Finnish is really difficult to learn, but for Spanish people, most of the vowels are the same: a, e, i, o and u; then they have a different pronunciation for the 'y' and they have also 'ä' that we don´t have. I´m going to write some basic words that are useful to know: moi: hi: hola moi moi: bye: adiós kiitos: thank you: gracias anteksii: sorry: perdón ale: sale: rebaja ravintola: restaurant: restaurante poro: reindeer: reno olut: beer: cerveza vesi: water: agua hyvä: good: buen/bien With the three first words, you can live here without problems for a while if you speak English because most of the people know English and can speak it well. The most difficult issue about the Finnish language is the fact that you add a suffix to the words to make sentences, so words get bigger and bigger and they can have a lot of different suffixes.
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Finally, we can say that spring is coming to Finland, these last days the sun is shining (not as in Spain obviously), but at least it´s sunny! It´s still cold, but we have more than 0 degrees, so it is a good new. I still wear gloves and scarf but I left my boots at home and I can wear sneakers so I am really happy with that. I think that sun is very necessary for everyone and it makes you feel happier and more active with your daily life. So, I had some stuff from university to do but I wanted to enjoy the sun so I went to Naantali (it´s a very beautiful and peaceful place), to Kaarina, and I spent more time in the street with the warmer weather. I also went to Helsinki because I had to go to the embassy and it was snowing in the morning but then the sun was shining so it was a very nice day. I am looking forward to the warm weather and go outside without gloves or scarfs, but now I feel much better with the sun in our days. I hope it will continue like this more time. Let´s ...
I found these bullets quite interesting because these scenes are really embarrassing and worrying for them so you can try to understand better this culture if you know what kind of things scare them. There are a lot of bullets but, obviously, some of them are common in more cultures, but these that I post I realized about them in this time I have been living here. They represent very well how shy Finnish people are, in general of course, being afraid to see their neighbour in the hall, that someone sits next to them at the bus, touching someone hand by mistake... It´s funny for me because in Spain these scenes are pretty common but not embarrassing at all, it´s completely okay is the cashier touch your hand by mistake, actually (mostly old people) talk with the cashiers who they don´t know about anything.
One of the most typical activities here in Finland is going to the sauna. Most of the buildings have a sauna, even some houses have a private sauna. It´s very important for Finnish people and they go very often. I have tried several times and it´s really relaxing if you go after a long day. I haven´t done ice swimming yet and I´m very sad about it, but for some reasons, I couldn´t find the moment, but I know I have to do it soon! About rules, you have to go inside the sauna naked (unless it´s a mixed sauna) and a towel to sit on it, you should take a shower before and then go inside and be there the most time you can bear, when you feel very hot you can go out and take a cold shower and go inside again. If you are in a cottage or something like that you can go outside (to the snow) and then come back; also there is the ice swimming, so after the sauna, you go to the sea or lake (frozen most of the time) and then you come back to the sauna. Usually, they go with friends or family ...
Today I had an event for one of my courses: get Finternational. We went to the VocationalInstitutee of Turku to bake some traditional Finnish food and it was really interesting! We cooked three different things: rye loaf, karelian pasties, Finnish cinnamon rolls. We were in groups and cooked all of them. I started with Karelian pasties (and also I would say that they were my favourites) and it has a technique for doing the size but we tried several times and I can say that I know how to do it (it doesn´t mean that I do it well). Then we put them in the oven and after that, you have to brush them with butter and wait and it´s done! It was new for me the fact that we eat them with scrambled eggs on top, and it´s so much good with it. We also mash the dough of the bread (rye load), it was very difficult to get the good size; but this was the one I didn´t like so much, because I usually don’t eat this type of bread, it´s such different of the one from my country. After that, we made the F...
I think I haven´t talked about overalls yet. It´s one of the first things I learn at university, and I found it very funny and a creative idea. Here, university students have overalls (you can also buy one, it´s around 25€), the colour of the overall depends on the degree you are studying, they wear it at parties and events. The funny thing of this is that they have to "collect" patches for it, you can get patches in events, mostly in parties, in some university workshops, etc. Also, you can buy them at universities or some shops, even there is a kind of flea market on the internet where you can buy them! Personally, I don´t have the overalls because I don´t see me with it but I really like the people with it, I think that it´s a funny idea and you have a lot of memories on it. Anyway, I am collecting them because I think that is a good memory and I´m thinking of sewing them in some clothes when I go home.
I have to dedicate one post to the alcohol because it´s really expensive here! First of all, you can´t buy "hard" alcohol at the supermarket, as you can in Spain. Here, at the supermarket, you only can buy some beers or cider (maximum 5% of alcohol) but nothing else. So, if you want to buy wine, vodka, gin, or beers with more % of alcohol you have to go to a specific shop, called Alko, they are near supermarkets normally, and for example, in Turku city centre there are two. But, remember this: if you want to buy alcohol you have to show your ID card, but also the people who go with you have to show it (one time I went with a friend but it was me the one who was buying and I couldn´t because she didn´t have it). They say that they do it to have control of the alcohol, but they don´t count the consuming of each person or something, it´s just a different shop because it´s from the Government so it earns money with that. Furthermore, they have another restriction, if you are 18...
Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side, we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members . It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies, people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty. Finland, with a s...
I want to talk about one of the trips I made here, is not Finland, but it was during my Erasmus so I think it´s interesting to share the experience. I spent more or less three days in Tallinn with some friends in a hostel, and it was really good and funny! We went to Helsinki to take a ferry to Tallinn (that was the worst part because we had to wake up around 4 a.m) and we went one day to Riga (I will make another post for it). My trip didn´t start the best way, because when we arrived at the ferry I realized that I had lost one of the wheels of my luggage, so you can imagine!! Also, the hostel was a bit weird at some points but it was very cheap and the room for the 8 of us was really big. We went around the city and I have to say that it´s very beautiful! (and also very cold, although it was sunny so I was really happy to see the sun shining again). We ate in a pancake place a pancake (of course) which was delicious, but our gastronomy wasn´t really variety, cause we ate in an It...
Today I want to talk about sitzs. A sitz is a kind of party, typical in Finland, or in Turku (I´m not sure), it starts around 6 p.m and finishes around 10 p.m. What is it about? Well, you have some food, you have drinks (beer, cider, and three disgusting shots) and a notebook with some songs. When you get there you have to look for your name on the table because they organize people at the table, so you are going to meet new people, and this is really cool. So, you can talk to the people you are sat and follow the rules of the Toastmasters. So, in summary all together have to sing the songs they say, also you can choose a song and sing it standing up. During the songs, if a specific word is said you have to drink and "cheers" with the people around you. There are different rules and I´m not going to say all of them but for example, if you want to go to the toilet you have to ask permission to the people next to you. I believe that it´s really weird but so funny. There are som...
Yesterday I had class and we were discussing the bad behaviours and the "ugly" topics that we have in our country compare with the ones they have here, in Finland. It was funny because I said that in Spain you can talk about every topic you want, you are in public transport and you can listen to conversations about politics, religion, clothes, sexuality, weather, trips, etc. obviously depends on the person but you can talk mostly about everything; and people from other countries were really surprised by that, for example, in Finland is not polite to talk about money, it´s an annoying topic for them. And I think that in Spain we are more open-minded than here. It´s funny to find so many differences between countries, also they said in the class that it´s really unpolite if you speak loud on the bus, and in Spain, everyone is talking quite loud. One girl also told me that when she went to Tenerife, she was waiting for the bus and the people who were waiting also were really c...
I have to say that I expected much more of Finnish education. Here, I hardly ever have classes and I have to work on my own, which is good but at the same time bad, because I feel that I´m not learning a lot of things. I believe that it´s really helpful this kind of online courses when you are working at the same time, but if not you have a lot of time without lectures and it could be a bit boring; also you have to be responsible to work and do all the diary learnings, presentations and assignments and not waste the time. On the other hand, I have friends in other universities that are studying and learning, and they have classes almost every day, so I can´t generalize. Furthermore, at my university here in different degrees they have a lot of lectures and exams, so maybe it´s only my degree. At home, I study psychology, but here I study social services, and I find it interesting, nevertheless, when we make discussions with people from other countries there are a lot of points th...
I want to write about my curling experience. Yesterday evening I went to an ESN event which consisted of playing curling. I was wondering how it would be, and now I can say that it was funny. As the man who works there said, it´s easy to know how to play but it´s difficult to play it well! Curling is played in an ice "field", we went to the Turku Arena oy. The bad thing is that I was really cold because I forgot to wear more than one lyer and it was 5º, and I thought that we will be tired or warm because we were playing sport, but that is not the truth. I have to say that I wasn´t so bad, I learnt quickly how to play, although when we were playing in teams I was really bad because I trough it very strong and it went further the circles where you have to put it. I think it´s a good experience to practice once in life, but I think I will not repeat because two hours of it is maybe too much, however, I recommend it! But you have to know that today I have two bruises in my knee...
Last Thursday, with a Get Finternational event, we were visiting an elderly home, near Potsa, but the day was a real winter day, so maybe not the best day to walk with the old people outside. Anyway, we were to help old people to take a walk outside, because sometimes there are not enough people to carry them, so we enjoy their company. Physiotherapists of the centre had planned an activity outside, so we made it; we had to look for different places which were represented in pictures we had and then write the letters on the paper and guess the sentence or the word. There were five pictures so we walked for a few minutes with them and it was nice. The sad thing was that most of them didn´t know English, so it was a bit quiet sometimes. It was snowing and it was cold so I lent my gloves to the man I was with and it was really funny to see him with my small gloves. When we finish we discovered the sentence, the meaning was "you are lovely" or something like this, obviously in Fi...
I want to make a post about safety in this country because I feel that it´s a really safe place to live. I can talk about different examples that prove this theory. I have to say that Spain is a safe country, but nowadays the night is harder and harder for women when we have to go home, and that´s a pity. One of the first things that surprised me was that here there are a lot of coat racks at universities and other buildings, where people leave their coats for hours or the whole day and none take them, so everyone does it and it´s really useful, but I think that Spain some coats or scarfs will disappear. Another surprising thing is that in some monuments or touristic entries you buy the ticket but none take it, so none ask for it so you could go without paying anything (in Spain everyone will enter without pay), Finnish people really trust in others. Something that is amazing for me is the fact that cars stop when you are waiting, although you are not in the right place (crosswa...
Last Saturday I went to Tampere with ESN, the trip was visiting the Moomin museum in the morning and then free time to see Tampere and we came back Turku at night. The day wasn´t the better because it was snowing very hard, but around p.m it stopped and we could enjoy more the visit. I have to say that I don´t like the museum, it was a bit boring and quite small, but there was an activity really cool to do there, we made our drawing of Moomin (or whatever we want to draw), we paint the sheet with blue or black paint and then we draw over it with a pencil, toothpick, cotton swab, etc.. After that we had to wait while it dries, and we had to dry another special sheet to print on it. The last step was to print it in a machine and we had our drawings! I think it´s a nice memory. Then, we went to a student canteen (because it´s just 2.6 €) and we started walking around the city. It´s not a really beautiful city but it´s okay to visit. The point I don´t like about it is that it´s ...
I found a lot of differences between Spain and Finland, and I have to say that in some points I like the Finnish points, but not always. For example, there´s something that it´s very weird for me, here, children are really independent, they go to school alone, they take the bus or walk when they are really really young, and it´s also possible because of the safe of the country, but it´s not that common in Spain. And in this point, there´s something that, personally, I don´t understand, and it´s that here parents usually leave their babies at the street in their 'baby chair' when they are inside a bar, and in Spain, social services would take away your son for that reason. But I really like the peace that you feel here, there´s no much noise (also because it´s so small), cars hardly ever blow the horn and there is a lot of silence. Also, you feel really safe here. I haven´t seen violence in the two months that I have been here. One thing that surprised me is that people smell ...