentally ill’’ people. I was in the park with Hannah, Shannon, Kiersten, Amanda, Alexa, Peter and Håkon.

Halloween.....
Halloween was a great time for us. Our street is a big thing in Halloween and a lot of kids come for trick or treating in here. Some houses went through 1200 pieces of candy and each kid was given one. We had a smaller amount but still quite many. It was fun to see how much people actually spend time to decorate their houses. We carved our pumpkins with Håkon and wondered the streets. Some even had music in their yards to set up the mood :D We had also a bonfire across the street from us. It was quite a chilly evening. It has started to get colder here. Normal temperature is now somewhere around 12-16 Celsius degrees in noon. We have had more and more play practice time also and the performance will be 17th and 18th this month. I’m very happy to be in that production and we have had so much fun during practice.

Happy Halloween :D:D All stores have already Christmas going on :D:D

Niklas Harki

Michigan/Minneapolis/Guthrie

2007-10-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

Go Finland !!!! :D:D

It’s now 30th of October here in New Ulm and I just finished my homework. The week before last week we only had two days of school and after that a 5 day weekend.

Our road trip to Michigan began on Wednesday morning. When I woke up it was time to bake some Finnish cinnamon rolls (good stuff). We also decorated some cookies with Håkon. I had my play rehearsals for couple of hours and then we left New Ulm.

On the way we stopped in Wisconsin to pick up rest of the family and stayed in Spooner over the night. Earlier that week I searched some information about Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was surprised that it was mainly people with Finnish heritage. So, there was a town more Finnish than New Ulm is German. We stayed in a beautiful park on the beach of Lake Superior. Our trip took 11 hours of driving there and 11 back. It was fun to see the change in nature and we even passed one time zone.

All trees were colored differently from dark red to bright green. It reminded me of Finland. We even passed a city called Tapiola in Michigan!!!! We went every day to the beach, not to swim but to collect rocks. We explored the world of different kind of rocks and mining. U.P of Michigan has a lot of mines. Actually that’s why Finns settled there, to mine. They had saunas everywhere and our flags in streets and lampposts. University of Finlandia, formerly known as Suomi College was a big landmark in Hancock-Houghton area. I bought a replica of their hockey team’s shirt. Sunsets on the beach were just awesome. We also drove to a big waterfall and it was amazing. All the street names were translated in blue and white in the street signs :D

The record snowfall in Keewenaw County was 390.4 inches. They had a big demonstration about snowfall averages and stuff there. In the evenings we just had funny conversations, played games, ate some great food, watched the lake and studied a little bit. Since there was no electricity in the cabin we had these battery operated lights and some flashlights. Our trip was a success.
When we came back from there I joined New Ulm’s swimming team and we have practice Mon-Thu from 3.30pm-5.15pm. Last week’s Thursday we went to Minneapolis to watch a play in Guthrie Theater. We left straight after school and it was so cool for the first time to drive actually into Minneapolis downtown.

The play was called Jane Eyre. The building was awesome. Mississippi river and Minneapolis skyline in sunset was a cool sight. They actually had Finnish escalators and elevators there (KONE).

I Had to find something Finnish from there too :D:D Jane Eyre began 7.30pm and lasted for 3 hours. It was a good play with a nice set. I liked Guthrie’s Wurtele Thurst stage. We arrived home from the cities at 1am.

New Ulm’s new swimmer, Nicky from Knicky :D:D

Niklas Harki

AFS weekend in Luverne !!! :P

2007-10-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

SWEEEEEEET !!!!!!

Exchange student weekend in Luverne (4th – 7th of October)

Our weekend began a little bit earlier last week. We left New Ulm for Luverne on Thursday at 4 o’clock. It took about 2 hours to drive there. Luverne is south from New Ulm and its located only 8 miles from Iowa’s border. We arrived to Luverne High school around 6 and ate dinner. There were 50 exchange students from 26 different countries. After dinner it was time to meet our hosts for the weekend. I had a family which had a lot of experience in youth exchange programs. They were great and we talked the whole evening about funny situations with other exchange students.

In the morning it was time to visit the courthouse. We saw a mock trial act performed by high school students. After courthouse we went to a famous house in Luverne’s history. Hinkley house was a nice visit because basically it showed how European people settled America. It had also some mysterious tunnels and beautiful details. Next destination was a bowling center. We didn’t make many points but had fun. Later after 2 hours of bowling we headed back to school. We attended Luverne High school’s pep fest. Their school colors were red and white. In the evening we were part of their Homecoming game by filling the audience quite a lot. Luverne Cardinals didn’t win but it was close (20-22). From 9.30pm to midnight we went to their Homecoming dance to hear some Finnish music……..again :D Believe it or not but Sandstorm is still considered one of the best partying songs here. During the night there was a huge thunderstorm and it rained a lot.

Still, in the morning we did find out that it was one of the hottest days recently. We had 87 Fahrenheit highs last weekend but now it’s dropped all the way to 50 :S:S Saturday morning we woke up a little later and skipped breakfast. Lunch was at Pizza Ranch and believe me when I say it was too much for us :D Pizza with all sort of things on it ( apple crisp, chocolate, taco, some powder sugar ). Our bus from Pizza Ranch left at 2 to Pipestone national monument. There we watched a movie about Pipestone’s history and took a tour. I think that especially the waterfall was great. Some beautiful scenery and nice weather makes an great combination. Next place was a dairy farm…….cows, milk ;D;D A cool thing after a tour there was a ride to the fields to see Buffalos. We fed them from our hands and stuff, it was sweet.

In the evening we had our farewell party and a bonfire. We took a hayride in the cornfields. It felt like those moments from a movie, quite of a funny moment. Clear sky and stars, watching them and sitting in a pile of hays :D:D We grilled some marshmallows on a bonfire, listened to music and ate :D After a good night it was time to say goodbye. Everybody got all e-mail addresses and stuff. We signed t-shirts in school cafeteria and talked just about random things. I think this weekend was a cool event and hopefully there will be something similar again later during this year.

The End of Homecoming Week

2007-09-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

Day 5 – Purple and white – Football game and homecoming dance.
Our Friday started 6am in the morning. We drove with another exchange student's host sister to Burger King and took ice coffee. I had my LED belt buckle on and it said NUHS rocks :D:D Cashier lady there was sure that we would be late from school, but we weren’t. We had no time to go to our lockers, just ran to American Literature class. It was easy to figure that this dress up day was the most popular; nearly everybody had something with purple and white. I couldn’t wear my headband because it was ‘’gang-related’’ :D:D Yeah, some school rules in NUHS.

Our classes were more relaxed than usually on Friday. In biology we tested Ph numbers of different kind of liquids. Some of them didn’t make me so hungry for lunch. Especially liver mixed with water.

We had only 25 minutes of 6th hour because there was another pep fest. Performance was pretty much the same as in homecoming coronation. Our dance team and cheerleaders performed. Then our homecoming court made their dance with song: Soulja Boy Tell Em - Crank That. It was fun again and we got to scream from the top of our lungs (now I have a sore throat).

After school we hanged out with some students. We ate in Subway. Our homecoming game started 7.00pm and we played against Fairmont. Most of NUHS students were there. Also a student from STS is playing Football in our team as a kicker (Elio from Italy). He has always made a point when he has kicked. Still, we lost 30-32 and it was sad to lose the homecoming game because it’s such a big thing for some people. After the game it was time for homecoming dance in school gymnasium. We had our own DJ and lights. First when we went there situation with the amount of people looked bad. After 20 minutes dance floor was full of people. We had a blast in the dance and it was HOT!!! :D Dance took from 9pm to midnight. After that we hanged out in Perkins with students from NUHS and Cathedral High.

Go NUHS !

STS finland made a post of me ( in finnish ) in their page

Our homecoming Queen ---------------->>>>>>>>>

http://www.sts.fi/finland/hs/aloitus/oppilaiden_kirjeet/usa-minnesota-new-ulm-1/

Saying in the class: Life is not a matter of holding good cards in your hands, but making the most of the cards you are dealt.

Very niiiiice, Niklas Harki

Homecoming Week

2007-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – tinfoil/duct tape

On Thursday we dressed up in duct tape and tinfoil. I made a belt and wristbands out of duct tape. Some people really are into these days and they make all the clothes for example out of duct tape. It's cool to see every day all crazy things that students have done.

In the evening we went to school board meeting which was filmed to a local TV channel, which was fun.

I also found out that they sell energy drinks in 24.oz size ( 7.1 dl). I had to buy that and it was huge :D:D

Party like a rockstar !!

Yeep, A4 paper lenght :D:D

Saying in class: You possess what it takes to succeed.

Niklas Harki

Homecoming week

2007-09-26T17:22:00.001-07:00

Day 3 - Class colors - Battle of classes

On wednesday we had battle of classes with it's all crazy competitions.

Class colors were:

Freshmen: Orange

Sophomores: Red

Juniors: Blue

Seniors: Green

Faculty: Black

The day went like all the other days, but after 5th lesson we had Battle of classes in the Gym.
First students competed against each others in eating pizza. Who ate one pizza fastest?? Answer: Seniors did ;)

Second game was a big slushy (blue raspberry). Who drank it fastest?? Answer: Seniors did ;)

Third one was a big bottle of chocolate syrup. Who drank it fastest?? You know it ;) No, actually we were second ones.

After these games it was time for dodge ball and football. Finally the last competition game was music benches. (You walk around benches and when music ends you have to try to sit in one)
Finally Seniors took gold in this and after all we were the best :D:D Yeah

We had painted our faces and stuff for the occasion ;)

http://cu.nujournal.com/pages/user_detail.php?user=144058 More pictures of our school, me, pep fests etc. Our Biology teacher takes photos of every big event and they are in New Ulm journal web page :)

Homecoming week

2007-09-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Clash and Volleyball game

Many students had crazy combinations of clothes on them.

In the evening I went to Volleyball game after soccer practise. New Ulm Eagles won !!!!! again...

Homecoming week

2007-09-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Formal - Homecoming king and queen :)

Our choir sang the national anthem.

Dance team doing their talented performance.

Homecoming court 2007

Some entertaiment :D

New royalty is picked !

We went to the event and had fun :) It was something that was close to movies but still not :P A lot of effort is put into these school things and it's a special thing here in the U.S

Homework and amusement in New Ulm

2007-09-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

It's so cool

Our next week in school was already more normal than the first one. There weren’t any boring moments in classes or generally in school. More people have started to notice us in the school and we have made some new friends and that’s fun!

One day we went with Julie, who is a host for Jill and Ida (Switzerland and Sweden) to do some paintballing. They had some awesome courts to play in. One with big air filled plastic triangles was my favorite. We were there for a long time and our team won most of the games. I got hits mostly to my safety glasses. One in the fingers was the worst. We had a blast there and thanks to people there it was fun. After a hard day of work we went to DQ (Dairy Queen) to have ice-cream. I took a big Moolatte and it’s the best ice-coffee blend in the world, highly recommended ;)

After DQ it was time for our first school football game. Our school lost that night but it was still fun to watch and to meet some people again. Italian exchange student ( Elio ) made a point with his kick to our team. There was an entrance fee for the game (4$), not so bad, but I was just surprised that school sports are not free.

When football was over it was time to head into a restaurant called Perkin’s. We went there with people from school. I just drank some hot chocolate and talked to people. It was cool.
On last week’s Sunday it was time for the first exchange student meeting in Kathy’s house. They had a nice big house in Lafayette, which is located outside New Ulm. Everybody brought some food there and we had a picnic. We also met some STS people from Arizona. It was great to see some students from N.Y.C again. Food was good and company even better. Very niiice ;) -Petter from Sweden :D:D:D

I have struggled with my locker again a little bit in school but it’s getting better all the time. Cafeteria lady’s have been wondering why I always only buy 2 milks and one fruit :D:D I’m taking some sandwiches with me. Weather has been in nice 22-33 celcius all the time.

There was also a Volleyball game in school. Our schools 7th grader sang national anthem and she did it very well. When the game started some students bodysurfed in the audience. Our team spirit was cool and hails best. We crushed the other team and the whole game was just something that I wasn’t expecting. It was Volleyball with a lot of talent. By the way our sport teams are Eagles. (purple and white)

I also finished some picture frames in art class. We started to develop some pictures in photography. I held a presentation about my life in relationships. In biology we have experienced duckweed in Diet coke. I have an A in almost every class. German is very easy here.

In soccer we have won some games and the best result has been 6-0.

Last week there was an audition for high school play and I went there. I got into the play and I’m very happy about it. There is a lot to learn but I’m going to do that. It will be a lot of fun. Today (Sunday) we had our first practice and it was cool. I got to play a lot of parts. Hopefully next week I’ll now my part in the play.

Next week is homecoming week :P
Dress up codes and events for the days:

Monday: Formal-Homecoming king and queen!
Tuesday: Clash/messed up hair (non matching clothes)
Wednesday: Battle of classes, senior T-shirts.( competition between freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Thursday: Duct tape and tinfoil (fuuuuuun!!)
Friday: School colors-football game and dance.

Great, greater, exchange year :), Niklas Harki

School Info and Amusement park called Valleyfair !!

2007-09-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Peanut butter faces

In the second and third school day I had fun in the classes again :) Biggest thing of the week in school was a pep rally. All the students came to gymnasium and 7th and 8th graders were introduced. There was a part in that thing where all exchange students introduced themselves and we got some amazed faces in the audience by telling the countries where we come from :D There was also a competition for sports team people. Idea was that you put a lot of peanut butter in your face and try to catch jelly beans to stick them on to your face. It was fun to watch NUHS doing their songs and traditions and still sit with seniors on the bench as a newcomer.

Oh, and I've decided to bring my own lunch every day. School lunch is not the greatest thing of all in here :) We were told in the lunch that it's possible to send an application to MTV on monday, we had MTV in our school or something :)

I started playing soccer. Everything is going good in that and we had our first game. We lost 1-0 but maybe better one tommorow, we have a game again :)

VALLEYFAIR

We went to this awesome theme park in Shakopee, MN

We left with Dimitri to Valleyfair in the morning and drove about 1 hour to Shakopee. In the parking lot there were people who tried to sell fake tickets to the park, weird :D

We bought ours normally and went in :) I ate ice-cream called dippin' dots. It's ice-cream which takes less space or something, a weird product I can tell you :)

These are the main rides in Valleyfair :)

-Renegade-

....A beatifully desingned wooden coaster. I personally think that this ride never makes a boring turn or drop, it's pure exitement and G-forces. Best wooden one I've ever been on :)

-The wave-

.......A big splash and drop :D You'll get wet in it ;)

-Looping star boat

.......A nice effect with up-side down spinning :)

-Power tower-

......Three big towers with space shot and turbo drop. I prefer the turbo drop one, feeling is awesome when it drops :):)

-Wild thing-

.......We went to it when it rained. Feeling was awesome, but rain drops were like needels :S Tallest coaster in Valleyfair, very good, still Renegade was better.

- Xtreme swing-

....... A little short, but so much fun !!! Best ride after Renegade. It made us fly. I have never been in a thrill ride like this. It's the feeling of freedom when you're swinging :P

Flytime in Xtreme Swing

-Excalibur-

..... A rough wooden coaster with some power. Cool, but needs a little more softness to be the king :)

-Steel venom- ( It hurt :D )

...... A ride with L.I.M launch I guess. A lot of fun and speed, until the vehichle stops during ride in the 90 degree hill down.....imagine it yourself.

-RipCord- ''Which one of you pulls the RipCord ??''

.... The best thing ever........Ripcourt is a ride which is located in challenge park. It's a steel wire that takes you for an awesome flight through the air from 55 meters ( 180 feet ). And the best part is that you can decide when to drop with that crazy thing :) Feeling of freefall is so much fun, recommened. Separately this one rules the whole park, exept it costs, but it's worth of it, really !!!

On the way home we stopped in this fast-food place called Culver's. Butter burgers. Very, very fatty dish :D But it was just once and I was, well, tasted like butter and stuff, but nothing special ;)

So, that's all this time

Saying in class: ''The only way to have a friend is to be one'' , Thanks for that :)

Comments are gooood :)

Life is Life, Niklas Harki :)

First day in NUHS

2007-09-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

It was Awesome :)!!!

First day in NUHS

Hello! As you can see, schools colours

are white and dark purple.

So, it started. I’m going to tell class by class very shortly about my first day in school. We walked to school after we had wake up without alarm which was supposed to wake us up but it didn't work :D

So, in school building I messed up with my locker but got it open on the third try.

First class was American Literature. We had there Håkon, Tamara and I as STS students. The first task was to do an interest, hobbies, kind of like get to know to you sheet. That was all that we had for the first lesson. Teacher was funny and she made that class to be enjoyable. We got help from students in the class and everything was very nice. There were some difficulties in pronouncing our names.

The Second class was Biology. The teacher was hilarious and there was a member of my soccer team in the class so it was easier to go there. But still we had been divided in groups already before class so I’m sitting with 3 girls. We did a duckweed experiment.

Before third class I tried to put papers in my locker but it was too hard for open it that time that I just took all the papers with my and left the struggling with locker until lunch break. So, we had German. I’ve studied it like the amount that would be here similar to two years. German 1 however was for new starters and that was the place I wanted to be though. We started with some music from Germany. New Ulm is the most German city in whole U.S, so we got a strong heritage from Germany and the city of Ulm. Teacher in that class spoke nice German. Still, the letter ‘’R’’ is so differently pronounced in Finnish and German, that you can imagine how German sounded with an American R on it. It was like German with a heavy accent. Basically, students in that class were very scared of what came out of teacher’s mouth, she only used German in the class and no one else than I had never heard more than two words in German. So it was fun to look at the younger students being frozen by a question like ‘’Wie Heisst du?’’ of course with the double S thing but there isn’t one in this laptop’s keyboard.

Then my 4th one should have been foods with flair, but after some weirdo office work I only have International foods in the spring. So, my 4th one was unbelievable but truth, Relationships. I was sent to that class by some student counselors without asking anything of me. But it turned out to be , well kind of easy going and fun. We are going to make a fake marriage with a pair there and some baby caring. Then we go to the elementary school to teach kids and a lot of very different kind of tasks. It’s going to be a lot of fun I think.

5th class was odd :D We had World Geography. I went to the classroom, watched to the board, and there is day’s tough question. What country’s second largest city is Göteborg. Well, I knew the answer before no one had finished reading name Göteborg. So I received a price, some candy from the teacher. We had also a task about countries. Some students did not know where Australia is. I wrote all European countries there and knew most of the other ones too. People watched me with a heavy ‘’what the hell?’’ look. So it was fun and can’t wait for the next class. We had a lunch in the middle of this class and the only thing that you could it is pizza and hamburgers, so maybe considering to bring my own lunch :D I have B-lunch so there weren’t many other STS students; I sat with girls soccer team players. (getting used to their habit to say BFF, best friends forever :D:D)

6th is Photo and Airbrush, which I think is so cool. We are going to do old fashioned film photos and a T-shirt designed by ourselves with an airbrush. We have a lot to learn about all those equipments there. Cost to have all stuff as own, like the T-shirt is for all 10$.

Last class before the first day in school was over was Art. We just went through the whole book and said something about some nice and not so nice pictures. Kind of an normal class, maybe the first one :D I Sat with Swedish exchange student Johanna and two unknown 10th or 9th graders. This class was the youngest of the day, so we probably were eldest.

In all first day at school was a huge success and NUHS totally rocks!!!Wish me luck for my first soccer game here :S:S :P

Remember to read days before school started also, below this one!! :) Now I think I managed to do also commenting available for everybody.

Regards, Niklas Harki

Last 14 days before school

2007-09-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

NUHS IS ALREADY HERE !!!

End of summer vacation......

It has been 2 weeks since I wrote something here, so no it's time again. There has of course happened a lot here again :) We basically have been living the whole time in New Ulm. We haven't had in these two weeks any sleepovers at anywhere else. But there have been visits to many places. Family's son Nick came home from Wisconsin too and we went with him to Mankato to the mall and do some other stuff. On the way we noticed that we had a flat tire so the trip got a little longer and we had to have dinner in Old country buffet, which was a eat as much as you can restaurant. We also visited Brown county historical museum. One day we went to South park to play Frisbee golf, which is a thing that we've done quite a lot recently. While we were playing a women came to ask if we would like to be on New Ulm's tourist video. So now we are captured on tape playing Frisbee golf and that's because we are so good in Frisbee golf (We were the only ones in that park). Bourne Ultimatum was playing also in theaters and we went to see that. It was a good movie, but since we couldn’t watch the ending it was sad. You see, 10 minutes before the ending the projector sat up on fire and the film burned. They don’t show that movie anymore and now we have to wait for DVD release :D On Thursday It was time to go again. We drove to Mall of America and took a bus to State Fair. State fair is great Minnesota get together. Also known as great Minnesota fit together. A lot of people had decided to come that same day there and it was awesome to have a lot of people in a party. They had concerts, food, food, food, amusement rides, food, performances, food, everything between earth and heaven and then food. We tried pork chops on a stick, lemonade, French fries, snow cones, deep fried fruits on a stick, chocolate chip cookies, deep fried candy bars on a stick, such as snickers and 3 musketeers. Yeah, there was a lot make you feel healthy. But it was a huge area and we walked quite a lot :D In the evening the lights went on and concerts started, we watched a country music performance. The whole area looked beautiful from space tower which is like an observatory tower. We got used to a thing called people coming from the same country as us. Every time, almost, when we have gone somewhere and Håkon has said that he comes from Norway the answer is this: I’m Norwegian too!!! :D They really don’t know anything else but the name of the country and that some of their great great something were Norwegians, that’s nice :D On state fair we were asking from this lady to take a picture of us and then three other ones, not so young ones came to the picture and made funny faces and stuff. They were kind of drunk and we got some important information about life and they told that New Ulm is a big party community :P They were Norwegians too by the way :D We left from state fair about 11.30pm with car. On this week I made Finnish food to the family. Some macaroni loaf if you can even say it like that :D and then cinnamon rolls, Finnish style baked. They liked both, especially the dessert. Then the next day we headed for an outlet mall in Owatonna, MN. I thought that day that we were going to somewhere close to buy a winter jacket for Håkon, but something else happened. It brought some memories from N.Y.C, outlet malls are quite similar. On that same trip we visited a big hunting store, Cabela’s. It had an huge mountain with stuffed animals inside the store, like 35 feet tall. Next day it was time to go to cinema again with other STS students, movie was Superbad. So much fun!!! You have to watch it!! Maybe it isn’t in Finland already but when it comes, then ;) Weather has been great now and we visited New Ulm’s most famous beach :D in Flandrau State Park. +32 Celsius and nice activities are quite a good combination. On the last evening before school started we just went to a grocery store and bought ice-cream. Our dinner was great and we went to sleep earlier than normal.

We have had some funny situations here also.

- Toilet overflew and water was all over the house…..Nick: ‘’ We are swimming here’’
- In subway I said that I want tomato and the cashier translated that to mayo, so kind of the same and I got a lot of mayonnaise to my sub :D
- Host family went to sleep before sts students had gone to their homes, we had to leave a note and go with other students out to take them home. They did not know they way. This happened 1.30am, movie was a little longer than we expected.
- I took some ‘’good’’ looking dish in Old country buffet, they did not have any labels in them. It was liver with onions, mmmmm, skipped.
- Tried to speak Finnish to one of the members in soccer team who said he was Finnish, bad results.

Yeah, so there has been a lot of good things and some not so good. But everything has been funny still :D

Comments are always nice

School today first time :)

First week in Minnesota

2007-08-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

Here I am!

I have been in New Ulm already for a week. During that time we have done some shopping( everyday supplies ). I also visited athletics office. Some stores like Target, Wal-mart and K-mart are now a part of my life.

We spent three days in Wisconsin. Place was called Spooner. A little city of 2700 inhabitants.

I started to search for cell phone. It was not a must to have a Nokia phone. Still it would have been nice. But they sell phones differently and contracts, phones etc. are different. Then after a couple of stores I just bought one of Virgin mobile's prepaid phones. It costed me 20$ and then 30$ to top up minutes and text messaging. Now I'm back in those times when Nokia 3210 was a big hit. I tried to search for smaller shampoo etc. stuff from target, but aparently smallest size was 450ml :D Then I went back home by bike with this good sized bag in hand.

Next morning we went with Håkon to athletics office to sign up for sports. I signed for soccer and baseball. I changed my mind in the last minutes about spring sports. Still, I'm not sure if baseball or track would be better. Håkon chose football and baseball. First practise for him was already in the same evening. For me it was 4 days and then practise. I went to soccer fields by bike. During weekend it rained a lot. So, my cycling was more like a dirt track race. Practise started 3.30. I was there 3.35 and fortunately some other team members were late and they got some verbal expressions from the coach :D First time I just watched and during that time I managed to notice that people in that team had played for 7 years and they had won last year state cup. Still I'm going to practise with them and then later on I'll play in New Ulm fall league. That is like the same thing as b-team in school but they have their own uniforms and stuff, because that is an independent club. In the second practise I was confused but they went ok :D

Root beer float-medium

Friday was the first day of our road trip to Spooner, Wisconsin.

We drove for about 5 hours. On the way we visited this apples shop. They had Finnish candy there. Panda lakua, mmmmmm :) Also the surroundings of New Ulm are pretty much cornfields. So I had an Deja vu of the movie Signs. We passed Mall of America and Twin cities ( Minneapolis and St.paul ) and the skyline of Minneapolis is beatiful. Minneapolis is located 130 kilometers from New Ulm. There is also a big amusement park called Valleyfair. I love big cities and metropolitan life so it's nice to have those two cities quite close to us. Also we had a chance to taste some delicious A&W food. There we had those huge root beer floats. Nothing to do with beer still though :D It's soda and on top of it ''some'' ice cream. I tasted double burger in a buket and Håkon as well.

Minneapolis skyline :)

Our trailer

We arrived to Spooner in 9pm. Our host fathers father was having his birthday party. Also a brother of our host father was having his birthday. We told a lot about of our own countries to people there. Håkon about Norway and I about Finland. We played soccer with kids from the house. Also tried football :S :) We slept in this camping trailer. A lot of family members had came there. On the second day we visited this little city with a ''couple'' of other tourists. There was a candy store from some fairytale world. There was this pottery painting and art store place in Shell Lake. We painted our own pottery and the results were hmmmmmmm..... don't know yet. Terry's and Mary-Ann's son Nicholas is coming with our art pieces in the weekend. By the way Nick is a lot of fun :P

Doing pottery. A candle holder which will have a waterfall effect with glass.

On the way home it was raining and when we came close to New Ulm there were hundreds of frogs on the road, probably because there hasn't been much rain in the whole summer and now when the rain came those animals are kinda in crappy situation and had to escape the water to highways or something. Not an expert in these things.

Washington park, just 4 blocks from our house.

During the week we have been doing a lot of park hangouts. Also the second cinema visit. New Ulm cinema this time. We had an V.I.P auditorium, cool :P That was because we were the only ones in cinema that night. Rush hour 3 was the movie. It started again 10 pm. This place is quite cool, because you can easily be outside and stuff. Ulmer Cafe visit was weird, people aged 80 and us drinking New Ulm's brewery's soda ( ''pop''). We have been eating new things all the time. Like Mary-Ann's corn bread and wraps with different kind of food in them. Milk can be bought in plastic bags here :D Here are all the courses i picked up for the school year.
American Literature

Biology 1

German 1

Foods with a flair :P

World Geography 1

Photo A/B

Intro to design

Drama

Speech

International Foods :P

Advanced P.E

World History 2

Hopefully this blog text was fun to read and regards to everyone in U.S.A and Finland. !!!!

It's fun if you leave comments, in that way I can answer to questions and so on :)

Letti hyvin, Kaikki hyvin, Niklas Harki

New Ulm - Minnesota

2007-08-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

HERE WE GO !

Well, I'm going to start with the city of New Ulm. I was also 10 days in an orientation camp in N.Y.C. I spent there the most greatest days ever !

--------- The Outcasts---------------

But now I've arrived to the city of New Ulm. This is a small city with 15 000 people living in the area. The next biggest city is called Mankato and there are 60 000 people in that area.

I flew from N.Y.C - LaGuardia airport to Ghigago - O'hare. Then I had a connection flight from Chigago to Minneapolis. Minneapolis-St.paul area has a population of 3 million people. In the airport I met my host family and we drove with the other exchange student coming from Norway ( Håkon ) to New Ulm. New Ulm is a beatiful place. We live in a big house nearby the school and downtown also. On the first day we took sightseeing in city. We saw some bautiful gardens and parks as well as the Herman monument which makes skyline of New Ulm with churches.

On the second day we explored some product's. Miracle Whip , makes your food taste miraculous :D We have had some sandwiches and our host's have noticed maybe that people from Norway and Finland drink a lot of milk. They also discovered that fish is a common dish in Scandinavia. Some people here are not sure where Finland is but Sweden is always more easier for them to know. That's too bad. Our first cinema experience was a movie called Stardust, we watched it in Mankato. Everybody thought that it was good entertaiment and funny. It lasted for 2 hours and we were at home in 1.15 am :)

Third day was great also. We took a little walk and something like that. Food prayer and some additional things was noticed. We also got knew that 10 students from STS are going to New Ulm High School :P Today we registered to school and there was many choises between subjects. I'm going to take lost of home economics and drama. Like international food cooking. About after school activities I'm not so sure but it will be sports. We also went to a concert with music( Halleluja rock ) healing people with the power of lord. Something new every day ;)

But so far this has been the best choice for this year :) I love to speak English and meet people. What more could you ask for.

So I'm more than happy if you put a comment to

my blog and give some ideas or questions. Anything

what comes in mind :)

Foreigner, Niklas Harki