The Onnibus:

I was really shocked that Finland had so many bus companies till a friend asked me where are you from? i was surprised of the question ! then he asked again is it a little country? I replied yes Belgium… Oh he said Belgium can go 10 time in Finland… normal they have more bus companies than in your home country. I smiled and say he was right, but it didn’t change the fact i was surprised.

Some other thing that shocked me is that people don’t do a small talk with the bus driver in Belgium we often do this …here most people just pay and go sit, i find this a bit sad. But i should remember it when taking the bus not to start a small talk because it’s not done here in Finland.

onnibus

The Onnibus is a cheap way to long traject i often use it to go to Helsinki and come back to Turku i like the fact that if you book it in advance you can travel for 2 euro! that really cheap 🙂 and student friendly. I also like the fact there is wifi in the long distance busses which we don’t have in belgium.

friendly regards

Olivia x

After one of the activities we went to sauna and a cold pool!! typical finnish.

Kurkki our guide gave me some good advice, thanks to that at the end i could stay a bit longer than i would have expected in the cold water en even just in the snow!!

It’s a good thing i trained my body for the cold water because i wanted to be able to go in the sea in norway the next day!

Sitting and playing in the snow after a refreshing dip feels so nice.

Throwing snow

Actually the snow and just standing out of the pool was still warmer then the pool i just swim in.

smiling in the cold water brrr

for the last time in the pool!! i must said that after that i was really tired but ina good way i slept wonderful that night.

Greetings from the snowy Lapland

Olivia x

We ( everyone of our cottage : Anna, Juan, Mara, Niels and My self Olivia )went to the reindeer farm.

The bus came to pick us up at the bus stop to go to the reindfarm! When we arrived we were split in two groups, the first one was going to sleight with the reindeer first.The second group will receive information about reindeers and drink so nice warmed up berry juice and try to catch the reindeer with a special lasso!

i was really concentrated i wanted to catch the reindeer :).

as you can see down here i catch the reindeer ahah (… at least his horn)

I catch the reindeer horn with only one try!

after i finished the berry juice it was our turn to sleight with the reindeer: photo will be added later when received from photographer 🙂

it was really fun although i slightly prefer the husky’s because the reindeer didn’t look really enthusiastic  i heard reindeer are usually lazy animals maybe that was the reason.

Greetings to you 🙂 from the cold Lapland

olivia x

Mara and I decided to do the snowmobile activity, this was a really endorfin full activity (really exciting). We were really well dressed i could even dare to say we were dressed to impress the cold weather.

dressed to impress

We Both found the activity nice but lucky we are experienced drivers ( we had some really bad drivers before us which did not followed the rules of the guide and didn’t use the learned gesture to inform the driver after them). Still the activity was nice we went to chase the northern light and we catch it!!

northern light

the tippie is called Kota in lapland we made a stop there and saw the northern light i was so happy and we drink some really good warmed up juice to warm up.

we did have could when we weren’t driving but the driving was really fun although it asked a lot of energy and concentration.

so we were happy to go back  to our cottage after we tried the reindeer hamburger (we made an appointment with the rest of the cottage to go eat together after the snowmobile activity was done).

reindeer hamburger

Greeting to the northern light and to you guys xx

olivia x

We went to the husky ride it was such a fulfilling and magical moment not only for me but for my friend Mara too

The husky ride was one of my dreams from when I was young and so this was an amazing moment! The dogs were excited, I was excited and so the ride could begin. At the first I was a little nervous because I didn’t knew what to expect, but when the dogs were started and where pulling us in the sledge, it was so much fun. I felt the adrenaline from the speed they made and from driving the sledge.

Also sitting in the sledge was excited. You had to trust your partner and the dogs. We almost bumped into a tree so that was super scary but exciting.

After it, we could meet the puppy’s. They were so cute and fluffy. I didn’t expect that they could have cold, but they were shaking. They need to learn social skills so that’s why we could hold them. I really like animals, so I was really happy when I could hold them.

Greetings too the husky’s!!! and you !!!

olivia x

In the morning we left from Retrodorm to Helsinki to catch our bus to Lapland for a week  trip with Timetravels.

After a lot of hours in then bus (which was really difficult for me but still excited) we stopped in Kemi to see the Kemi snow castle. This castle was completely made of ice, with beautiful ice sculptures in the interior.

snow castle

Afterwards we stopped in Rovaniemi to visit Santa Claus village ( see special opinion blog about santa claus village later on). This was a unique experience, especially as we crossed the arctic circle.

Santa Claus village -20 degree

After the snow castle and some more time in the bus we finally arrived at the cottage. It was a  small, cosy wooden cottage wich we were going to share with two people from Catalonia Paula and Juan.  Our friend Anna which is Catalan to was really pleased about this.

Greetings from the snowy and very cold.

Olivia x

I chose participate in this workshop because I did not have any clue what LinkedIn is. I learned that Linkedn is a social network for professionals! I found it a really interesting lesson and I liked the fact that we were able to make our own LinkedIn accounts. I had a lot of difficulties in making my own account, however I was able to do this with support. I took a picture in the workshop especially to put on my LinkedIn account. It is important to remember to always keep your LinkedIn account accurate and up-to-date as future employers may look at this and it could impact upon your chances of getting the job. In addition to this it is essential to only ‘link in’ with people that you know and want to be ‘linked’ with.

Greeting from the snowy and cold Finland,

Olivia x

Me , Marcelina and Anna

I went to the outdoors ice skating rink near the ICT-building.
I borrowed the ice skating of a friend especially for this event, because i left my own ice skating shoes in my home country.
It was a really nice experience we went with different friends to ice skate it was really funny because one of my friend was always clinging on me and asking me to learn how ice skate because she knew I’m a ice skating tutor in belgium. I learned her the basic we stayed on the ice skating rink for a good hour we went away because that day it was really cold!!

I should not be so surprised of the fact that the ice skating rink was free to use a finnish friend told me that nearly every Fin has his own ice skating shoes. I must admit that i’m still surprised about the fact it’s free use if you have your own ice skates or else you need to rent them for a little price. I heard that in most schools the have a place where you can ice skate that wonderful!!I’m secretly really jealous and admirative about that !
My finnish friend also told me the ice skate on frozen soccer or basketball field/ ground. That’s very clever in my opinion.

Greetings from the snowy Finland.

Olivia x

We were asked to tell what we think we saw on the picture.
I would like to tell the think is really important in the sentence above we can assume what we see really is what we think it’s is.
like the picture with the girl with a smile masker, it’s look like she is smiling but she could literally putting on a mask. we don’t know what is hidden beneath the mask.

the teacher asked us a question what does a smile mean to us? and that we should discuss this with the person sitting next to us.
for me a smile can mean everything depending on the situation, cultural influence,etc.

I told the the experience I had, had previously in the day.
I was smiling because I was really nervous and stressed out my mentor at the internship was confused and asked why i was smiling i explained here i was a bit stressed and nervous about the situation that had happened. I was really grateful she asked why I was smiling because it gave me the opportunity to say what the smile was at that moment.

conclusion: If you are not sure why someone is doing something or not doing something you should always ask! So that misunderstandings are avoid. I found it a really interesting lesson and really appreciated the link with there previous lessons about the iceberg and onion metaphor.

Greetings from the snowy Finland.

Olivia x