Eve Olson spoke to the club about her experience as an exchange student in Finland as well as her time hosting her exchange 'sister' Nella from Kauhava Finland. The first part of the short term exchange was here, with Nella visiting from June 10 through July 9th, which meant that Nella experienced July 4th here. They went kayaking twice, saw the MN orchestra at the Hudson bandshell and of course the Mall of America. The family made flying from Chicago to Helsinki an event, taking the time to tour in Chicago, where they'd never been as tourists.
In Finland, Nella's family spent time in Helsinki, which they'd not had previous reason to do. Then it was off to Kauhana where Eve spent a month experiencing the near 24-hour daylight of a Finnish summer and other aspects of life there. The family also took Eve to a spectacular national park in eastern Finland. Eve talked about meeting Nella's extended family, with only one member who didn't speak English. Because Finnish is such an unusual -- and difficult -- language, Eve picked up only a little Finnish during her time there. She noted that English tends to be the language used when Finns travel to other Scandinavian countries.
One fun part of Eve's presentation was her listing of "culture shocks" experienced in both directions. It was clear from what Eve said that both Nella and Eve learned a lot from their exchange.