Oona Vitikainen

2008-09 Inbound from Finland

Hometown: Hollola, Finland

Sponsor: Lahti-Joutjärvi Rotary Club, District 1390, Finland

Host: Miramar-Pembroke Pines Rotary Club, District 6990, Florida, USA

School: Western High School, Davie, FL

Bio

Oona's Bio

Hi! My name is Oona, I'm 16 years old and I'm from the land of thousands of lakes, sauna, black rye-bread and salt liquorice candies called “salmiakki”, Santa Claus, white and freezing winter, Nokia cell phones, and the world's tastiest chocolate (okay okay, we all know that the best chocolate comes from Switzerland, but ours is not bad either J). And just to make sure you haven’t got anything wrong, I must tell you that no, we do not drive polar bears to school and no, heavy metal is not our traditional music genre.

Finland is a beautiful country in North Europe. I live in a small town called Hollola with my mom, dad, and two years younger baby sister, but my life considers more in a bigger city Lahti, that is next to my hometown.

There are only 5 million people in a huuuuuuge territory in Finland so we have lot of clean, untouched environment with weird wildlife. Nature is very close to Finnish people’s hearts and we spend lot of time outdoors. In my country, I’m used to walking EVERYWHERE, so for me it takes a little time to get used to the fact that here in the US, it's just impossible to go somewhere by foot..

I am very outgoing and independent person so my life is very hectic and I'm always going or coming from somewhere. I am a cheerleader (but! we don’t cheer for any team, we do hard trainings and we practice our routines for competitions) and I'm also coaching a cheerleading team. Coaching takes lot of my spare time but the girls in my team are well motivated and incredibly talented so I really enjoy coaching them!

I love to try different things, challenge myself, and rush into new adventures. Being an exchange student wasn’t just one of my many ideas, not at all, it has been my dream as long as I can remember. Since my first school years in elementary school, I’ve been telling my parents that when I'm old enough, I will do the exchange. And here I am! Finally!

I am enjoying every second of my new life here in Florida. My home is in Weston, 40 minutes from Miami. I really like the city and my community, but the best thing here is absolutely my new family! They are amazing! From the first moments, I’ve been feeling very welcome and part of their family. My host brother and his girlfriend were both last year as exchange students in Finland, so at home I have always somebody to talk Finnish with and someone who knows exactly what I mean when I'm talking about either well-working public transport, “mustamakkara” or Finnish people. I'm so lucky!

October 6 Journal

My adventure started 9th of August, when I arrived to Miami after 14 hours of flying. At the airport I got warm welcome from my new mom, former exchange student who stayed in my host family couple years ago, my host “sister-in-law” who was outbound student in Finland last year, Rotarian Roy and inbound student Marzen from Poland. I was so tired and confused, but also extremely happy to finally be here. And after that, the time has flied super fast!!

My host family is from Colombia and our house is full of Spanish and music. When I arrived here two months ago, I didn't know a word in Spanish, but now I’ve started to learn more and more everyday and I'm very excited about that! I wish I knew more and I'm really doing my best to improve my Spanish skills. My family is very motivating and they help me a lot with learning Spanish. I feel very lucky to be part of this family!

I am attending Western High School in Davie. The yellow school bus picks me up at 6:30 every morning, which is a new experience for me because we don’t have school buses and I’ve never had to wake up that early for school in Finland. Couple first weeks it was very hard to get up, but now I'm already used to it. In the first semester I have English “for foreigners”: the only subject that I'm having with Gabriel (inbound student from Brazil), Spanish, math and drama. The drama class is so much fun! I’ve met a lot of nice people there, everybody is very friendly, helpful and interested in my country and language. I’ve been teaching a little Finnish to my friends, maybe after this year they can talk as fluent Finnish as I do ?? That’s my goal! I’ve got some very good friends from school and I’m very happy to live with a good family who let me go out and spend time with them. Also my friends try their best to help me improving my yet-not-so-great Spanish skills. I hope during the year I could have actual conversations in that language! I'm so excited!

One of the greatest things about Rotary Exchange is that we had an opportunity to get know all the other exchange students in Florida during the first month we were here. We had orientation weekend with almost seventy exchange students from all over the world, and that was truly one of the unforgettable times in my life! Everyone was so nice and warm persons, no matter what part of the world you are (except Jeppe hates me ‘cos I'm from Finland J ..just kidding ), what color skin you have, what language you speak or what do you believe in. I got very good friends from that weekend that I'm sure will last for the lifetime. I really miss all the exchange students and I can’t wait to see everybody again in Disney World!

Of course after that weekend I’ve met exchange students from our 6990 district (the best district in the world, but don’t tell anybody) and they’ve become very good friends of mine, I love them. It’s hard to explain our relationships but because we all are going through the same things, we know how each other feels. I think it’s healthy to have also exchange student friends, so you know you’re not weird if you haven’t missed your country at all and the next day you feel like you miss every single little thing from there and the day after that you don't miss anything.

Even though I’ve been here almost two months, sometimes it’s still hard to believe that my dream to be an exchange student has finally come true. I can’t describe how grateful I am for this opportunity that has been given to me. I want to thank ALL the people that had been somehow involved in making not only my, but all the inbound and outbound students' dreams real. Rotarians theme for this year is “make dreams real” and for us, that’s exactly what they have done. Thank you.

January 6 Journal

I can’t believe it’s already January! Last five months had passed faster than I ever imagined they would. I had adapted well, everything don’t feel so huge anymore, I’ve learned to wake up early for school and accepted the fact that I need to beg for a ride every time I want to go somewhere. I had become part of my Colombian family here and instead of one little sister I now have also two big brothers and a sister. They have even given me a little more Latin nickname: “Oona Maria” ! That’s so cute! What comes to my learning Spanish, well, I'm still working on it. I hope I will improve my speaking skills during the last six months, now I can understand more and more everyday but because English is the language I use the most, I'm not learning Spanish everyday. “Hiljaa hyvä tulee” like we say in Finland. And if you don’t know Finnish, you need to get a dictionary C:

All I can say is that time flies too fast on this side of the ocean.

I’m happy here right now. While I’ve not been working on my monthly reports, I have explored Florida a little more and met a lot more great people. There are many things I’ve experienced and seen here for the first time in my life and now, finally, I’m going to share the most important ones with you!

Before I start I want to say thank you to all the people who had made my year as colorful as it has been so far! I’ve been enjoying every moment or if not, I’ve at least learned something from them. Thank you Corredors for EVERYTHING, for taking me as a part of your family and letting me be as Finnish person as I am. Thank you Rotary for making my dream year reality and especially RYE 6990 Rotarians for brainwashing our class to think were the best district in the world (but shhhh don’t tell anyone!)

Okay, here we go.

Get to know South Florida - Weekend

First I want to tell you about our “get to know South Florida” weekend (that now is already 3 months or more behind us) with all twelve exchangers and the most active Rotarians from our district. The first evening of our long weekend we got together in Coral Gables, Miami (Thank you Diane and Supas for hosting us in your house!) This was the first time we all saw each other again after the orientation in August so you can imagine how hyper active and happy every single one of us were that night! I had huge smile on my face for so long that my cheeks started to hurt, but I couldn’t stop smiling. And I wasn’t the only one.

The weekend went by in a blink of an eye – we had so many things to see and experience that it’s hard to believe we did it all in one weekend! For me the highlight of this trip was on Sunday, when Captain Todd took us boating to Miami’s canals. I couldn’t believe I really was there: swimming in the warm ocean with the some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, wild dolphins keeping us company, city of Miami as a background. It was unbelievable. Thank you 6990 Rotarians, you are the best!

Disney

Another meeting with exchange students was in the beginning of December. This time we didn’t get together only with my district exchangers, but with all the exchangers from the whole Florida and couple other states in the happiest place on earth! This too little time that we spend together in Disney was amazing! There are really no words to describe the joy of seeing each other again, all the fun we had together and the sadness when everyone had to leave back home – back to our normal life after four magical days.

We went to four different parks, tried bunch of different roller coasters, made new friends from all over the world and got to know the old ones better. We shared our experiences and talked about all the good and the bad things and it was a relief to notice that everyone had same kind of feelings than I do. All together I'm sure everyone will agree with me when I say that we spend one of the best weekends of our year! I miss you all so much!

Key West

One Sunday we spend great day with Jeppe, his counselor Chuck and his wife Sue driving all the way to Key West, the southernmost point of the whole USA. Chuck and Sue are a couple with great sense of humor so we had lot of fun and the day went by really fast even though we spent most of it sitting in a car. Our plans to go diving were cancelled on account of the bad weather, but instead we had more time to discover the laid back atmosphere of the Keys. Thank you so much Sue and Chuck, you’re awesome!

Shuttle Launching

My family had taken me to Gainesville (gooooo Gators!) couple of times; we have gone to visit my older brother and sister who go to University there. One time was special: we stopped by in Titusville, the small space-town of Florida, to see the shuttle launching. I didn’t really know what to expect from it but whatever I was thinking it would be like, it was ten hundred times better!! The next day we visited Kennedy Space Center. This was interesting place to visit, I never was really into space stuff but this Space Center made me want to fly to the moon one day!!

Halloween and Thanksgiving

Halloween and Thanksgiving. Two very American celebrations that I got to experience for the first time in my life.

On Halloween night I transformed to superwoman and went to trick or treating with couple of exchangers that stayed over to my house. It was hilarious, we had so good time together which is not surprising at all: when you mix five different nationalities together, all dressed up like little children, it can't be anything else other than lot of fun!

I was very excited about my very first Thanksgiving which I spent with one kind Rotarian, Steven from my club and his family. Except the turkey, I didn’t really know what to expect, so I surprised positively how much I enjoyed all of it! I wish this is one event I could and I will take back home with me ... mom and dad in Finland: be aware of the last Thursday of November from now on!! Thank you Steven, your wife, mom and son for unforgettable time I had with you!

Rotary Activities

I’ve tried my best to attend all the events my Rotary club have had. One Saturday for example I woke up even earlier I do wake up for school and I and Jeppe went to serve breakfast with my club for hundreds of volunteers who were collecting can food for homeless people. Our job was quite much easier than theirs, the volunteers were doing great job!

I’ve also been able to help our district (the best one but shhh don’t tell anyone!!) a little with the process of choosing new outbounds for next year: our job was to interview a bunch of high school students with Marzen, Jeppe and outbounds students from past years. We had lot of fun! We met a lot of potential outbound-students-to-be and I can’t wait to hear from them in the future, good luck guys!

School

I joined my school's drama club and I’ve already had my very first drama play in American high school. The play was called The Laramie Project and it was a real story about a gay university student who got murdered by his fellow students. To be honest this was my very first time in a drama play in general, so I was a little nervous (if you ask my dad he might tell you different story, but I don’t admit anything!) and super excited about it. I had the smallest part one can possible have – I was a newsperson – but for me it was more than enough. We had great time doing this show, I made good new friends there and got closer with the old ones.

Winter break

My Christmas eve was amazing. I was really afraid I would get homesick that night, but I had so good time with my big Latin family that (even though I didn’t have a clue what was going on most of the time) I didn’t miss white Christmas at all.

After Christmas we took our car, packed everything in it and started our two day long road trip to South Carolina with my family. We stayed there with friends who own a zoo “Hollywild”. The Zoo is closed from crowds at this time of the year so we got all the animals only for ourselves! They had monkeys, tigers, lions, wolves, bears, reindeers, camels, zebras, the horse from Pippi Longstocking and many, many more.. And we got our private tour for the whole week! We also stayed at the Zoo for the New Years celebration and the year changed peacefully listening lions roar. What an experience! But I must say, it was freezing up there. How will I ever survive Finnish winter again after this year in warm sunshine??

When we drove back we stopped by in Atlanta. I fell in love with this huge city the second I saw the skyscrapers for the first time. I will probably fall in love with every big city I go to though, I really enjoy being there. In Atlanta we visited the Coca Cola-museum which was funny place to see, it made me really thirsty, hahah!

I think that’s about it for now. I'm really looking forward to next month and all the new experiences it’s bringing to me: I'm changing not only family but also school in two weeks and we have our Sea Camp in Florida Keys with all the exchangers coming soon too! I can’t wait!

Kisses and a huge hug,

Oona

Oh and new outbound students, congratulations! You’ve made a decision you won’t regret. Guys going to Finland: I hope I get to meet you sooner or later! You are going to have a lot of fun, I promise. C:

February 12 Journal

After receiving several emails from my mom and the Rotary reminding me that I seriously HAVE TO book my flight back to Finland for real whether I wanted it or not, and after meeting the new outbounds for next year at Yuki’s sweet-16 parties, all excited about the year that is still ahead of them, I woke up to the fact that I'm already half through my own year. I can't believe it! I mean, it's funny because in a way it feels like I just walked through the gates in Miami International Airport, excited of the biggest step of my life so far and now all the things that then felt so different and amazing at the same time (for example for the first two months every time I saw a palm tree I felt like running to hug them), are now part of my normal daily life, nothing really special anymore.

I've been through every single part of the cultural shock so far: just like they promised after the honeymoon-period I got a little homesick and I felt like everything was better in my own country. Thank god that didn’t last more than a little while.. Then I started to adapt and I understood that it's not wrong, it's just different. And now, I feel like home here. I've started to think and dream in English and I can understand some Spanish too, but I'm making so many mistakes when I try to talk or write my own language! That's crazy! I was talking with my best friend couple days ago and he made fun of me when I tried to talk in Finnish: he told me I had really strong foreign accent and when I tried to get rid of it, I sounded even worse. Hahah!

January for me was a little taste of next July, when it's time to leave the US for real. Last month I got practice for it when it was time for me to move to my second host family! I didn't only leave the family that I had became part of, but also all the friends I’ve made during the first half of my stay here. I was really sad to leave my family and friends but my new host family made it easy for me to settle down to my new life with them: I got the warmest welcome from the whole family and they really had done their all to make me feel comfortable. And they had definitely succeed positively! I love it here!

My new family is Colombian just like the first one was so I can still practice my Spanish, everyday. Now I can understand a lot, not all of it yet though but I can follow a normal conversation much better than before and it makes me really happy; it also makes my life much easier than it was in the beginning when I didn’t know a word in this language. I'm happy. I keep falling deeper and deeper in love with Colombia and its culture, I feel so lucky to get this opportunity to develop not only the culture of USA but also culture of this amazing South American country!! If I’m missing fresh baked rye-bread now, I will definitely miss arepas when I go back!

Changing family meant changing school too, since I moved to another town close by. I didn't really feel bad for leaving my old school, I didn't enjoy going there too much. The only thing that made me sad was leaving all my amazing friends and GABRIEL especially. I miss them a lot but they're not that far from me, in other town maybe, but I can still see them pretty easily. I feel like all this change is just practice for the real departure; even though I miss my friends now, they are still only 20 minutes away. In half of year they will be on the other side of the world, and that’s going to be a hard thing to accept!!

I am so happy I got to change schools, because it was for better! I LOVE my new school! West Broward is brand new school, this is their very first year, so they have the newest technology, everything is new and everywhere it's oh so clean! I've made so many new friends I cant even remember all of their names and even more people that I don’t know recognize me or had heard of me. In that school all the exchange students are like little celebrities, everybody knows "Denmark" and "Germany" and the now the new girl, "Finland". Lots of people came up to me "so you're the girl from Finland?" The whole atmosphere on that campus is so different from my first school, so I am glad I got to experience the real Bobcat spirit!!

Once I start to write, I obviously can’t stop. There is one more thing I want to tell you about: SEACAMP!!

Seacamp in the Florida Keys was unforgettable. We had the time of our life with best friends from 26 countries and couple American kids from the Keys. Guys, thank you so much for EVERYTHING, I love you all so much! We couldn’t have as much fun as we did without all of you!! The four day long weekend went by faster than ever, and sooner than in a blink of an eye was the moment we all had afraid for.. The goodbye. At that moment there's no words. What can you say when you have to hug some of the closest people of our entire life for the last time knowing that you might never see them again? On my way to Orlando for the first orientation on the second week of my staying here I couldn’t have EVER known how amazing friends I was about to make. I didn’t have any idea how close friendships we were about to create during the orientation, in Disney and now in the Keys. These people made their way into my heart in so little time, so easily, and they are going to stay there forever. My international friends: I will never forget you. It breaks my heart to know that we are going to live this "close" for other six months, closer than we will ever be again, but we are not going to get together anymore. However, the world is small and now there’s 26 countries on my "to travel as soon as possible" list. I'm sure at one point of our lives, we’ll meet again. We shouldn’t be sad not seeing each other, we should be happy for the opportunity to know each other! I promise you, if I ever come to your country, I will hunt you down! And if you want to experience either 24h night or 24h day in extreme coldness, you know my number! You can contact me anytime; I will always be there for you. I love all of you. A loooooooot!

And last but not least, thank you Rotary. There are no words to describe my gratitude, the only thing I can say is the combination of two words. THANK YOU. What you’re doing, is amazing. I hope you understand how positively this experience changes all of us exchangers as persons, for better. You’re making the dreams of hundreds of kids around the globe became true, and that’s something you can be proud of! Thank you.

April 21 Journal

This is my special journal, guys. ¿Why? Because I'm writing it from Colombia!

Remember I told you how in love I fell with the culture and habits I learned with my Colombian families? Well, the second one decided to take it a step farther and took me to their home city, Medellin with them. And here I am now! Very happy and very in love. This country is amazing!!

This is my first time I came to South America, so everything I see here is new and exotic. It's almost a total opposite from where I come from, so I enjoy getting to know another, different way of life.

I've experienced and seen a lot during my last two weeks here, but still I know it's not even a little piece of what this country has to offer. It's so unbelievable different, in an exciting and fascinating way... I'm sure this visit won't be my last.

Like I told you, even the tiniest things here are something new for me. I have never before eaten fish and rice only with my hands, palm tree leaves as my plate! Or I've never jumped from a rock 8 meters high to a natural, crystal clear blue river, in the middle of a jungle! (Just to let you know, I'm extremely proud of that - I was really scared!!) Also I must say that a chicken running from under my seat while us having a dinner was.. a little surprising.

Still the thing that surprised, maybe shocked me a little, though I knew it and I was expecting it, was the poorness. It's everywhere here. In the city of Medellin, which population is as big (or small) as the whole Finland, 60% of its people live in the slums. In the countryside the life is very simple too.

These people might not have a lot, but they're thankful of what they have. One day we were having lunch in a little local town, so small that the dish was fixed for us in the kitchen of one of the houses. I was watching when the kids of that town got bottles of Coca-Cola to share with their siblings. I can't describe the joy of these children: they were all on the top of their worlds. Laughing and smiling, just because of a couple bottles of soda. That if anything, opened my eyes. I'm so lucky. All of us are, I mean really, we got opportunity to develop a new country for a whole year? These kids probably never even visited their capital city.

I could write about my experiences in Colombia worth of a novel, but I'm gonna save you from that. One thing that I need to give credit for is the kindness of these people, mainly my host relatives. They're very friendly and so nice with me! I've felt welcomed since the day one and they treat me like we've known forever. Oh and another thing, I'm getting A LOT attention here because of my blond hair and blue eyes. It's kinda funny, we stayed at the coast for a little bit and little kids came to touch my hair, eyes wide open, amazed look in their faces.

All in all my Colombian trip has been full of experiences, Latin music and dance, colorful houses, CRAZY traffic and (this is something I've been missing more than I even understood) WELL working public transportations, amazing, lovely people, sunny days, long drives over the huge mountains, delicious food (which isn't really the healthiest choice.. oh well), cervecas and mucho espanol, of course.

I can't thank my Colombian family enough for this trip, it's all so much! They've done so much for me I can't think any words to put it better than muchas gracias! ME GUSTO ;) I love this family so much.

Also thank you mom in Finland for giving me the permission to come, it's all been worth it times five hundred thousand. I'm sorry for costing you sleepless past two weeks. Thanks dad for keeping mom from losing her mind, and being all cool with this like always. I love you!

PS: I've started to see going-back dreams, I hope I'm not the only one?? Those are about to freak me out. The time is running so fast it's unbelievable. I'm trying my best not to think how fast everything is going to change again, and just enjoy every day and every moment the best way I can. I can't stop feeling a little sad when I see rye6990 page having their huge titles about the NEW CLASSES, and the multidistrict page posting pictures of next year's students. It feels like yesterday when I was counting my days in Finland ("ONLY 87 DAYS BEFORE FLORIDA, OMG!!") and reading these journals from then current students. Now I'm the one having troubles with updating my journal on time and trying not to think that in 87 days, I'll be back in Finland again. Wow. That's so fast! But I also feel happy and excited for the new students, they still have NO IDEA how great year is waiting for them!! I can't wait to see their pictures from Disney and Sea Camp and read their journals when they're going through the same things I did this year. (Newbies you shouldn't take examples from us, this year'as class sucked with sending reports! Do a better job 09-10!!) Oh and the last thing about the class of 09-10, FL you're lucky to get Anni from Finland, she's the beast!!

I'm so glad I decided to do this, I have had an amazing year in every way! And the best parts are still ahead - BAHAMAS here we come ;) Just kidding, it's not the same without all of you guys, without our big Florida exchanger family. I miss you all.