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 (2nd 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
