Maandelijks archief: januari 2018

Turku Cathedral

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

Today I visited the Turku cathedral, we had the chance to see the choir rehearsal!!

choir rehearsal

So we didn’t get to really visit the cathedral of Turku, this will be for another time when the choir isn’t practicing.

Turku cathedral

But I must say I was strike by the fact that the priest was a woman, I never saw a woman as a priest in Belgium.

So I did my research and this is what I found :

Most Finns belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church while a fraction of them belong to the Orthodox Church. The Evangelical-Lutheran Church accepts the ordination of women as priests.

That’s it for today post, see you for the next blog.

Olivia x

A Swedish minority in Finland

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

When I arrived in Turku I was wondering why the street name had two different names.

So I asked my student tutor why they did that! She smiled at me and said” the street don’t have different names it’s just that the first one is written in Finnish and the second one is written in Swedish”.

She then explained me that there is a Swedish minority in Finland.

Semla a swedish pâtisserie

So it’s important to remember that there’s a Swedish minority in Finland so it’s not that surprising to hear the Swedish language  or to see food from Sweden.

See you for the next blog

Olivia x

Salt vs pebble.

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

Here in Finland they use pebbles not salt for the ice or snow.

pebbles not salt to make the street safer

In Belgium we use salt if there’s snow to make the streets safer.

But I looked up why they use pebble in Finland and it was pretty interesting.

Pebbles don’t make the snow or ice melt but create more adhesion for shoes and vehicle’s.

Pebble are efficient by  every temperature and are not dangerous for the ground and the vegetation.

See you next time for more anecdotes and facts.

Olivia x

first week in Turku

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

Moika- hello !!

My first week in Turku was quite interesting, I’m going to tell you something that surprised me the most this week. I’m used to smiling at people when I walk past them or saying “hello” even if i don’t know them. But when I reflect on this I don’t think they do this here in Finland. When I smiled or said “hello” to someone  I received weird looks or just was being ignored, so I will try to do this less or just be more understanding of their reaction. Its wonderful how cultural differences show in sometimes really little things.

That’s it for today I think I’m getting  to know Finland a little better everyday.

greetings from the snowy finland

view from the Retrodorm

olivia

First impressions – Eerste indruk

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

Moika! – hello- hey,

We zijn naar de campus geweest om nog enkele formaliteiten in orde te krijgen. Daar hebben we vernomen waar onze stageplaatsen zijn. Mara staat voor  4 weken in salo in het universitair ziekhuis daarna loopt ze nog twee weken in Kunnonkoti Ruiskatu een advies centrum en tot slot nog twee weken in aura bij een zelfstandige therapeut. Niels en Olivia lopen stage in Masku een neurlogischrevalidatiecentrum voor 8 weken.

We zijn deze week het centrum van Turku gaan bezoeken in de sneeuw. De sneeuw gaf een magische beeld.

Centrum van Turku

Ook hebben we goed genoten van ons eten’tje in het Serius cafe (naast de bibliotheek), tot slot hebben we het Turku art museum bezocht.  Het was een klein museum, maar met mooi kunst.

Enkele indrukken:

  • We verstaan de taal momenteel niet, hopelijk komt er hier snel verandering in met onze finse cursus;
  • We hebben gemerkt dat finnen meer hun haar kleuren in felle kleuren;
  • Finnen kleden zich zeer functioneel. Gezegde van hier “er is geen slecht weer alleen slechte kledij”. Mara en Olivia hebben tot nu toe maar twee personen gezien met hakken waaronder een nederlands vriendin

Tot onze volgende blog post

Groetjes uit het witte Finland.

 

Hello!!!

We went to the campus to finalize  the remaining formalities. There we heard where we will run our internship. Mara will do her internship in the three places, Niels and Olivia will run their internship in a revalidation centrum.

We visited Turku this week, the snow  gave a magical feeling.

Turku in the snow

We enjoyed a good meal in the Serius Cafe ( next to the library).  We ended our tour with a visit of Turku art museum.

Niels and Mara before the museum

the museum is little but has a lot of beautiful art.

first impressions:

  •  At the moment we don’t understand nothing of the Finnish language, we hope that this problem will be  ( a litlle bit )solved by the Finnish cours;
  • We saw a lot of Finnish people with flashy  hair colours;
  • Finnish people wear functionally clothes. a saying from here ” there is no bad weather only bad clothes”. Mara and Olivia only saw two people with high heels which one of was a dutch friend.

See you for the next post

Greeting from snowy Finland.

 

Arrival at the Retrodorm

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

There I was ready at 9 o’clock in the morning before the enormous board showing the flight’s. It was finally 13th of January, the moment I was looking out for the beginning of  this amazing experience! It was time to leave for Finland. I must admit that I was really nervous , like we say it Belgium ” it’s a jump in the darkness”.  I had a lot of question which I couldn’t answer :  is there a big cultural difference between Finnish and Belgians?  Did I take enough warm clothes with me? Is the food going to be salty or more sweet? etc.

It was time to board. I said goodbye to my family and started the boarding with my fellow exchange students (Mara and Niels).

The fact that I wasn’t alone  to start this fantastic adventure comforted  me. The nervous feeling was slowly fading away and a feeling of excitement and curiosity   was  slowly growing within myself.

The travelling to Turku went really smoothly. I must say when I was on the second flight the view was beautiful it looked like the sky was on fire so many colours  it was truly gorgeous.  The three of us have  student tutors which came to pick us up  at the airport and brought us safely to our accommodation in the Retrodorm.

 

This is it for today I arrived well in Finland and it’s indeed colder than in Belgium. I will tell you more about experiences as soon as possible.

olivia xx

Saapuminen – Arrival – Aankomst

Uitgelicht

Geplaatst op door
Beantwoorden

Moika – Hello – Hallo 😉

-For English see below –

We zijn goed aangekomen op ’the hill (mäki) of exchange’, nadat onze student tutors ons tot hier gebracht hebben met de auto. De student tutors zijn vriendelijk en behulpzaam.

We verblijven in een residentie samen met Erasmus+ studenten van over heel de wereld. Zo zijn: de Nederlanders, Zuid-Koreanen, Duitsers, Fransen, Tsjechen, Britten, etc. en natuurlijk de Belgen (die talrijk aanwezig zijn) vertegenwoordigd.

Op de eerste dag zijn we met Suvi (de student tutor van Olivia) de stad gaan verkennen, de sportaccommodatie bekijken, eens gaan kijken naar onze campus, en boodschappen gaan doen.

Op weg naar Retrodorm

We arrived well on ’the hill of exchange’ with the help of our student tutors. The student tutors are really friendly and helpfull.

We are staying in a residence for exchange students. There are students from all over the world (the Dutch, the South-Koreans, the Germans, the French, etc. and of cours the Belgians).

On the first day we went to explore the city, campus, sportaccommodation, we did also some grocery shopping. And this with the help of Suvi (The student tutor of Olivia).

Groetjes, Greets, tervehdys,

Mara, Olivia, Niels