Time to leave

As time already passed by, it is soon time to say goodbye. This semester in Finland went by extremely fast and when looking back I can't believe that I have spent more than 4 months in Finland now. Once you take off, you first think of the time being extremely long but in the end you have to admit that you can't even explain how fast time went.

Going abroad is one of the best opportunities you can get in life and even though I had some difficulties finding the most suitable courses for my studies, I also learnt a lot for my own personality. Being on your own and having to fix things by yourself is one of the best experiences you can make when going abroad. There are always things you could make different the next time but those mistakes make you feel stronger next time. 

Once you have lived in another country, you get more and more into travelling and would like to spend some time somewhere else more often. 

I liked staying in Finland and it was extremely nice to come here during the spring semester because I was able to experience both, winter and spring in Turku. Those two times are completely different and therefore it was a great chance to be here during both seasons. Especially the landscape during the Spring period is overwhelming :)

At the food festival on Friday evening I was able to enjoy the sun outside and try some food outside with a Spanish, Finnish and French friend of mine.

foodfestival in Turku

Last but not least, I most of all enjoyed meeting so many different people. There are a lot of people from all over the world who I really started to like and get friends with. There are people from Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania, France, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Finland, Australia, Canada, Britain, ... I am glad that I have been able to meet some many nice and welcoming people. :)

One more picture of the beautiful landscape in Finland!

Vappu (1st of May)

On the 1st of May people start having their picnic in a parc called Vartiovuori which lies next to the Aura river. In the parc music bands are playing and people gather taking their food and drinks with them. 
While lying on the gras, they enjoy eating and drinking and celebrating Vappu's day.
Apart from the picnic Finns also sell different kind of stuff at the market place and the area then looks more like a fairground.

During Vappu people would also make some traditional food. The "Vappumunkit" which look like donuts as well as the "Tippaleipä" are sweets Finns eat during those days. The "Sima" is the typical Vappu drink and insists of lemon and raisins.

Having finished the picnic the people go back home and the city will be quite empty the next few days because people are fairly tired of celebrating for the whole week. 

I really enjoyed Vappu and I was quite suprised that those days are so special. Some students at university have told me before that Vappu is going to be an extremely big and momentous event. I now know what they meant when seeing it myself. I think I have never seen so many Finnish people at one place before.

Vappu (30th of April)

The week of the 30th of April and the 1st of May is seen as one of the most important times of the year. Not only celebrating labour's day on the 1st of May but also the beginning of summer including barbecues and sitting outside means a lot to Finnish people.
That is the reason why they start celebrating this day already at the beginning of the week. 

On the 30th of April people would then meet at their houses having brunch together and heading to the city centre afterwards. 
Following the finnish tradition, I also went to a Finnish student's place together with a friend of mine where we had a really nice barbecue and lots of sweet pastries such as: three different apple cakes, pancakes, salmiakki, donuts and a lot more. 

Brunch at Jutta's place

At around 5 pm we started walking towards the city centre because there was the ceremony going to take place at 6 pm. 
Usually Finnish people all meet up at Kauppatori and exactly at 6 pm they all put their graduation caps on while having some sparkling wine. 
It was incredible that there were old and young meeting at the city centre, all with their hats on.

Students organisations hold speeches and people are singing and standing all along the road at Kauppatori.
One road at Kauppatori is dedicated to all the Finns who are Finnish speaking and at the other one for the Swedish speaking population in Turku.

Lots of Finnish people with their hats at Kauppatori

After this, people leave Kauppatori to walk towards the river where they sit down talk and drink. Some also go to clubs or continue the rest of the day celebrating at their houses.

St.Petersburg

Because of the fact that St.Petersburg is utterly close to Finland and you can get a Visa-free trip when staying there for no more than 72 hours, I decided to go to St.Petersburg with a friend of mine. 

We started our trip on Friday afternoon when leaving to Helsinki by bus and taking the ferry to St.Petersburg. At first, I was a bit sceptical because it was only us two travelling there on our own and I have been told by some friends that St.Petersburg is an insecure city for girls to travel to but I luckily did not have any bad experiences.

When we arrived in St.Petersburg on Saturday morning we started our city sightseeing tour by foot. This was an easy way to see a lot of sights and we were able to stop at the points we wanted to have a closer look. During this tour we passed for example the saviour church of the spilled blood, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Hermitage, etc. 

The saviour church of the spilled blood

All over the city, you can find some lovely cafés and bakeries and get some coffee and pastries. 
The next day we went to the Hermitage museum which is free of charge for students. The building is immense and we did not manage to have a closer look at everything even though we spent approximately 2 hours in the museum.

In the evenings we went to have some dinner. The first evening we went to an Italian pasta restaurant and the second evening we tried some traditional Russian food in a Russian restaurant. I took a "Borsch" soup as a starter and some Russian ravioli with vegetables for the main course.
Borsch is a soup with lots of vegetables and tomato sauce. The Russian usually eat the soup with bread and sour cream. I tasted delicious. 

Borsch-Suppe