I am an exchange student from Colombia. When I first came to Helsinki, Finland things were not easy at all for me! Actually I think that every single bad thing that could happen to some students all happened to me. Just to tell a few, I did not even have a home for my first day in Finland. At the last moment I contacted a friend of one of my professors in Colombia and he offered me his home for a few days (he is more like an angel to me!), then when HOAS (organization for student housing accommodation) found an apartment, guess what? It was not even in Helsinki! It was in the last train station in Vantaa, actually not in a really nice neighborhood, complete empty! Not even a electricity! Can you imagine that? Later when I started my studies, surprisingly, I had not being registered, my name had not appeared in any list of the faculty and I had already paid the fees for the student union. Anyway at the end it was just a misunderstanding. The second problem was my student card, the office responsible had lost my picture for the ID card, so I had to wait 2 weeks more than necessary, also they had some wrong information about my studies, so once again I had to wait bit more… but in the end I got the card only after waiting for almost two months, an process that would normally had taken two weeks to complete However, things are getting better, I am a Colombian survival in Finland!
Three months ago, I came to Finland for the first time in my life. I was going to take a finish course in Vaasa. I arrived Vaasa 2 a.m. and my accommodation would open 6AM so, I decided to wait in the airport for 4 hours. At 3AM, I sat reading a magazine in one of the armchairs; a man dressed in orange clothes came towards me and started saying stuff to me in a language that I had never head in all my life. I probably should tell you that at the time my English was terrible, and couldn't recognise finish either when spoken. The man tried telling me I couldn't be in the airport in at the moment because the airport had to close. When I understood his message finally, I got scared because there were no buses, taxis, hotels or anything like that around the Airport. All I could face was a dark forest outside the Airport. It was really dark.
Finally, the man picked my suitcases and placed put them in his big car. I went with him, but had no idea where I was going. We drove off and suddenly he stopped the car and I found myself in the fireman office! This estrange man was a fireman! I was spent my first night in the Fire Department office, my first night in Finland!
The next morning, the same guy of the night before woke me up, and led me to the airport. It was my first night in Finland; I think I will never forget this man in my life. He was really nice to me. Now, my English is better and my finish too. Kiitos.
What should I say about my time in Finland? This simple question has a difficult answer, due mainly to all the great experiences and adventures I have had here since my arrival in August.
To illustrate the amazing life that I am having in Finland I would like to tell one real story which happened to me in Jyväskylä in August. I am calling this a story because to me it was a fairy tale.
Jyväskylä: it was 27th August, in my opinion the last Saturday of the Finnish summer. I was a part in an EILC, (Erasmus Intensive Language Course), and I was living one of the greatest experiences in my life. Imagine, thirty students from different nationalities of the European Union, living in a different city in a different country and sharing lots of time everyday. Parties, dinners, meetings, classes, trips, in the end it was like holidays for most of us and for me was special because it was my first's holidays in five years ago.
Everyday new experiences, new people, new places and activities, but I should talk about an unforgettable event which occurred this Saturday. We had a nice trip in the evening, a cruise on lakes Jyväskylä and Pdijdnne. It started at 6 PM in the city harbour and because the weather was nice I wore a t-shirt and a cool summer trousers.
I forgot that in sailing you can feel the wind even more when outside. We were taking pictures of Boats, Small Harbours, Summer Cottages, Wooden Houses, typical central Finland landscapes and so on. While it was still sunny everything was all right. We talked about different topics, enjoying the lakes and views.
At about 7 PM I began to feel the cold. The wind mixed with the humidity makes you feel very cold. Some girls we talking with the captain, a handsome boy called Pekka, taking pictures wearing his cap and driving the boat. I came into the cabin and I started talking with Pekka.
We talked about boats and sail trips. In my home country some members of my family have boats like that, smaller but for the same purpose. I mentioned that everyday when we sailed on the sea we used to jump from the boat's roof to the water. Suddenly Pekka replied me that it was also possible there. I did not expect that, and at first I supposed he was kidding me, but he continued saying that he could stop the boat for five minutes and some of them could jump.
I was really excited about the possibility and I begun to tell everybody, trying to find someone who would like to join me. Finally we formed a group of four Erasmus students, a Belgian, one Czech, an Italian and Spanish. We were worried about how to dry ourselves after swimming. Then we found out that there was a sauna in the boat, the captain also offered us some towels and said that after swimming, we could go to the sauna.
All was set, the boat stopped and we jumped and swam three times. So incredible! Five meters of altitude, four boys jumping into a deep lake just wearing our underwear. Then we went to the sauna, heated by wood, and the captain gave us some beers. When the cruise ended I felt like the king of the world, full of energy. We drank some shoots of Finnish vodka with the crew, just to say goodbye, and I walked with a nice girl until midnight seeing the stars from a hill. I am never going to forget this day, and it was in Finland.
This is a very sad and pathetic story, but it was very exhilarating at the same time. It was the 29th day of October and I planned to spend my lonely night at the cinema, watching a dark movie called "Corpse Bride", by Tim Burton. I say "lonely night" because the movie was at 1:15 am in the morning and so, none of my friends wanted to go! My plan was to watch the movie, go to Alexandria, chat for a while and catch the 4:45 am bus home. It was a perfect plan, but what I didn't know was that the dark forces of the universe were going to plot against me!
So, I went to watch the movie, excellent! Loved it! Then I went to Alexandria. OK, so everything was going as planned. I remembered arriving at Alexandria at 3 and suddenly, after chatting for a long while, I realised that the computer's clock was giving 3 am! This was really odd and I checked my mobile and quite correctly, my mobile said 4 am. And this is where everything started to go wrong! When my mobile gave 4:30 am I packed my things to go home as planned and decided not to give any importance to the computer's crazy time. So off I went, I get to the bus just in time, I put my travel card on the machine and for some reason, and the machine doesn't read it! Then the driver told me I had to pay and I refused so I got off the bus and went to check the bus schedules and for some reason, it said 3:45 am! "Why???" I asked myself! "Why is the time of the Helsinki transportation system one hour before my time?" I thought that Helsinki was crazy! What also drove me nuts was that the big clock at the Railway Station gave the same time as my mobile. So, why on earth were there two times in the same city!
I had to do something, so I decided to wait for an hour and get the bus at 4:45 (which for me already was 5:45....). So I went back to Alexandria, got coffee, read a book and one hour later, went to catch the bus. But no! For some reason, there was no 4:45 bus! "What is going on?" I asked myself. I was frankly scared and thought that the Earth was moving into a black hole or something and that time was becoming crazy! Soon there would be earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions!
Anyway, it was already 6 in my mobile and I was sleepy as hell, I wanted to go home and I was pleading for rescue! But no, everything was chaotic, one time for the HKL, one time for the Railway Station, and one time in my mobile...... Crazy! So well, I simply had to wait, wait and wait and I walked from Alexandria to the Railway Station like 5 times in the rest of the night. Luckily the sun hadn't risen so it still felt like night..... The thing is that they finally opened to metro at 7 (of my time) but to make things better, my next metro was in 32 minutes! Can you believe how unlucky I was? Looking at the bright side of this, I had time to finish my book and well, eventually got home at 8 and slept until 12 because my Indian flatmate woke me up... ah!
Anyway, by 1 pm I still didn't know what was going on until I talked to my other flatmate, who told me that the night before was the change to winter time and evidently, the time was set one hour back. I got really frustrated after knowing this, especially when I talked to some friends and apparently everyone knew about it and I was the only one who didn't...