The FUSYE scholars met up with the YFU year exchange students, who had already been in Finland for a year. This group of students was comprised of students from Germany, France, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Japan, and Thailand. While most were polite and respectful, some were extraordinarily vulgar to us Americans, repeating the words "I hate America" over and over so that we could hear. I was pretty shocked- as exchange students, weren't we all supposed to be deferential to and understanding of the cultures of different countries and respect the ideologies of all people? I really fear for the future of our world if societies are left in the hands of such bigoted, ignorant, and close-minded individuals.
Despite the initial bump in the rude by a few YFU year students, the rest of the Parliament tour was extremely informative.
Me outside the Parliament!
According to the Parliament employee, the Finnish parliament is one of the most transparent in the world. During Plenary Sessions, where the members of parliament vote on issues, common citizens can sit in one of the 350 available seats in the balcony area to watch the proceedings. Sessions are usually televised, and transcripts are always available 2 hours after a session. I am amazed by their efforts to remain transparent to their constituents, as transparency establishes and maintains a thriving democracy.
Inside the main legislation crafting assembly hall! Each member of parliament has huge stacks of paper to go through before a session, as you can see from the many stacks on the desks. Also, the five statues that you can see behind me represent the five pillars of Finnish society- they were designed by Wäinö Aaltonen and their names were "The Pioneer", "The Toil of Thought", "The Future", "Faith", and "The Harvester."
Another highlight of the Parliament was the mesmerizing interior. The walls are crafted from a rare white marble, and there are intricate chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. The furniture on the sides have been there since the 1930s, and I was enchanted by the fact that great leaders probably filled these halls at one point, and now I was occupying their space.
Marble halls and chandeliers
As I stepped off the bus, I was greeted by an irresistible aroma of chocolate. The air was tinged with a rich sweetness I had never even known before, reeling me into the Fazer building. Our Fazer journey started with some videos on how the cocoa beans are farmed, fermented, and then transported to factories where they are ground into cocoa powder. At the Fazer factory, this powder is mixed with real milk, which accounts for the richness of the chocolate. Thankfully, Fazer promotes the sustainable development and safe production of cocoa beans, and cocoa bean farmers get a fair share of Fazer chocolate profits.
After the introduction, we embarked upon the tour! After leading us underground, our Fazer tour guide took us through the history of Fazer chocolate and the process of how chocolates are made in the factory. At every stop, there was a delicious treat waiting for us, and we were free to eat to our heart's content.
Fazer!
At the last stop of the tour, our tour guide unveiled the all-you-can-eat chocolate station, with every single product Fazer sells, including this delicious chocolate with hazelnut filling called Geisha, this chocolate candy with creamy caramel filling called Dumle, and a chocolate bar whose top half was white chocolate and bottom half was milk chocolate with rasberry bits interspersed throughout.
After 15 minutes, the FUSYE scholar were still stuffing their faces with chocolate. To ensure that we could all get a taste of everything, we split chocolate bars. At the end, many students became slightly nauseous from consuming so much chocolate, but at the same time, none of of regretted it, for we would feel guilty if we hadn't eaten so much chocolate and taken advantage of the magnificence that is Fazer!
One of the 4-5 display shelves of chocolate. The chocolate with the pink wrapper is my favorite.
After our YFU excursion, I came home to my host family. From her work, Sanni had brought back a cook book with hundreds of different recipes for pastries and cakes. We decided to bake a banana cake together, because I had never tried baking before and banana cake was a pretty mistake-proof recipe. I was in charge of mixing all the dry ingredients, including cinnamon, flour, salt, sugar, various other spices, baking soda, etcetc
Luckily, the cake turned out wonderfully, as you can see from the picture below!
Yum-it was very delicious!
No comments:
Post a Comment