Ir al contenido principal

Cultural differences

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 close to her and she didn´t feel comfortable with it, because here people keep the distance.
Here, in Erasmus, you really discover all the differences we have between nationalities and the strength of the culture. It´s really good to open your eyes and realize that not everyone is like you, not everyone likes the things you like, not everyone has your customs or understand your jokes. It´s an opportunity which gives you a lot of culture and knowledge about life and countries and makes you very rich.

Comentarios

Entradas populares de este blog

Safety

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...

University

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...

Riga

When I posted about Tallinn I didn´t say anything about Riga, so as it was part of the trip I would like to talk about it for a bit. We only spent one day there so maybe it´s better to have a couple of days to visit it better, but it wasn´t my favourite place to visit. I like it but it wasn´t special for me, although I have to say that it was very cold and we were a lot of hours in the street and also a woman tried to rob me, so maybe I can not be totally objective with my opinion. The free tour we made was interesting because it was a bit different, we went to places which are not popular and touristic, and I really like doing this kind of things when I travel. Riga is not a really big city but if you want to visit different places and not just the touristic area I think you will need more than one day. There are a lot of buildings which are worthy to see, at least from outside, different churches and other kind of buildings. For me, people were really different from Finland and a...