Finland is located next to Sweden in the north western part of Europe called Scandinavia.

Finland gained it's independence from Russia on December 6th, 1917 and later joined the European Union on the first of January 1995.

The currency they use is Euros, it is 130,596 square miles, and 5,488,543 people live in Finland

Being 15 in Finland is difficult yet fun because of the amount of school and being able to stay up late.

Challenges for being a 15 year old Finnish kid can be the fact that you live in a country where there is a world class education and you are scared of not being as good of a student that the standards put you at.

Finnish students have to go through an average of 19.8 years of schooling to get a good paying job(OECD).

19.8 years is almost 20% of your life, and if you spend it all in school, you will be challenged. School keeps getting more difficult each year, so about 20 years would be very difficult.

Being 15 in Finland would be pretty cool because you are able to just have fun and live life however you want in the night.

Kids are able to stay up late because of the midnight sun(Walter Sjoblom).

Life in general for a 15 year old is fun, but if you add more time, like the midnight sun, it would get even more fun. More time would equal more opportunity to do whatever you want.

In Finland, school comes first, but the extra "time" you have at night allows 15 year olds to have fun.

Through the process of making a connection, I learned that Finland is a lot like Steamboat, and also that I am very similar to 15 year old Finnish kids such as Walter Sjoblom.

Here in Steamboat we have a pretty good educational system. The teachers are super nice and they all care for your education and future. The students certainly learn a lot, and I could say that our education is certainly world class just like Finland's. I personally enjoy playing soccer or in their, football, and I bet that a 15 year old living in Finland has the same enjoyment.

I first met Walter when we went to the Norway Cup in 2013 while we were playing soccer. Him and I were connecting on the sport of soccer. Also two major parts of Steamboat is education and tourism.

The skill of being able to connect is important in order to help understand what life is like with whom you are connecting.

Works Cited

"Culture of Finland." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

"Finland." OECD Better Life Index. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

Lunsford, Andrea A., Paul Kei. Matsuda, and Christine M. Tardy. EasyWriter: A High School Reference. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2015. Print.

Sjoblom, Walter. "Finland Life." Telephone interview. 6 Dec. 2016.

"Statistics Finland." Statistics Finland - About Statistics - Families. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.