New adventure, FINLAND!

Dear Readers,

(Mocht je nou Nederlands zijn en Engels moeilijk vinden, Google Translate is mijn held hier in Finland ;)

I am back with the stories, maybe most of you still have your email enclosed to this blog. At the moment I live in Porvoo a beautiful city in Finland. I will be studying here for one semester at Haaga-Helia, and one week has already past. Bear with me, because I am not the best in keeping up a blog. I have tried this when I went to Amerika and I failed doing it every week. Therefore, I decided upon doing it every other week, and ended up doing it once in two months. But this time is going to be different!

I went to Finland the seventh of August, together with my boyfriend to see where I was going to stay and breathe in some fresh Finnish air. Finland is beautiful, we spend time in Helsinki and were hiking close to Porvoo in the forest. We experienced some nice adventures and I am sure one week was not enough. After he left, the introduction with all my 36 exchange students started, and this is where my real Finnish journey begins.

Introduction week:
Three days of introduction, with people from all over the world (especially European students). Walking to school every day for 40 minutes because we did not have any bikes yet, but at least we could enjoy the silence at 8 AM while Finland was waking up. Learning about the country and their stereo typical behavior, I understood more and more what had happened when I visited Finland with my boyfriend.

Some funny Finnish behavior is, for example, that they need space. Even when it is snowing or raining they will stand at least one meter from each other at a bus stop. They do not say hello when passing, and they love their sauna’s. Which seems contradicting to the fact that they love their space, whilst in a sauna they sit close next to each other naked. Furthermore, here are more saunas than people in Finland, and they have five million people living here. They actually had a contest, from which they are going to change the rules. The challenge/contest is about who can stay the longest in a sauna, and a couple of years ago one person died (Finnish people really love their sauna...). An interesting fact I did not know about Finland, is that they are not part of Scandinavia. They are part of the Nordic countries, Scandinavia is just Norway and Sweden.

After the IKEA-trip (and eating Swedish meatballs) on Sunday, because we needed a huge amount of furniture, the first week could finally begin. Not really, because my first class was already rescheduled to the next week. Aside from all the parties I have already had, let’s go to my school schedule first.

First week in Finland – introducing some of my courses:
So my first day of school was on a Tuesday, I started at half past nine for the introduction to a Learning Camp, this is called the Design Sprint. An inspiring theory, to design a prototype in one week. The design is to understand how to begin with the end, create a prototype by talking to people and at the end of the week present the prototype to your customers. The design sprint seems similar to the pressure cooker students from ILM (International Leisure Management) had to do in the beginning of their second year. We are not certain yet about the outcome, but you will hear more of it next week!

After this introduction strategic branding started, which is an interesting topic seen from experience design. The woman teaching us is willing to take us to different companies to do assignments. I made my first assignment for this week, about what a brand is in general. I am excited for the coming projects, because she has worked with a huge amount of different interesting companies.

The day after, on Wednesday, we had the first course I went to where I have the least expertise in: responsible development in tourism destinations. I had no clue what I was getting myself in to, and I am not certain if this is what I want to do. It is however, very interesting and I am eager to learn from my classmates who actually study tourism.
On Thursday we had our first class of Finnish Culture and Society, very interesting! There is definitely a huge amount of stories in the North that most Dutch people have never heard before. For example that Sweden dominated Finland for a long time, this is why most people in the west speak Swedish. Moreover, some Finnish people still do not like the Swedish people in Finland and discriminate them. This is what I had heard from a Swedish exchange student. After some history and behavior of Finnish people, we had a surviving Finnish lesson, it is about the language and how to pronounce it. I can count until six now (although I have no clue how to write it), plus I can say kittos, which means thank you.

Saying I am from the Netherlands is ‘Hollanista’ and nice to meet you is ‘hauska tavata’. Nevertheless the most important word for this exchange, which I learned from a Finnish student is ‘kippis’ also known as proost in Dutch, and cheers in English!

On Friday I was free, and went to Tallin till Sunday, just taking in the beautiful city and partying all night long. It is nice being an exchange student. I am excited for the adventures that are yet to come! Until now, Finland has been an unexpected awesome journey, exchanges are always nice, but this is more than nice!

Would you like to know more about a specific course I am following? Or would you like to know more about where I am studying, and the awesome parties? Maybe even the places you should visit while in Finland? Please contact me, I would be happy to enlighten you more about my experiences and the knowledge I am gaining.

Thank you for reading,
Moi moi, Lauren