Good memories

Two weeks ago my great Erasmus semester was over. The Student Village was already empty, my friends had already left and I was ready to go home and to see my family and friends again. Still I wished I could stay and I'm sure I will go back there for a holiday to visit friends. For now it's over and time for my last blog. 

In the beginning of my semester I was longing for Dutch food sometimes. Speculaas, Sinterklaas candy, the bread etc. The last week I was only thinking about what Finnish food I could bring home and I didn’t feel at all like eating Dutch food. However, I was looking forward to riding my own bike on very good bicycle roads without any pedestrians walking in the way and to feel the fresh cold wind. Somehow I felt like it was not windy at in Finland and I even lived at the seaside. The last couple of weeks was hanging out with friends, arranging all administrative stuff and visiting the most special places in Turku for the last time.

Family visit

Heipä!

Last week my parents, sister and brother came to Turku to visit me. The day they arrived they immediately came to my place where I served them homemade karjalanpiirakka that was left from our Finnish dinner. They liked it a lot. Afterwards we went to their cottage on an island and almost in the middle of nowhere. There cottage was great. It was a very old villa which was kept original as much as possible. The furniture in the rooms was old and in each room there was still an original stove. Besides there was a lot of decorative stuff that was very old and made the atmosphere in the cottage very nice. A modern thing was the electric heating which was very nice because it was quite cold during the days they were here.

The next day we went to Helsinki. I had already been there one day but this time I saw many different things. I also knew the way through the city centre a bit, so I could guide them to the most beautiful place. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to visit Suomenlinna, a sea fortress at the seashore of Helsinki. But I will go there tomorrow on my own, it should be one of the most interesting places to visit in Helsinki.

Exams and more

Dear all,

The last couple of weeks have been very busy. Because I decided in the beginning of the semester to do more than half of the credits in the first period, I had many exams. They were however quite easy. The question that were asked were quite obvious and were only about the core of the texts that we had to read. For one course the teacher even begged us to come to the exam because it would be so easy. Without reading anything I got the highest grade. The grading system here is also different than back home. I don’t know exactly how it works but I have the feeling that they compare the exams of the students. For what I wrote I would normally have expected to get something in between an 7 and an 8 at Tilburg University but here I received a 10. And for another exam the teacher wrote us that you would receive a 10 if you had 90% of the answers right. This makes it quite easy to get high grades to heighten  up your average.

Finnish life and culture

I have lived in Finland for more than two months already and although I have mainly been hanging around with other exchange students you see a lot of the culture. Finnish culture is Western European and is in many aspects not very different from the Dutch culture. Still some things are remarkable and can be a little bit difficult to get used to. Let me reflect in this blog on the cultural differences I have experienced so far.

Travelling!

Life in Turku is in many aspects much different from my life in Tilburg. Not only because of the (relatively small) culture differences but most of all because of all the activities I have. Compared to Tilburg I have a lot of time left. On exchange there are no obligations except for passing exams to get credits. Here I’m for example not in any committees, boards or sports associations and I don’t have to spend time on family (only the couple of hours that I skype with them). This means that I have a lot of time left to do other things. For example on travelling and there is a lot to do and to see in and around Finland.

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. 

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.

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!

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.