My first impressions of Finland

Hi there! My name is Bettina and I am from Germany. At the very second of writing this, I am part of the ERASMUS-Exchange program between my University of Education in Baden-Württemberg and Humak Turku/Korpilahti.

About my expectations beforehand (before travelling to Finland): I actually did not come to Finland with any bigger expectations because I could just not predict anything, I couldn’t even imagine the country during winter. Of course I had seen nice pictures but I knew that it might not be the same in fall term. Also I didn’t raise expectations for the sake of not being too manipulated in my thinking/feeling/experiencing of the different culture.

Therefore me and my friend only googled the weather (important for the estimation of pullover-thickness and amount of summer clothes), the type of people that we might get confronted with, joined some groups on Facebook to get some information for exchange students (for instance groups of the ESN – Erasmus Student Network, Humak and the bigger cities) and read a few blogs about Finland as a student. There had been surprisingly many rumours about the reserved/distant manner of Finnish people. I have to say, I was welcomed in Finland really warmly, I (of course not only me) felt like the people here (at least in university) looked after me and that also the other students from Humak were interested in getting to know us a bit better.

Drinking a lot of milk, eating sticky blanck stuff & playing air quitar

As for some peculiarities of Finnish culture I found out so far: they offer a lot of milk, not only in the cafeteria (5 types of milk or what?) but also in every market; they love licorice/Salmiaki (= that sticky black stuff, some might even call it candy); the country must have developed a keen interest in vegan and vegetarian food (that’s what I have heard at least); they like to make championships out of crazy things such as throwing a mobile phone as far as possible or playing the air-guitar; almost every family owns a mökki or a sauna or both (“exception confirms the rule”, as we would say in German). What else did my eye spy… the Finnish nature is stunning! We life almost in the forest, nearby a lake (2^nd largest of Finland I think), very close to the university and not only once I thought how much I will miss that in Germany. 

There is only one thing (at the moment), that gives me the creeps when I think back to it and that is the presence of so called “moose flies” – these are flies that search the warmth and coziness of your hairy head, peel off their wings and lay their eggs underneath your skin. I had one of these beasty creatures in my hair (good thing I have curls…) and planned not to go into the forest without something covering my head anymore.

But that is the only annoying thing I can think of at the moment. The rest of my stay here has been quite comfortable and nice here.

BETTINA MARQUARDT | ADVANCED SPECIALIZATION STUDIES