May Update

May has gone by so quickly! It started with a few days of quarantine, but since my quarantine ended, I've been very busy.

At the beginning of this month, I turned 22! 22 still feels old to me, like I've officially passed all the fun ages. Nonetheless, I had such a great time celebrating my birthday with my friends here. They threw me a surprise party complete with flowers, balloons, champagne, and vegan cake! They also put together a video saying really nice things about me, which was super sweet. I am so grateful to have my friends during my semester in Finland that find the time to celebrate me. I also turned in my last paper on my birthday meaning I have officially completed Junior year!

Although May has been filled with lots of fun things, it has also been a kind of weird, sad transition phase. With the semester ending, all of my friends have started to go home. We have had lots of "last" days, having dinner and drinks and barbecues for each of my friends respective last days here. With the weather starting to get warmer, the lake melted, and the sun never really setting, we have spent lots of time sitting outside, appreciating our time together this semester. As hard as it has been saying goodbye, I am really grateful to have found such a great group of girls that make saying goodbye difficult. I am also grateful that I have lots of excuses to visit Europe now!

Amidst all of the goodbyes, I also had a really great reunion. I just got back yesterday from my trip to Germany! My teammate, Aarti, is studying in Dortmund this semester, so I was able to go stay with her for a few days. My other teammate, Raven, is studying in Spain this semester, and met us there as well. We just hung out together all weekend, took a day trip to Cologne, and walked around Dortmund. It was really nice to be able to see friends from home. After visiting them, I took the train to Berlin to spend a few days there. I saw as much as I could in only a couple of days, but really enjoyed the city. I capped off my trip with going to the concert of two of my favorite artists, Alix Page and Gracie Abrams. The concert was so amazing.

After a long day of travel, I got back to Tampere early yesterday morning. Tomorrow is my last full day here before I leave on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I will be flying to Croatia to meet my new host family! I am very excited for this next month. I have really enjoyed my time in Tampere and am so grateful for this semester. I have (thanks to the generosity of my parents) been able to travel so much more than I could have ever hoped for. I also met some of my new best friends and really was able to grow as a person. This experience has been so meaningful, and I appreciate it so much.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I love using this blog for myself as much as for anyone else so that I have a little diary to look back on of my semester abroad. I'll be doing one last post after my time in Croatia!

Much love,

Hannah