In the month of January...

So this month I haven't been up to much. Mostly just going to school, and sometimes hanging out with friends. It is really irritating though, because I only had 3 classes at the end of this semester, so on somedays I would only have one class. So the rest of the day I would be walking around town trying to find something to do. But now I have started skiing again, so I have been doing that to kill time. The trails here are absolutely gorgeous, and everyone skiis. I went out on Saturday, and there were so many people skiing or walking their dogs. It's so different than the US. Also this month I went to my host family's summer cottage with my host parents and their friend Lotta. It was really fun, and it was nice to just chill for a weekend. I took the dog for a lot of walks.
    Now I am starting to get ready for my St.Petersburg trip, and that means applying for a visa. Russian visas for Americans are one of the most expensive, while some of the South American visas are only about 20 €. So annoying.... But I have been using this trip as motivation to learn Russian, so I have been studying a lot more.
     On Wednesday I am going to Vaasa in western Finland to visit my friend I met last year while she was on exchange in America. It will be nice to visit, and to also see a different side of Finland. I believe Vaasa is one of the bilingual cities of Finland, so everyone speaks Swedish and Finnish. All Finns study Swedish anyways, but I think it is used more on the western side. And there are some cities that only use Swedish.
    Also, I think next month we will be going to Ruka, which is my host family's cabin in Lapland. It will be a "girls trip", so it will be me, Satu, Tiia (+ her friend Rosa) and Lotta. It is going to be so fun! Ruka is actually a village of winter cabins, and it has a website so I was checking it out, and it looks pretty nice. There are lots of trails, and there is a ski hill, and my host mom said that sometimes they find reindeer in their front yard!