My second week as a Madrileño

Hello!

Last time I told you about my search for a room. Well, let’s reveal how and where I eventually found one! After 4 full days of searching I did not find a room yet. It was Sunday evening, and since I had a Spanish level test the next morning, I decided to stop searching on the Internet for a while and spend the evening learning Spanish. So I opened my books, and within one hour my phone rang. It was Evi, a classmate from Tilburg. She said she found a room in the street of my hostel and that there was another one free, so I could join. One hour later, the contract was signed and I had the keys! Yippee! So now I live in the street Calle Fuencarral, in the middle of the center. Together with 2 Spanish girls, 2 Turkish girls, 2 French girls and Evi. How strange… I crossed the whole center of Madrid, and I found a room just in the street of my hostel!

First Month in Shanghai,

Dear all,

We'll as some of you might know there has been a rather serious metro crash here in Shanghai. The line involved is Metro Line 10, which just so happens to be the line which all students of the university take to the uni everyday, seeing as it is the only line that stops at Jiaotong Station. Non of the exchange students were on the train during the impact. Yet some traveled just before!! So It gave them quite a fright and now everyone had to walk quite far or take a taxi to get to the uni. But all that aside I have survived my first month in Shanghai and what a city it is!

Busy exchange life!

Boscanat, boscanat! Exchange life in Budapest is so busy.. There is so much going on and always something to do! Now, I finally found some time to write my blog. It contains about two and a half weeks... =) I will try to have more regular, shorter updates during the rest of the semester. Also, the story about my parents visiting and my 21st birthday will be in the next blog!

Monday, 12th of September - Liszt Ferenc Tér, Budapest - 21.00 hr.

My first lectures today! I was so excited. However, the bigger the excitement, the bigger the possible disappointment.. I started today at 8 o'clock, with Corporate Governance. Bluntly said, I was annoyed for 80 minutes in a row.. The teacher spoke bad english, told us not

hing we did not know already and topped that off with giving extremely misguided and ignorant statements. "Managers only care for their own interest and having a private jet." *sigh* So, I hoped for a better second lecture, which was Social Inequalities. If only I would have been capable of writing down the right room number. C249 is what my agenda said. This did not exist. After searching for every room 249 in every building, I gave up and went home, where I found out I should have switched the numbers to C429.. Rookie mistake.

We decided to run off our frustrations (and the calories of eating and drinking too much) with 5 kilometers around Margit Sziget! Very good track, really nice view and a personal record: 35 minutes. I am really not a natural runner, so I was pretty proud of myself. Let's keep this up!

Courses at Turku School of Economics

Finally it’s time to tell you about my courses at Turku School of Economics (TSE). One or two years ago, I don’t remember exactly, TSE merged with University of Turku (UTU). This merger makes it possible for students to choose courses from all faculties at UTU. That means that I can choose courses from the economic faculty (TSE) but also from social sciences, medicine, natural sciences, humanities etc. Of course the UvT itself has some limitations within this possibility because it requires a certain amount of credits gained in my own field of studies. However, I am doing all courses here in Turku on top of my regular program in Tilburg so I can choose anything I want! If this would not be possible there would still be many many courses to choose from, but I preferred the other ones.

My first month in Seoul

In the last few weeks, not much happened for me. Life is going its steady course and time goes quite quickly. I had my first exam in the morning, so now I also have at least a bit of an idea how the exam levels will be here.

UW Student Orientation

Hi everyone!

The last two weeks the University of Washington (UW) organized the International Student Orientation. This Orientation is for new International Students at the UW and there are lots of them. Only 700 students take part in the Orientation. The students come from more than 100 different countries and their ages vary between 17 and 30. Their studies also vary a lot: mechanic engineering, rhetoric, law, computer science, nursery and I can keep going for a while. This makes the group of students very diverse.

On the first days of the Orientation, the activities were organized to get to know the University. The Campus of the University is very big, there drive a lot of buses on it and it is beautiful! They built the Halls in an old style. The UW is located in a bigger area called University District. This district looks like a small town and almost all the students live in it. There are also lots of restaurants and cafes and places to get coffee or other things. The Orientation started with a campus tour, introduction games and campus activities, which included canoeing on Lake Washington (the Lake next to the UW).

First blog finally!

Hello, everyone:

Finally I got time to write this blog. Sorry for all of you since it’s a little bit late. This week is the Add/drop period, and I was busy enrolling/ changing the courses.

Well, something about myself first. My name is Zhuoying, I’m a 3^rd year IBA student, and I’m now on an exchange in Queens’ University in Canada. I’ve stayed here for about 3 weeks now, and I love it!

Background Info: I arrived in Toronto on 30^th August in the afternoon. Then I took a coach directly to Kingston (where the university is located). Here I have to say, Canada is indeed a country with vast land areas that it took me 4 hours on the way and it’s already 11pm when I got there. I stayed in one of the campus residence hall for the night and on the next day, I met my host for the coming 3 nights, Kristiana Clemens, a music producer in Queens’ Campus Broadcasting Station, who is so kind that she offered me a temporary accommodation for free. Of course, during those 3 days, I have to find another place to stay for the rest of my time here.

my subjects

Hello blog readers,
If you are thinking about going to Carlos III next year I first want to tell you something about my first experiences about my subjects. Take into account that I am a fiscal economics student and not a Business administration one and that for me a subject is quickly a bit boring.

I start my week with strategic management. This course is really nice, I like the topics very much. The only problem that I have with this is that the teacher is not really clear in what we have to prepare for next class but when you come in class and we are going to discuss an article he always summerisas the articles because nobody knew that they have to read it at home. The discussion about the articles are always quite interesting.

Fun activities

Hi there, again an update from sunny Spain. The weather is still unbelievably great, in contrast to the Netherlands … Too bad we have to be in class during the week, but the activities and the weekend definitely make up for that.

Monday we had, as usual, our classes. This time everything went much more smooth. The beamer was working ,which was quite a victory, because now we could actually read what the professors had to say. Their ‘Spanglish’ is sometimes very hilarious and some support is therefore very convenient.

연고전 2011

Hello everyone!

This weekend, or rather this Friday and Saturday, one of the major events our university participates in took place. Its called 연고전, or Yongojeon, (though Korea university calls the event: 고연전, Koyonjeon.) which basically is a two day event where two rival universities (Yonsei and Korea University) compete in five sports; baseball, basketball, ice-hockey, rugby and soccer. The games take place at the giant Olympic stadions, where the students all cheer for their team. The whole day. The dancing and screaming is no joke, especially when you're in the sun.


The exchange students had a cheering orientation at the beginning of the semester, and I have to say that it was easier to cheer when you knew the songs beforehand. The songs are completely in Korean though, so singing along took some practice, but I think I managed.

Finally classes will start

Hey everybody!

It has been a long time since I wrote to you.

I have been here for a month now and all I day did was celebrating the fact that I still have holidays. Which means, travelling, sightseeing and partying. For everybody coming to Ireland, I would recommand this. First and foremost, because finding an apartment is not always an easy task. It might take a week or two. In my case this was three days, but that was an exception. The second reason I would do this, because al your schoolmates have already started class back home, you might as well enjoy your time exploring the country and its culture you will experience. The final reason, is that it is a good way to get to know your way around the city.

The first days

Hello everyone!

I am very pleased that you decided to read my blog! Let’s start with a brief introduction of myself. My name is Rachelle Elshout, I’m a 20-year-old Dutch girl and I am in the third year of the study International Business Administration. I love to go out, do sports and have fun with my friends! This semester I am studying at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid.

My adventure began on Wednesday August 31 when my plane landed at Airport Barajas. Hello Madrid, hello summer! I had booked a hostel for five days, because I needed time to find a room. So the next morning I searched the Internet to look for rooms in the city center with young people for an affordable price. These were basically my criteria. I tried to make appointments with the proprietors, speaking Spanish as fluently as I could, which was actually not fluent at all ;) I really enjoyed the weather, the beautiful city and the relaxed atmosphere during my search. However, the search itself went not very well. Sometimes the people were not young at all, sometimes my Spanish ‘competitors’ spoke faster and could thus sign the contract already before I understood everything, sometimes the rooms had no window, etc. But I was still enjoying this big, lovely city! After 4 full days of searching and having seen 12 rooms, I did not find my room yet. In the next blog, you will find out how and where I eventually found a room…

Integrating: Vasco da Gama, Samba & Baile Funke and Villa Alliança

After nearly two months living in Rio I think it is ready for a new update. Meanwhile some things have changed and I am more and more trying to become a real Carioca. To achieve this, I had to ‘pass’ some tests:

First of all, football (or in Brazilian terms: futbol) is THE main sport in Brazil and for most people one of the most important things in their life. Rio de Janeiro has around 25 professional football clubs, with four of them being favorite for winning the national competition. For me the choice to pick my favorite. Since my both roommates does not favor the same club, I thought it would be best to go a match that would compete both these teams: Vasco da Gama and Flamengo. I joined one of my roommates with the Vaso crowd to the stadium and I would become an amazing Sunday afternoon. Of course, the level of football was not as good as in Europe, but the atmosphere in and around the stadium was really impressive. Large military units had to divide this area of the city into two parts to avoid confrontations. Eventually the game ended in a 0-0 draw, but Vasco played better and had a much more enthusiastic crowd, so my choice was made.

Another very important aspect of the life of Carioca’s are the Samba’s and Funk parties. Both with their characteristic dancing moves make it very hard for a northern European person to participate in it. However, I did my best and enjoyed it a lot. Besides that, the Brazilian people were very kind to help and teach me the Latin American moves. 

V

Hej! As promised, I'm going to compensate for the fact that I haven't posted any pictures in my blogs. I'm doing this by an actual foto blog! Please consider that I'm not the best photographer in the world, and therefor I also had some help from my good friend Urban here! The foto's are a combination of his and mine!
So, let's begin! The first pictures are from the people I hang out with the most here:

Of course, I have to respect my fellow photographer for this blog, and one of my best mates here, Urban!

FLTR: Jennie (my senior buddy), some random guy (haha), Johannes, me and Anders!
This was at the Faddermittag, hence the slightly formal theme.

Philippines: what an experience!

Last weekend I went to the Philippines with my two Belgium roommates and another friend of us from Canada. We left friday early in the morning and after a 4 hour flight we arrived in Cebu-city, this is the fourth city of the Philippines, but also the oldest city. We stayed at an island close to the city, in a village called Lapu-Lapu city. When we arrived in this village, we immediately noticed the poverty of this country. Little houses, people everywhere on the street wearing old clothes and only flip-flops.. The streets were filled with crazy vehicles, motorbikes with sidecars, trucks and little open vans. And there the first Philippine wish came up, I definitely wanted to go with both the motorbike and the van. After a nice seafood lunch we walked around in the little city. There we were like attractions, everybody was looking at us, staring at my friends Tyler and Sebastiaan because they are so tall. 

stressful registrations for trips

At the moment I’m writing my second blog I’m full of adrenaline. At 19:00 (I’m writing at 19:30) was the sign up for the ESN trip to Lapland. With around 1000 exchange students that all want to go and only 250 places, everybody is on facebook and clicking on the link for over 100 times. I didn’t count how often I tried to refresh pages and clicked on all links possible but it took me around 30 minutes to get me and 2 friends of mine registered. At 19:00 sharp the registration should be open. However, the opposite happened, the registration link disappeared fully from the website. The only option was refreshing and trying to reopen it again. Reading all comments on facebook from other people that did not manage to register either calmed me a little bit down, but still I was stressed. Finally I received another link of a guy on my floor and I managed. You cannot imagine how happy I am to be registered!

Ágætis byrjun

My dad once told me that Frisians have always had this special bond with Nordic countries which would accomodate befriending, and would make cultural integration lots and lots easier. You know, when you simply understand eachother without putting extra effort into it. Now I am half-Frisian, and after more than a month in Iceland I think I can say that it is not (half) that easy.

First classes ...

After having two weeks of fun and the feeling like you are on holiday, it was time to start the real life called university. The good thing about it is that you build up a daily rhythm, but the bad thing is that I have to get up at 7 a.m. every day, except for Friday, which is my weekly day of and thus a great start of a long, well-deserved weekend.

my life in spain

18-9-2011

Every day I see them again. Blue skirts, Scottish diamonds, white polo’s and so on ; kids in school uniform. So cute to see. Not only kids from primary school but also high school kids.

Saturday the 10th I stayed at home to make homework even though it was 35 degrees outside and I were not really in the mood.

Sunday Jasper and I went to the finish of the Vuelta, the Spanish ‘Tour de France’. It was nice to see this, especially because we stood at the first raw and could see everything very well.
We also met two American travellers who were really nice! They gave us some tips for going to America. Jasper caught a bidon from one of the racers and I made some very good pictures.

IV

BLOG 4

Last Monday we had a pub crawl. For the ones that do not know what a pub crawl is: You basically go to a lot of different bars in one evening, and at most of them you’ll get a discount or a free drink. In this case, we divided into groups of 5, and we went to five different bars. At most bars we could get a beer for around 30 crones (3.30 euros)! We considered this very cheap! Those prices were a lot better than we had experienced so far! One of the bars was a really retro bar, with these typical 80’s hits. Definitely worth visiting again! In the last bar we gathered with all the groups. There my friends and I stayed for a while and chatted around. It´s always a laugh when I tell them the place I was born is Weert (pronounce it in English and you’ll understand). It was definitely a good evening!

Same same, but different ...

It is always nice to start off with a serious part first before you jump into the informal jibber jabber, so I start with that small formal part:

You can go anywhere in the world, from Toronto to Sydney and from Taipei to Beijing, I chose the latter and you will find out why during the process of this blog. The thing is choosing a Western country like Canada or Australia is really easy, you know in general the language, the food and the way people will react in different situations. However it will not provide you the insights of a real different culture, with all of her beauty and rich history as for instance China does. It is not a coincidence that they ruled the world for a long time in history and that they are now on their way of doing such again.

In the last quarter of a century (so my whole life) their economy have been growing so tremendously (yes their population too), that they draw the attention of

Another week in Korea

Caribbean Bay

Today, I went to the biggest water park in the world: Everland Caribbean Bay. There I experienced firsthand what recreation in Asia can be like.

First week in the USA

Hi everybody!

It has only been one week ago since I left the Netherlands, however I discovered quite a lot, so it feels like I have been here for a while. Last week I travelled 8000 km by plane, 650 km by car and 40 km by foot.

Last week I arrived in Seattle, USA. I am going to study for a semester at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was a long trip (10 hours flying) and the time difference is 9 hours, so that makes it tiresome. My father travelled with me, to join me in the USA for a week. We rented a car when we arrived in Seattle and it felt immediately like I was in the USA, the big highways, all thefastfood and the big cars and trucks.

Our plan was to make a trip throughout Washington State and finally arrive in Seattle.

My first day in Athens

Hey all

Thank you for reading my blog and I'll try to make it as interesting as possible!

This morning I arrived at the airport of Athens. My contact person ( so called exchange buddy ) was waiting for me there. The taxi drivers are on strike today because they refuse to start paying taxes so we had to use the public transport. Although all travel information was available in English I was glad that my buddy knew which train and bus to take. He guided me to the office of Stayinathens, the organization I booked an apartment at. There I met the landlord and he took me to my apartment and stayed there for a while because he still had to clean most rooms. His English is very good and like al Greeks he likes to have a long conversation. Of course, the economic crisis and the Greek culture were two of the many topics.

I love Budapest!

Classes have started! Even though I missed my first lecture of Social Inequalities already.. due to a scheduling fault of my own. Still, I am now an official student at Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem and that feels good!

The main building of the university is part of the UN

ESCO Heritage Site and I cannot disagree with that. It is really beautiful. However, most of my classe

s are in the C-building, which is located right next to the main-building and has a very modern architecture, which I also fi

nd very inspiring!

So, vacation is over.. and studying begins! Of course you will here many stories about that from me, but let me first tell you about my last 'free' week here ;)

Singapore study pressure

Everybody told me this and prepared me for the study pressure in Singapore, but until last week I didn't really noticed it.... but yes in the fourth week of my exchange in Singapore I got exposed to the stress which comes with studying here. I have four courses here and 2 courses in the Netherlands, for all the six courses I currently have group projects. Well, in the Netherlands we are used to dividing most of the theoretical part of the project. Here they first have a meeting to brainstorm about which sources we are going to use, then another meeting to set up a framework and then finally we start with creating the report. Those meetings last for around 2 or 3 hours each, they don't mind meeting up after 8 pm (while they do mind meeting up before 12).

Universidad del CEMA

Hola!

This blog is about my university here in Buenos Aires: Universidad del CEMA. I really like my university! It's well organized and it is a small university, really small! You may think, every university is well organized, right? I can tell you one thing: In South America well organized organizations/companies are rare. Personally, I am still a little amazed by the inefficiency I experience  every day, not only during the classes, but even with grocery shopping or getting a statement of robbery at the police office. Though it is a great experience and it makes you respect the Netherlands and its policies more, at least for me thats the case.;)
About a month ago my introduction days started. I just got back from my trip to Salta and was looking forward to meet all the exchange students of my university. Up to that moment I already knew a lot of people from di Tella, but this was a new opportunity to meet other interesting people. UCEMA has 2 introduction days, on those days the university provide you with all the information necessary to study at UCEMA and you will get to know your fellow exchange students. You can get to know all names in one day, because there are only a few international students. This is really nice, because you will get to know all exchange students pretty well and it is possible to organize dinners and activities with all of them. I really like my fellow exchange students, 5 are from south-america and the others from europe. We organize dinners with different country themes every wednesday and do a lot of activities together. The first days I felt really stupid, because my Spanish isn't that advanced as the others, all the others have, or spanish as mother tongue, studied already for a semester in a Spanish-speaking country or speak Portuguese what is kind of the same. Luckily enough, everyone is very kind and it is the perfect way to learn spanish really quick.

First classes at Uc3m.

Hello blogreaders,

Monday was my first day at Carlos III. I already found out a faster way to get there what is always nice to know when you have 4 days of classes at 9 am. My first class was Strategic Management. The new professors were as good informed as we were. ( Not really good ) so he didn’t manage to get the slides on the screen. He had to wrote down everything on the blackboard. His accent is really fun, but I won’t complain , this was one of the first people who actually speaks English in Spain so that was nice. The second class we had to watch a youtube movie about Enron.( I think we could do this also at home and better he told us a bit more about Enron himself) I have to get used to this school system, we have to make a lot of assignments, case studies and so on and they want you to be in class. In Tilburg I just follow some of my courses but some of them are so much easier to be studied at home and for these subjects I never go to classes. Because there are at max 30 people in the classroom you have to participate active and you can’t just sitting in your chair, enjoy a cup of coffee and a nice slice of bread. However I don’t like homework, I do like the fact that classes are just one hour, you got case studies out from the real life what makes it more fun and you can better imagine what the subject is really about. In Tilburg I sometimes really don’t. Also the rapidity of the classes is much slower than at Tilburg.

Toronto has it all!

HOLA CHICOS&CHICAS!!

3 Weeks ago i took the plane from Brussels-Chicago. I spend a week in Chicago with a good friend Lotte who is studying in Ottawa at the moment. Chicago was amazing, it is a MUSTSEEcity, i think its comparable with NYcity. I wrote a story about Chicago on www.ireneintoronto.waarbenjij.nu if you are interested in this citytrip that i highly recommend to everybody! Its in Dutch;). Besides i will post Dutch blogs on this website for friends and family, a bit more in detail then on this uniblog, which is more informative and useful.

2 Weeks ago i arrived in Toronto and it feels like home already. I think i adapt pretty fast to my new environment and thats nice, it might help that it still feels like holiday at the moment, i enjoy life here a lot and i see/realize/think things that i wouldnt remark in my everydaylife in Tilburg(which i also enjoy of course). But enough talk about me...
What is interesting to know for YOU about an exchange semester at Schulich school of Business, Yorku in Toronto? I would say, TORONTO HAS IT ALL!

My first week in Shanghai

Dear all,

Now finally settled in my new

apartment in Xuhui District in Shanghai I can finally say I found my place. My Shanghai experience started off a little troubled. With me not knowing where to go from the airport, to getting a small double room with a disgusting bathroom, having to register in Chinese etc etc. So what happened?

Madrid is awesome!

Before I start talking about my first days at Carlos III, I will tell some nice activities, some of them organized by ESN, which is also active at Tilburg University.

Tuesday 30 August we went to visit the new Parque Rio, which was opened last year and designed by students from the Netherlands. When we arrived there, we could not miss the designer bridge, which was quite an amazing structure ...

It was really cool to see an area where you can walk and relax without the hastiness of the big city.
On internet there was written that there was also a ‘beach’, so we really wanted to go and relax there. The beach part of Parque Rio were just some water fountains where you could jump through to refresh, but Kelly and I rented two chairs and a parasol and enjoyed the day with doing nothing and gaining a nice tan. Well, we got not only a tan, but also some burning spots, which really hurt. It was a nice day however.

III

A common reaction for most people when I told them I was going to Stockholm was: “Why would you want to go to such a cold place?!” It is definitely going to be freezing during the winter, as temperatures will probably drop to -15°C. Everybody keeps warning us for how cold the weather is going to be in a couple of weeks/months. However, since I’ve been here I’ve had nothing but good weather. The temperature is around 20°C, the sun is shining, and most of the time I’ve spend here I’ve been able to just wear T-shirts. Not exactly what I was expecting, as you can understand!

There are very big differences in English proficiency between the different exchange students, but overall everyone is at least able to understand each other. Trying to understand some Swedish however is a whole different level for most of us. When you’re Dutch or German however, it’s not impossible to read signs or small sentences. The Swedish language does have its similarities with our languages. Next week I will have my first lessons in the Swedish language, so I’m quite excited!

Did you know?

Let's play a little game about Ireland, where I ask the question did you know and if you can answer with yes on more than half of it you win the game (honour will be your reward)

- Did you know that is western Ireland the weather can change every 10 minutes? You will leave in the sun without a coat and still be soaked at the end

- Did you know that the Irish don't really want to know how you are doing when they ask you? You're supposed to day 'How are ya" back

- Did you know that if they answer to how are you, the answer with "I'm grand' and when you're in a really really good mood, 'you're grand out '?

- Did you know that the Irish don't mind if you break traffic rules? and even the police crosses through a red light?

Seoul at its best

Hello everyone,

Time for my second blog, and I have been thinking about what to write here for a long time because I have done and seen so much in the past few days here that it's way too much to write down.

So let me start by saying that I have been having the best time ever. The dorm where I am currently staying is an international dorm, and I have made many friends. I have met loads of people, ate the best foods, seen beautiful places and all in such as short time.

new people

Hey hey, here I am again.
We are doing so much every day so I will keep you up to date.

Tuesday we went to the new 'parque rio'. It is designed by some Dutch student from Maastricht. It is a very beautiful park. we went to the playa area. We rented 2 beach chairs and a parasol for just 3 euros and made it a really relax day. There was a water playground really nice to cool down a bit and for having so much fun! Unfortunately we forgot to protect ourselves and burned so much.

The real deal!

Hi everyone!

Halleluja, the past two weeks have flown by so rapidly.. So many things happened that I just did not have time to upload my blog 0=) So prepare, it is gonna be a long, but exciting one this time!

Me and the girls at Lake Balaton!

I have arrived in Shanghai, China!

Dear all,

To start off with I'd like to give you some simple advice, if you ever want to study in China, learn the language!

I arrived in China on September 1^st, I did not know where I had to go and definitely not how to get there! Luckily I arrived at Shanghai International Airport at 7:00 in the morning local time so I would have the whole day to figure out what was what. All I knew was that I had supposedly got a room at the Minghang Campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. However it was not yet clear to me whether this Campus was actually just a different part or actually somewhere else in the city. It turned out to be the latter. 

First 5 days in Lisbon

This monday I flew to lisbon with Bianca and Anouk. Of course the girls had to much luggage with them. Fortunately for them I could take some clothes in my bag. When we arrived we met Jorge, the university buddy of Bianca and Anouk. A buddy can help you with searching a room and things like that. I don't have a budy. This charming Portugese guy brought us to our appartments. We live seperated, but all near Praca Marques de Pombal. Almost all the erasmus students are living in this district, and it's a great area to live in. The city centre is 15 minutes walking, and the metro is nearby. My house looks great, balconies everywhere, including in my room. After we had seen our appartment, we went to bairro alto to eat some fresh salmon. Bairro alto(translated higher neighbourhood) is the place for eating and drinking in the small bars or on the streets. There is a really informal vibe and it's a bit alternative. The influences from Brazil are nice to see. Everybody is drinking caipirinha and other national Brazilian cocktails. They are only two euro's. Everything is really cheap. After diner we went back to our appartments because we where really tired.

First days in Finland

The first couple of days in Finland

Already more than two weeks ago, on the 18th of August, I left home to go on exchange to Turku, Finland. My checked-in luggage could be 23 kg and my hand luggage 8. First I thought that it was quite a lot but when I started to pack it wasn’t. Especially if you have to bring your warm winter jackets with you it’s not much. I managed and took the maximum weight with me! After saying goodbye to my parents the airplane left right on time, something that rarely happens to me when going abroad by airplane. Probably this was because I traveled with a Finnish air company and they are very strict and always on time. The airplane arrived around 20 minutes earlier than expected which enabled me to catch my bus from Helsinki airport to the place to be, Turku. Everything went well and my tutor picked me up (by car!) at the bus station. She already had the key of my room and picked up my Starting Package (blanket, pillow, plate, cutlery, cup, glass etc) so I didn’t have to do that myself anymore.

When I told my family and friends that I would go to Finland they asked: “Why Finland and not a nice and warm country? It’s there cold and dark all the time!” Then I just told them that that might be the case in the North but the city where I would go to is in the South at the sea and I believe that the difference with the Netherlands is not that big. What I would expect from Finland is that the people have a very good command of English, that I would not at all be able to understand the Finnish language, that the people have blond hair, that everything is very well organized, that it is hard to truly get into contact with the locals and most of all that it would be expensive.

So let’s see if my expectations came true. 

Exploring Singapore

Last weekend was literally the first weekend I had some spare time to explore Singapore. Saturday I went to Orchard road with a friend, this road is filled with shops of every brand you can imagine. There are shopping malls everywhere, with shops from very expensive (Dior, Gucci, Prada) to shops which are less expensive (Zara, Bershka, Mango), still the less expensive stores are more expensive then in the Netherlands. Probably this will have something to do with the fact that these shops are all European and everything is imported. Another thing you immediately notice is the amount of cloths for the winter they sell, which makes me wondering why??? Because till now, I have wore a long trousers only once and all my tops with long sleeves, I brought them for nothing! After a day of seeing a huge part of Orchard road, we were in for some sushi. In a mall close to a mrt station I knew a place where we can have sushi from an assembly line. Most of you will know this concept from some places in the Netherlands, but the main difference here is that it is really cheap. Everything is freshly prepared and you can have green tea for free. In the end we had to pay 8 dollars (which is around 5 euro's) and we had lots of amazing sushi!

Welcome to Norway!

Exactly three weeks ago I left the Netherlands and went off to Bergen (Norway) to stay there for a semester. I packed my bags, said goodbye to my family and took the plane to Bergen. Packing my bags was not as easy as I thought, since I had to bring clothes, shoes and other stuff to be prepared for all different types of weather. The weather for the most places in Norway is quite unpredictable and can change rapidly. In order to be sure to have enough space I decided finally to take two suitcases with me. When I had some space left I filled it with some food. You have to realize yourself that in Norway everything is very expensive, especially meat, fresh vegetables and alcohol.

Anyway, next to this the country offers only benefits! Let me start with the magnificent surroundings, landscapes and nature of Norway, and especially Bergen. It is never far to go for a trip in the mountains for hiking or to enjoy the amazing scenery of the environment. Bergen is known for the seven mountains around them and together with other international students we regularly climb one of those. When you are on the top you have amazing views over the whole city.

The first week

My first week in Seoul is almost over, so it’s a perfect time to talk about my daily life here and the living conditions! Let me start off by saying this: the Korean people are great! Although my communication hasn’t reached any further than the English-speaking people at the University (the average Korean doesn’t speak a word of English), they are all very open, friendly and eager to help in case there are any issues. I have not run into a single person who could be described as mean or even unkind, this includes the random people on the street. I was a bit worried beforehand that I would stick out like a sore thumb in daily life and while I guess I still do, I do not feel like I am seen as an outcast or that I get weird looks. Of course, I guess that’s something you can also expect from such a international city. It’s starting to feel more like home with each passing day.