Finnish friendship programme

During my semester in Finland I was given the opportunity to take part in the Finnish friendship programme. The main aim of the programme is to learn more about finnish culture and living and to get into contact with Finnish people.

The Finnish friendship programme is offered by the Turku university of applied sciences and therefore the first meeting took place at the ICT building. The university provided some pastries as well as tea or coffee. Even though my finnish friend was not able to come, I had a great evening talking to another Finn who is acutally from Åland. Åland is a little island that is situated between Sweden and Finland and the population on the island is mostly only able to speak swedish event though it is part of Finland. That's the reason why Linnea is just talking swedish and studies at the Swedish university called Åbo academy in Turku. Nevertheless, we could communicate in English and her German was also really good.

Having told about the first meeting I now want to introduce my finnish friend. She is called Essi and is also studying in Turku. Essi studies economies at the Turku university and is in her last year at the moment.

Before she came to Turku she was living in Salo which is a city near Turku. Sometimes Essi goes to Salo on weekends to see her family and some of her friends.

Essi and I first met in a lovely café down the riverside of Turku which is called 'Art café'. During a short coffee break we talked about where we are from, our hobbies, families and lots of other things.

I had to laugh when she was telling me that she actually has visited Austria before because she was doing an exchange there and I even realised that she was pretty good at talking German and could tell me some words in the lower Austrians dialect. We had a great time at the café and decided to meet another time after about those two hours of talking to each other. :)

Taking part in the Finnish friendship programme was a great decision. Unfortunately, Essi and I just met a couple of times as we had both been quite bussy with studying and travelling but I really like to spend time with Essi.

HC/LC - theory of Hofstede

I am attending the course "English professional skills" at the university in Finland where we learn a lot about the welfare system in Finland as well as improving our english skills.

One huge topic we came across was the HC/LC (high context and low context) which deals about the people in different countries, their characters and their behaviours. We discussed about the definition of HC and LC in class and evaluated if the Finnish are more HC or LC.

HC/LC definition

If a person is low context orientated he or she would rather prefer a dialague than a monologue. A high context orientated person on the other side would take the more indirect way of talking and listens carefully while not interrupting the others by asking questions. This person would also focus on the speaker by giving feedback afterwards. A low context person would be the complete opposite who thinks aloud, asks questions and calls things and persons by name.

When thinking of the Finnish population I found out that they would be rather high context orientated than low context orientated. In my point of view Switzerland or Austria would be more in the middle but also not that low context orientated as an American would be.

The reason why a Finnish person can be defined as a more high context orientated person is in my point of view their shyness. They rather listen to you than interruping and are also very wellcoming to help. There is also a trend to a more open-minded generations, e.x. the students at university, who got into contact with the exchange students whenever we had to do any projects with them. Therefore, I think the Finnish are also changing more to low context but are still not that talkative.

The curve of culture shock

In one of our modules called “Get Finternational” the time of reflection began. During this course our teacher was talking about culture shock which I personally found extremely interesting as our teacher explained that culture shock is a natural learning process in which we adapt to other cultures. She told us about the culture shock curve which describes the phases we can go through when being in a foreign country. We learnt that the curve usually begins with the “Honeymoon phase” when everything seems new and exciting and you are really looking forward to your time in this foreign country. But soon this phase is followed by the “rejection phase” when people get frustrated about the differences between the home country and the foreign country. The third phase is called “recession phase” where people start feeling lonely and depressed which is also known as homesickness. Once adaptations and strategies are found out to cope with all the differences, you move into the “recovery phase” when everything starts to get better again and you begin to like the new culture and in order to this don’t want to go home anymore. During this phase you normally have made new friends and new habits have got somehow part of your daily routine. In addition to the curve, we also had a look on the different areas you have to adapt when staying in a new culture of country such as physical, emotional, communication and social adaptations. I personally find the communication area the most difficult to adapt to as it is completely different from where I am from. Unless at home, people won’t greet you on the street or in a shop, they could probably just nod or say nothing. I have learnt that this must not be interpreted as being a term of being impolite but rather accepting it as a different behaviour.

Even though I had been away for several times and had to cope with homesickness when I spent 3 months in Ireland for a practical training, my feelings of culture shock haven’t felt that strongly this time.

culture shock curve: http://international.missouristate.edu/assets/studyaway/W-Curve_Re-Entry_Shock.jpg

Turku cathedral and the castle

My first impression of Turku was being rather small than a big city but on the second sight I soon realised that the city is even bigger than it seemed in the beginning. I really like the atmosphere in Turku and the Aura river that goes through the city. In Turku there are a few sights people can visit when coming here.

The cathedral

Next to the city centre there is the Turku cathedral. This immense buildung is the mother church of the Lutheran Church of Finland, and the country’s national shrine. (https://www.turunseurakunnat.fi/

portal/en/turku_cathedral/, 24.3.15) The church can be visited from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The church is worth a visit because the inside is huge and very beautiful. Our tutor teacher from university told us that there is even a lot of history behind and a lot of tombs in the subsurface of the cathedral.

Turku castle

I once also took the bus to the harbour to visit the Turku Castle. I was told that you can also get there when walking along the river towards the harbour of Turku.

“The history of Turku Castle stretches right back to the 1280’s. The Castle has played many roles, from defensive bastion, luxurious palace and the seat of government, to a prison, warehouse and a barracks. Today the Castle is a hugely significant historical monument and a must-see tourist destination” (http://www.visitturku.fi/en/turku-castle, 23.3.15). In the knights hall children can dress as a knight or a maiden. Moreover, the Fatabur Museum shop sells souvenirs, gifts or accessoires for the little knight or maiden.

Besides that, I found the frontage of the building the most impressive as it is made out of stones and is still in good preservation.

Turku - Where it is

The city I am studying is called Turku and therefore I want to tell some general facts about this city. Turku is situated on the west southern part of Finland and is known as the oldest city in Finland. Further north the next biggest city is Tampere. Helsinki, which is Finland’s capital city, is located more in the southeast of Finland and is about 2 hours away by train or bus.

Map of Finland

Turku once used to be the capital city of Finland as it was very close to Sweden. At this point I have to add that Finland and Sweden belonged together and this is the reason why there are still a lot of Swedish speaking persons living in Turku nowadays. At the moment Turku still has a Swedish speaking university called Abo academy and all pupils have to learn Swedish in school. I have already met a swedisch speaking Finn from Aland which is a little Island next to Turku and she told me that even though Finns learn Swedish in school she sometimes faces difficulties when trying to speak Swedish with Finns living in Turku.

As I have already told before, Turku has a lot of university and therefore lots of students are living in this city. Most of them moved to Turku from another village or town near Turku and are renting apartments at the Student village or have a room in any of the TYS (Turun Ylioppilaskyläsäätiö) apartments which are situated all over the city. TYS is an organisation which offers housing for students. I chose this housing opportunity as an exchange students because it is affordable and the apartments can be rent with furniture.

Because Turku was the oldest city, it quickly became the most important one and this retained the status for hundreds of years. After Finland became part of the Russian Empire in 1809 and the capital was moved to Helsinki. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turku, 22.3.15)

The name Turku has his origin in an Old East Slavic word, tǔrgǔ and means "market place".

Turku university of applied sciences

Being back to Finland after this whole week of travelling to the Baltic cities I soon went back to daily life in Finland and with it back to university where we had to prepare our presentations and the final reports for the projects.

I am studying at the Turku university of applied sciences in Turku. 

In Finnish the university is called Turun ammattikorkeakoulu.

There are different locations within Turku for example the ICT building (at Joukahaisenkatu), Lemminkäisenkatu campus or the Ruiskatu campus where I am studying. The Ruiskatu campus is located a little bit outside the city centre but you can easily get there by bus. Buses with the number 18 or 61 go there or take you back to the city centre. Bus 12 or 99 pick me up from Varissuo and take me then to university or back home. From both, Varissuo and the city centre it takes about 15-20 minutes to get there. In the buildings at Ruiskatu there are different degrees dealing with health and well-being. My degree is called social services. The social service degree includes services for elderly people, children and adults. After this studies students can become kindergarten teachers or work in the social service sector.

Ruiskatu campus (http://www.tuas.fi/en/about-us/faculties-and-campuses/ruiskatu/)

But not only social and health degrees are offered at the Turku university of applied sciences but also for example Business or technical degrees at the ICT building. For more information check also the website: http://www.tuas.fi/en/

ICT campus (http://www.tuas.fi/en/about-us/faculties-and-campuses/ict-building-joukahaisenkatu/)

The Baltic cities – Vilnius (Lithuania)

This city trip was the most action-packed trip as we had to walk 1 and a half hour to get to our hostel first. Walking through some narrow streets with old and damaged buildings we did not feel safe at all. That is why, we spontaneously decided to book another hostel in the city centre and spend our time there.

We had been disappointed as the hostel we would have taken before was recommended by tripadvisor.

Even though I had to take a completely icing shower in the second hostel as it took about half an hour to heat up the water, the room was nice and the location more close to the city centre.

The next day we visited the Trakai castle which looks more like a fairy tale castle for a princess. Inside the castle they showed some parts of the castle and how it was built.

The Trakai castle

The chocolate factory in Trakai is also worth a visit and taking some tea or coffee or even a hot chocolate with liquid chocolate. Moreover, they serve quite a lot of different pastries such as cakes.

After the visit in Trakai we did some sightseeing in Vilnius and went up the Gediminas tower where we had a wonderful view over the city.

the tower

view from the tower

In the evening we had dinner in a Lithuanian restaurant in the old town of the city where I had some traditional Raviolis with meat balls. Because of the fact that Vilnius was our last stop on our journey, we travelled back to Tallinn the next day and took the ferry to Helsinki the day after.

The trip to the Baltic was extremely beautiful and informative. I was able to get a lot of new experiences and impressions from those cities and would not have liked to miss them.