My Finnish Life: School and Food... because it is getting to be too cold and dark to do anything else!

So, I wanted to share a little bit about my experience here at the school, because... well, it is the reason I am here! I spend my Mondays and Tuesday with 5e and 6e (the e stands for English because every grade also r-Swedish and s-Finnish classes) and my Wednesdays and Thursdays with 1e and my Fridays with 2e! I really love all the classes and mostly enjoy getting to know the kids over lunch, playtime, and of course lessons! A few weeks ago I went on a field trip with 6e to attend a day where we learned all about Medieval Kokkola and what life was like; it was completely in Finnish so I didn't learn very much haha, but enjoyed the experience! We made some type of bread, listened to stories, and made candles by carving out rutabagas. Here are a few pics:

Another important aspect of school is the food, since school lunch is free for the students everyone eats it and I don't think bringing your lunch is even allowed. I learned that it costs the schools less than 50 euro cents per child for lunch; that is pretty amazing! But, being a girl who has never eaten a proper school lunch in her life, I was skeptical of the quality of food.

However, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be and for the most part, it is pretty healthy. Sadly, there is never any pizza or hamburgers. It is a self-service system so all the kids dish up their own bowls of food (even the 1st graders!), but are supposed to take a little of everything. Drink options include milk and water and there are always these rye crackers available (everyone eats these with tons of butter lathered on top because they don't really have much of a flavor). A lot of the meals include potatoes because they grow well

here and are very inexpensive and then some sort of meat or fish dish. These all sound decent, but sometimes the cooks like to make meals with LIVER! For example, today's lunch was some type of mixed liver and rice... gross! Let's just say I stuck to a glass of milk and crackers and butter! I don't have any pictures of school food yet, but here are a few other gems I have found in the grocery store or food that I have tried at my host family's house:

Some type of canned fish... complete with eyeballs!

A typical Finnish meal: Sausages (in America we call these giant hot dogs), smoked fish, and these rice cakes that are supposed to be topped with eggs and butter.

AND

Some wild chanterelle mushrooms Leena got from the forest- yum!