MoM's visit

My mom arrived in Finland safe and sound. The day she came it was snowing! So right away she got a taste of what I have been living with the last few months! The day she got there i still had a practice that night since we had started the finals. But I think it worked out perfect because she needed a nice long nap! The next few days we just walked around my town and I showed her what my life has been the last 8 months. We walked around the castle, around the lake, went shopping a few times,went to a hockey game to watch my friends in the semifinals, ate at the lunch place i eat at everyday, visited my friend/bartender at the bar next to my apartment and showed her a few of my favorite things in town.



Once the finals ended we were able to go outside my town to the bigger cities. We spent a day shopping and walking around Tampere, one of my favorite cities. It was perfect weather for sightseeig and walking around. We also ate at a yummy restaraunt for dinner that has great food and also brews its own beer!





One of the days my friend had hooked us up with a day at a reindeer park! I was so excited to go see the reindeer and have my mom see them too. What comes to mind when you think Finland....reindeer!! So we had a great time at the reindeer park feeding the reindeer, petting them (they were so friendly!), learning to lasso a reindeer, trying some reindeer food and then finally the owner of the reindeer park insisted that I try on some traditional outfit worn by the Sami, a group of people that live up north in Finland. The owner of the park was real nice altho he didnt speak much English, but we made it work and im sooo glad we got to spend the day there!!





The last part of our trip we headed to Helsinki for a few days. My mom, Thais,Anni(libero on our team) and me stayed at one of the girls on my teams home and they took us sightseeing thru Helsinki. We walked around and saw many churches, museums, the parliament, and went to one of the bigger shopping malls. We then had some nice Finnish meals at her house that her mom had cooked for us!!





We had a great time while my mom was here visiting but I think we are both looking forward to going home!!