Washington DC

    Monday the 25th of June was an exciting day. That morning my neighbors came over to say bye before I'd leave. I was a little bit stressed to leave home but I was completely excited to meet the other 12 scholarship students in Washington DC for pre-departure orientation. At around noon my parents and I left for the airport. I was extremely excited to get on my plane but it was delayed one hour. But, eventually I boarded the plane and I was off! I landed a little while later at Washington-Dulles airport and as soon as I was in the concourse, I met up with three other of the Finland US Senate Youth Exchange students. We were taken to baggage claim to meet even more of the FUSYE students. We filled a shuttle bus together and left the airport to get to American University where we would stay the next two nights and have our orientation. Just during the ride to AU we really got to know each other very quickly. But when we got to the campus we finally met the other of the 13 students and we were all together for the first time. In the first night alone we had become awesome friends.

    For the next two days in DC we had a busy schedule. Besides the times our group had together to learn more about Finland and everything we'd need to know about being an exchange student, we were away from the campus doing so many things around the city. Tuesday morning we woke up and soon were off to the US Senate offices. There we would meet our state senators to thank them for supporting the scholarship we had received (even though only the Finnish government actually funds the scholarship...). There was one other girl from New York State so we went to our senators' offices together. Instead of meeting our senators, we were scheduled to only visit with their staff members. Thanks, New York... So from there we went to lunch in Union Station and after that got on the metro to the Finnish Embassy.

"Mountains and Clouds" in one of the senate buildings.

A few of us at Union Station

    The Finnish Embassy was one of the coolest buildings I've ever been to. It's the greenest embassy building in all of Washington which seems so typical of a Finnish building. We were greeted by some of the interns and the ambassador's assistant since the ambassador was away in Helsinki at the time. We had a tour of the building from two of the embassy staff and when we had seen the building, we went out to the back deck of the building to have some Finnish coffee and pulla bread (which is a sweet bread made with cardamom...it's the best thing ever created).

    Inside the embassy there was tons of open space and lots of windows. The materials used were meant to resemble Finnish resources. There was even a sauna in the basement! We gathered into the conference room where we had a presentation given to us about Finnish culture. We then had an open question time where we could ask any question to do with Finland.

    That night we were invited to a reception at the Ambassador's house. She wouldn't be there because she was in Helsinki with Hilary Clinton but the rest of the staff would be there. At the opening of the reception, two of the students read speeches: one in English, one in Finnish. I got to read the one in Finnish :) When the opening speeches were over, it was time to eat! The embassy's chef, named Mikko, prepared the whole meal and it was all Finnish recipes. Wow. It was intense. I had no idea what I was eating for most of the meal but it was really good. My favorite turned out to be a cabbage roll filled with vegetables and fried (I think).

Across the street from the embassy.

At the Ambassador's house

Would you look at that! Smart idea!



Our next day in Washington, we became tourists. We went around the National Mall, to the Washington Monument,  the WWII memorial, the White House and even more. I have already done all that two times before in my life, but it was just as great to see everything again.

    

    

    After touring around in the heat for the day, we were off to the YFU offices to give the staff who had helped us get this scholarship presentations we had prepared about Finland. My group gave a skit on what not to do in the sauna. And just a mere hour later, we were off to the airport to leave for Europe!