Visiting Friends and Completing Film Projects at School in Finland

by Natalie Griffin, Greenheart Travel High School Student in Finland

On March 12th, I spent the day at my friend’s house. Her brother picked me up because both my host parents were busy and he spoke almost perfect English. When I got to my friend, Evelina’s, house her dog ran out to greet me and then we went inside so she could give me a tour of her house. I met her cat, which was exciting for me since I haven’t gotten to see a cat in two months.

Then we went for a walk with her in the snow and walked to an old abandoned building that they usually go to on Halloween. When we got back to her house we ate some toast with cheese that she had baked in the oven and a traditional Estonian sweet drink that is made from mixing eggs, milk, and sugar and drank raw. Afterwards we talked and she told me more about Estonian culture.

When her parents came home we had cream puffs and Estonian chocolate and then retreated to her bedroom where we fooled around with snapchat filters and talked about our pets. Afterwards, we went back downstairs to watch tv and I showed her funny videos from tumblr as we watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl and then Burlesque while eating Finnish cinnamon buns. It was a lot of fun and by the time I had to go her dog didn’t want me to leave!

On Monday, March 14th, we started making a film in my video/photography class. My group decided to make a film about a serial killer murdering someone and then getting arrested, but such a violent sounding theme it turned into more of a comedy. I dressed up as a totally inconspicuous murderer and we dressed a dummy up as my victim.

We decided to film in the cafeteria which earned us many strange looks from the people in there. In the end we decided that we would have to use music and sound effects instead of actual sound from the video because of how much laughing there was.