After the extremely exciting weekend off that I had a couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to go somewhere to explore for this last weekend. So Thursday after practice my teammate Outi Polso took me home to Jyvaskyla with her. Jyvaskyla is a college town with tons of shopping, tons of people, and tons of American food! I was so excited to go and it ended up being far better than I could have hoped for. Outi was the best host! She and Mikko her boyfriend took such good care of me, and I loved getting to stay with them. Jyvaskyla is 150 Kilometers from my little village of Pihtipudas so it was a bit of a drive, but as soon as we arrived Outi took me straight to this little piece of heaven...
Eating Subway once would not be enough to hold me over until I will be able to come back so of course I had to eat it for lunch EVERY day I was there! haha Needless to say, it was a FATKID weekend.
I even was able to eat a little bit of this in between the Subway...
I really never eat Mcdonalds in the USA because I don't think it is very good at all. BUT there is something about eating familiar food that makes it taste that much better, because I loved every bite of my little kids meal :)
It was so great to be able to eat familiar food and be in a more familiar college town setting. Friday started off wonderfully with a bike ride around Jyvaskyla. Outi showed me around the city and took me on a tour of the University which was so cool. She was even nice enough to help me find my church so that on Sunday I would be able to bike there on my own.
We ate lunch at Subway, of course, and then headed back to the apartment to meet up with Mikko. Mikko took us to the Prisma and the City Market which just added to the FATKID weekend. Because Pihtipudas is so so so small, the grocery stores are also so so so small. Prisma is like the Walmart of Finland and it was AMAZING. There was so much food and so much familiarity which was so nice. Outi and Mikko helped me out by showing me what things were, because I can't read Finnish and they asked me if there was anything that I really wanted to look for. I told them I wanted to find a can of Pumpkin (Thank you pinterest for making my pumpkin addiction a million times worse). My favorite thing about the fall is Pumpkin bread and Pumpkin cookies. I am obsessed!! #fatkid They tried so hard to find me some but we had no luck at Prisma :( Then, Mikko stopped at KCityMarket which is also a HUGE grocery store and they had an American isle with none other than my little can of...
And my little can of...
Let's just say I was definitely a happy girl. Granted I had to pay an arm and a leg for each of these little treasures, but it was worth every cent!! My problem now is that I can't decide what I want to use my only can of pumpkin for. If anyone has any great recipes PLEASE let me know!!
In case this day wasn't great already, Mikko made us a real Finnish dish for dinner. It was delicious and was topped off with a couple episodes of FRIENDS and 3 bowls of Ice Cream...and no, it was not one bowl for Outi, one bowl for Mikko, and one bowl for me...haha #fatkid
Saturday was so relaxing. Outi had tutor meetings all day so I just hung out at her apartment and watched the 5th season of FRIENDS. It was a perfect Saturday off. After I made it through most of the season I decided that I should probably get ready for the day (4:00PM) and so I showered and met Nikolina and Irena at the Center. I shopped with them for an hour before they had to head back to Pihtipudas and found myself at McDonald's and Subway on my way back home :). I finished off the night with some more FRIENDS and some more ice cream.
Sunday will be its own post but I do find it of importance to mention that I rode my first bus, and I did it in a foreign country too (In the form of public transportation) I have never ridden TRAX or any type of public transportation service outside of a school bus and a team bus for sports. I had no idea what I was doing so Outi and Mikko drove me to the bus station, helped me find the right bus, and waited for me to get on to make sure I was okay. haha I LOVE them! Best hosts EVER!! I made it back home to my little Pihtipudas apartment and ready for the new week :)
Thank you Outi and Mikko for an amazing weekend!! I am so grateful for your kindness and for taking such amazing care of me while I was there. I was never hungry or bored, it was so much fun. I could not have asked for a better weekend! They are both amazing people that I feel so lucky to know!!
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