The Friendship Program

During the first week here in Turku I was informed about the Friendship Program. Through this program you can get in contact with Finnish people. I decided to sign up for the program to see more of the Finnish culture. Of course there are enough Finnish students here, but I would like to meet “normal” Finnish people to see what “normal” (not student) life is like here in Finland. A couple of weeks ago I met my “Finnish friend”. It turned out that it was a whole family. Mom, dad and two children of 10 and 9 years old. It was a very nice first meeting and we talked about all kinds of stuff. We decided to meet again and that was last Friday. I took my bike and rode to their house located in a small village to the west of Turku. 

Their house was very nice and, of course, they have their own sauna. Until now I didn’t meet the mother yet. She is in the US for studies. The children are really nice and I really like it that I can see how children are raised here. Until now I mainly talked to the father and the children were just hanging around doing their own thing. It is unfortunately quite difficult to get in contact with the children because they don’t speak English (although they already started to learn it in school) and my Finnish is not good enough yet. I can say some words in Finnish, but it’s impossible to make sentences and trying to understand them while talking Finnish is impossible too. Next time I will prepare and practice some sentences so I can ask something to the children. The parents just have to translate everything what they are saying to me.

I think the Friendship program is a great opportunity to get in contact with the “real” Finnish people. My family really want to show me all kinds of stuff. They already invited me to go to their summer cottage, to go skiing, to visit cities and so on. And they also offered to bring me anywhere if I have to go somewhere which it not reachable by public transport. I really like to learn more about the culture of the people of the country I live in for these 4 months. The Friendship program together with the course Knowledge about Finland tells me a lot about it. 

Pictures have been lacking in my blogs until now, next time there will be!