That is a question I hear a lot in the last few days. Thanks, I'm doing fine. Even when I have hell lot of work to do and Finland still is in my mind.
How is it going?
That what I ask you now. How are you doing? Tell me.
Some also asked me if the blog ends now, after my study abroad. I have this blog since 1,5 year now. My study abroad was just a part of it and the blog will therefore not end !!! The frequent of posting entries will be a bit bigger, so I recommend you using RSS-Feed. And yes, the blog continues in English.
Would be nice if some of my friends out there continue reading and sharing there thoughts with me.
So what I'm doing right now. As I already mentioned, I have a lot of work to do. First of all I have to finish my work for the project, which I have to finish in one week. I also have an exam at the end of this month.
But work for the university is not all. I have to visit a lot of friends since my return, ok maybe that is not work,... but it is time. (well spent)
I also have to support a lot of friends and relatives with their PCs and Internet. That is work!! Believe me!! Questions like "How do I make uppercase letters" are common. And last but not least, yesterday I had to renew my parents aquarium, because the old one was leaking.....
I hope you all doing fine, let me know!
Sonntag, Jänner 20, 2008
Sonntag, Jänner 13, 2008
Conclusion about my study abroad
It’s time to write my conclusion about my study abroad in Lappeenranta and Joensuu (EILC). It is quite difficult, because I’m still thinking a lot about this time and I’m not really finished with it. However, I will give you a short conclusion.
I will start from the beginning.
First of all, if you have the possibility to go by car, you should do it. If you don’t like too much driving, you can choose car train and ferry as we did.
Secondly, if you have the opportunity to attend the EILC (Erasmus Intensive Language Course), you should definitely do it !! The time during EILC was one of the best during the whole study abroad program. Why? Not difficult, first of all it was in the summer, so you can enjoy the warm weather and the lake, sitting on the beach, parties at the beach and so on. You can meet a lot of nice people before starting the real Erasmus semester. Joensuu is a nice city and in my opinion a good place to study. Don’t worry about learning the Finnish language, everybody is able to pass.
Let’s move on to Lappeenranta. Lappeenranta is called the summer town. There is a reason for that, in autumn and winter there is not really much activity there. With activity I mean public events. September is the last month where some events take place. During the autumn and winter month it is just another Finnish town, but I think there are not much towns in the east, southern and middle Finland area where this is different. Only towns with special skiing areas can offer more.
Nevertheless, Lappeenranta is in my opinion a nice town. It would be no problem to survive there longer than one semester.
Ok, maybe I should say something about Finland itself. Finland is a very
nice country. If you have no problem with short winter days and long summer days, then you can go there. The country side is very nice, the nature is beautiful, even when they don’t really have mountains there. You can do every kind of sports activity during the whole year. Nearly everybody speaks perfect English, so surviving is not a big problem, and if you stay more then one semester you should learn Finnish. I think if you really want to learn it, it is possible. I will not mention all the good and bad things and the little things that make Finland the country it is, because it would be a never-ending blog entry.
Finland is a good country for living and in many ways quite similar to Austria. Some things are better, some things are worse. If you want to know details, you can ask me personally, because writing everything down is just too much at the moment. Maybe I will make a separate blog entry with some examples.
Must do activities are: Lapland (National Park), St. Petersburg, National Parks in common, Helsinki, Savonlinna, Great Lake Saimaa (boat, swimming, grill, ...), maybe Rovaniemi (Santa Claus, Martiini), Tallinn by ferry, if you have time and money maybe Stockholm by ferry. (and so on)
In some ways living in Finland can be very expensive. But I guess it is also possible to find cheaper places. For example in Helsinki a 74m² apartment costs about 900€. As far as I know, Fins don’t really earn more money than we do in Austria. For my room in a shared apartment I paid in Joensuu 160€ (3 persons apartment) and in Lappeenranta 290€ (2 persons apartment). The one in Joensuu was quite fucked, but the one in Lappeenranta was brand new renovated and it was the biggest room. Smaller rooms are available from 230€. A meal in a restaurant can start at 16€ all included, but it is also possible to eat for 5€.
Shopping is not really different to Austria. Some stuff is cheaper, some stuff is more expensive. I never checked the prices one on one, but I didn’t really realize a big difference. Of course alcohol is a lot more expensive, but that is Finland. For 0,5l can of beer, you pay in the best case 0,99 cent. For the cheapest 0,33 l beer can you pay 0,66 cent. The bottle of wine is available from 5€. Austrian Stroh Rum 0,5l costs 15€. One big advantage by going by car, is of course that you can bring a lot of stuff with you ;)
Now to the most important part of Erasmus or study abroad, the people. First of all, whatever you think you know about different countries, the chance to change this opinion is very high. I would say I changed my mind mostly about Poland and France. Austrians experience with polish people is mostly not a good one and therefore there are a lot of stereotypes. The people I met in Joensuu and Lappeenranta truly proofed this stereotypes wrong and I’m really glad about that. Also my meaning and another stereotype about French people was changed. Yes, they do speak English ;)
There will always be people who want to stay in groups of there own, I mean with people from the same language. I think this is a really big mistake and I’m glad that I found a lot of people who tried to make friends from other countries. Every country had this kind of groups, I will order them from beginning with the worst: China, Spain, Germany and France. Those were the biggest parts of the people, that’s why it was easy to recognize. I met some Chinese people, they are nice and polite, but when it comes to party or do some activities they always stick with Chinese.
Of course not all people of the named countries only stick in there language groups, but a big part of them did. Ok, maybe if there would have been 20 Austrians, it would be more difficult for me to stay in foreign language groups.
I give you some examples of Countries I met: China, Japan, Nepal, India, Chile, Nigeria, Canada, England, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland. I think a very nice collection (I hope I didn’t forget any).
I hope I can stay in contact with a lot of people. I know it will be difficult, but nowadays with Skype, MSN, ICQ and E-Mail it should be not that big problem. Just let’s talk some times and maybe meet again in the near future.
Ok, I forgot to mention one group of people, the Fins. The easiest way to know Finnish people is of course your tutor and people of the same lecture. Any other way to get to know Fins is a bit more difficult. I have to say, that my focus was more on the Exchange students, because it is hard enough to get to know a lot of them in just one semester. Would I have stayed more than one semester, I would have focused more on knowing Fins. Because first of all it needs time to get in contact with them and it is mostly your turn to do it. Fins are great people and if the know you and you earned there trust, you find the true Fins then. Because Fins are not that silent as everybody thinks, yes maybe in the beginning. Unfortunately I don’t know much of them, but those I know I enjoy there company.
I guess this was enough to read for this time, maybe I will drop another thought on my study abroad later.
Thanks to all the people who made my study abroad probably one of the best times in my life. I already miss you and I hope I will see some of you soon. Thanks also to Finland and the Fins, kiitos paljon!
I will start from the beginning.
First of all, if you have the possibility to go by car, you should do it. If you don’t like too much driving, you can choose car train and ferry as we did.
Secondly, if you have the opportunity to attend the EILC (Erasmus Intensive Language Course), you should definitely do it !! The time during EILC was one of the best during the whole study abroad program. Why? Not difficult, first of all it was in the summer, so you can enjoy the warm weather and the lake, sitting on the beach, parties at the beach and so on. You can meet a lot of nice people before starting the real Erasmus semester. Joensuu is a nice city and in my opinion a good place to study. Don’t worry about learning the Finnish language, everybody is able to pass.
Let’s move on to Lappeenranta. Lappeenranta is called the summer town. There is a reason for that, in autumn and winter there is not really much activity there. With activity I mean public events. September is the last month where some events take place. During the autumn and winter month it is just another Finnish town, but I think there are not much towns in the east, southern and middle Finland area where this is different. Only towns with special skiing areas can offer more.
Nevertheless, Lappeenranta is in my opinion a nice town. It would be no problem to survive there longer than one semester.
Ok, maybe I should say something about Finland itself. Finland is a very
nice country. If you have no problem with short winter days and long summer days, then you can go there. The country side is very nice, the nature is beautiful, even when they don’t really have mountains there. You can do every kind of sports activity during the whole year. Nearly everybody speaks perfect English, so surviving is not a big problem, and if you stay more then one semester you should learn Finnish. I think if you really want to learn it, it is possible. I will not mention all the good and bad things and the little things that make Finland the country it is, because it would be a never-ending blog entry.
Finland is a good country for living and in many ways quite similar to Austria. Some things are better, some things are worse. If you want to know details, you can ask me personally, because writing everything down is just too much at the moment. Maybe I will make a separate blog entry with some examples.
Must do activities are: Lapland (National Park), St. Petersburg, National Parks in common, Helsinki, Savonlinna, Great Lake Saimaa (boat, swimming, grill, ...), maybe Rovaniemi (Santa Claus, Martiini), Tallinn by ferry, if you have time and money maybe Stockholm by ferry. (and so on)
In some ways living in Finland can be very expensive. But I guess it is also possible to find cheaper places. For example in Helsinki a 74m² apartment costs about 900€. As far as I know, Fins don’t really earn more money than we do in Austria. For my room in a shared apartment I paid in Joensuu 160€ (3 persons apartment) and in Lappeenranta 290€ (2 persons apartment). The one in Joensuu was quite fucked, but the one in Lappeenranta was brand new renovated and it was the biggest room. Smaller rooms are available from 230€. A meal in a restaurant can start at 16€ all included, but it is also possible to eat for 5€.
Shopping is not really different to Austria. Some stuff is cheaper, some stuff is more expensive. I never checked the prices one on one, but I didn’t really realize a big difference. Of course alcohol is a lot more expensive, but that is Finland. For 0,5l can of beer, you pay in the best case 0,99 cent. For the cheapest 0,33 l beer can you pay 0,66 cent. The bottle of wine is available from 5€. Austrian Stroh Rum 0,5l costs 15€. One big advantage by going by car, is of course that you can bring a lot of stuff with you ;)
Now to the most important part of Erasmus or study abroad, the people. First of all, whatever you think you know about different countries, the chance to change this opinion is very high. I would say I changed my mind mostly about Poland and France. Austrians experience with polish people is mostly not a good one and therefore there are a lot of stereotypes. The people I met in Joensuu and Lappeenranta truly proofed this stereotypes wrong and I’m really glad about that. Also my meaning and another stereotype about French people was changed. Yes, they do speak English ;)
There will always be people who want to stay in groups of there own, I mean with people from the same language. I think this is a really big mistake and I’m glad that I found a lot of people who tried to make friends from other countries. Every country had this kind of groups, I will order them from beginning with the worst: China, Spain, Germany and France. Those were the biggest parts of the people, that’s why it was easy to recognize. I met some Chinese people, they are nice and polite, but when it comes to party or do some activities they always stick with Chinese.
Of course not all people of the named countries only stick in there language groups, but a big part of them did. Ok, maybe if there would have been 20 Austrians, it would be more difficult for me to stay in foreign language groups.
I give you some examples of Countries I met: China, Japan, Nepal, India, Chile, Nigeria, Canada, England, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland. I think a very nice collection (I hope I didn’t forget any).
I hope I can stay in contact with a lot of people. I know it will be difficult, but nowadays with Skype, MSN, ICQ and E-Mail it should be not that big problem. Just let’s talk some times and maybe meet again in the near future.
Ok, I forgot to mention one group of people, the Fins. The easiest way to know Finnish people is of course your tutor and people of the same lecture. Any other way to get to know Fins is a bit more difficult. I have to say, that my focus was more on the Exchange students, because it is hard enough to get to know a lot of them in just one semester. Would I have stayed more than one semester, I would have focused more on knowing Fins. Because first of all it needs time to get in contact with them and it is mostly your turn to do it. Fins are great people and if the know you and you earned there trust, you find the true Fins then. Because Fins are not that silent as everybody thinks, yes maybe in the beginning. Unfortunately I don’t know much of them, but those I know I enjoy there company.
I guess this was enough to read for this time, maybe I will drop another thought on my study abroad later.
Thanks to all the people who made my study abroad probably one of the best times in my life. I already miss you and I hope I will see some of you soon. Thanks also to Finland and the Fins, kiitos paljon!
Montag, Jänner 07, 2008
New Year's eve in Helsinki and the way back
Hei my friends, it took me a bit longer than expected, but now I try to write the missing blog entries. For the summary about my study abroad in Finland you have to wait one more entry.
Ok, first I will tell you something about the New Years Eve in Helsinki. My friends (Maxx, Roland) and I, Roman and his friends Thomas and Martin, we went on 31st to Helsinki to celebrate New Years Eve.
After checking in at the Hotel (Arthur) near the center, we relaxed first to have enough power for the rest of the night. After lunch we went at 2030 to the senators square to check the place because the main event was there. At this time there were not even one person there, so we went to the center to go to a pub and drink some. We stayed there for nearly 3 hours and played also some card game.
Afterwards we went back to the place, and we were not alone, thousands of Fins joined us and when we arrived at the square some thousands of people were there. I would guess that there were more then 10000 people.
There was some live music and show and at midnight after the countdown the firework show started. It was very nice in my opinion, the only strange thing was, that there was not even one stall where you can buy alcoholic drinks. Every Fin knew that and brought own drinks, we didn't ;(
We made a lot of nice photos and a lot of even nicer videos, but I haven't got them yet. I will publish them when I have them.
After the show we went back to a beer bar where we celebrate again new years eve at 100, the new years eve from Austria ;)
The night ended at the entrance of a nightclub, where the entry fee would have been 7€ even when it was only possible to buy drinks for half an hour more, lol.
UPDATE: Late, but I didn't forget, the videos from New Year in Helsinki (sorry no time and no motivation to mix it with music):
The countdown and firework:
After the countdown second part of the firework:
The days after we spent with a lot of shopping, I spent hell lot of money on souvenirs.
At the 2nd of January we went back. First with the ferry from Helsinki to Travemünde (Germany), which took 27hours and was a "ride on the wild side", because the sea was quite rough. We arrived on 3rd of January at 20 o'clock and had to stay there until the next day, because the car trains leave at 1930 from Hamburg Altona. We stayed at a private room and went to Hamburg on the next day to do some final shopping. At 1930 we left with the car train and arrived on 5.1 at 900 o'clock in Vienna. After breakfast in the Pertl's residence (thanks a lot) I drove home. I arrived, ... maybe more with the body than with the mind (at the moment).
Ok, first I will tell you something about the New Years Eve in Helsinki. My friends (Maxx, Roland) and I, Roman and his friends Thomas and Martin, we went on 31st to Helsinki to celebrate New Years Eve.
After checking in at the Hotel (Arthur) near the center, we relaxed first to have enough power for the rest of the night. After lunch we went at 2030 to the senators square to check the place because the main event was there. At this time there were not even one person there, so we went to the center to go to a pub and drink some. We stayed there for nearly 3 hours and played also some card game.
Afterwards we went back to the place, and we were not alone, thousands of Fins joined us and when we arrived at the square some thousands of people were there. I would guess that there were more then 10000 people.
There was some live music and show and at midnight after the countdown the firework show started. It was very nice in my opinion, the only strange thing was, that there was not even one stall where you can buy alcoholic drinks. Every Fin knew that and brought own drinks, we didn't ;(
We made a lot of nice photos and a lot of even nicer videos, but I haven't got them yet. I will publish them when I have them.
After the show we went back to a beer bar where we celebrate again new years eve at 100, the new years eve from Austria ;)
The night ended at the entrance of a nightclub, where the entry fee would have been 7€ even when it was only possible to buy drinks for half an hour more, lol.
UPDATE: Late, but I didn't forget, the videos from New Year in Helsinki (sorry no time and no motivation to mix it with music):
The countdown and firework:
After the countdown second part of the firework:
The days after we spent with a lot of shopping, I spent hell lot of money on souvenirs.
At the 2nd of January we went back. First with the ferry from Helsinki to Travemünde (Germany), which took 27hours and was a "ride on the wild side", because the sea was quite rough. We arrived on 3rd of January at 20 o'clock and had to stay there until the next day, because the car trains leave at 1930 from Hamburg Altona. We stayed at a private room and went to Hamburg on the next day to do some final shopping. At 1930 we left with the car train and arrived on 5.1 at 900 o'clock in Vienna. After breakfast in the Pertl's residence (thanks a lot) I drove home. I arrived, ... maybe more with the body than with the mind (at the moment).
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