Dutchies on a visit! Part one - boyfriend edition

Last weekend the time had finally come, my boyfriend was coming to Finland!

I was so excited to show him where I live now, what Finland and Turku is like and to see what he would think of everything here. 

We played for tourist in Helsinki, I showed him around in Turku and brought him to all of my favorite spots here. Seeing him in my new hometown and watching him get amazed by all of the things that Turku is offering and typical Finnish stuff, was like seeing myself on my first days here in Finland. 

For this post I thought it would be fun to let him write a little, to get a look at what he thinks about Finland and his feelings about me living in this city.

Comparing traditional food at the last day

Today is already my last day at my last placement. I enjoyed my time here so much, even though it was very tough sometimes. Almost none of the patients here speak English, because they are all older then 70, so most of the time I was just sitting by myself and trying to follow some of what was going on. But my coworkers did their very best to make me feel comfortable and tried to let me join as many as possible. Huge shootout to them. And hey, some credits for myself (it's okay to do that sometimes) I passed all of my three clinical practices!


Every morning the costumers get breakfast here, and they eat the porridge.
It has to happen one day, I had to try it.... And well, let me say it was ... Interesting...
(read disgusting, I'm so sorry Finns). The way to eat it is to add some extra milk, some jam, butter, sugar or salt. I ate it with the butter, but no, it will not be my new favorite thing in the world.

What do you think it means?

Because I wanted to let my friends and family know with what I'm dealing every single day, I made a survey with some Finnish words where they had to guess what it means.
It's a shame that I couldn't hear them pronounce it, but hey this was also fun to see.

Piimäkakku

Lets bore you some more with another food talk!
I'm sorry, but food is just a big thing for me and in a lot of countries food is a big part of the culture, the same goes for Finland.


At my current placement I have seen a lot of Finnish dishes. This "Piimäkakku" is one of them. At first I wasn't really sure if I wanted to try this, because my coworker said it was an oat cake (I am not sure if this is right, because I can't find a bit about this online), but god, I'm glad I did! This is one hell of a cake, so good.

I want to try to describe the taste of it to you guys, but I don't really know with what I compare it. I think that the taste is most similar to the taste of 'ontbijtkoek' (Is there a English word for this??).

Shy and quiet?

Are Finnish people shy and quiet?

Last week I was talking to a woman at my placement, who could speak English and loved to talk to me. It was such a sweet person and she really reminded me of my grandma.

One subject we talked about was the shyness of Finnish people and that they can be quiet sometimes.

I'm not sure if this is just how Finnish people are, but the way that I noticed this is that a lot of Finnish people don't want to speak English. 

And that is a thing that I also heard at my previous placement. My supervisor there asked me if it felt to me as the Finnish people took me in. I told her honest that I didn't felt that way, because barely no one talked to me, or only after a week. She told me that that was what she expected to be my answer. She said that most of the Finnish people don't "like" foreign people and don't like to speak something else then Finnish or Swedish.

And lets be honest, sometimes this is so frustrating...

Another question that was asked was if I didn't felt really lonely... I had to think about that for a while. And maybe, yes, sometimes it is lonely when you don't always have someone to talk to. But it is also a challenge. A challenge to find a way where they do want to talk to you and let them feel that it is okay when their English is not always fluent.

So in the end I don't think that Finnish people are shy and quiet. The way they act around each other and how they treat each other looks so kind and full of empathy. And I think that after a while they want to talk to you and want to try to speak English. We just have to figure out a way where we both feel comfortable. And that is the real challenge.

Nähdään!

Aniek 

Bringing home to Finland

Dutch apple pie

It was time for some real Dutch apple pie!

Emma and I wanted to make something what reminded us of home, so we decided to make apple pie.

It was a bit of struggle to find the ingredients, the names are different then the ones that we use. But we figured it out and got the right ones. It was so fun to make and for a moment it felt like home.

I wanted to talk about this because this was not the first time that I ate apple pie here in Finland. I ate a piece at my first placement and last week at my current. Both were different and both were nothing like the Dutch one. They were good, but grandma's apple pie will always be the best.

Finnish apple pie

It is funny to see that in different countries they have the same name for a pastry, but that it's a totally different thing and looks and taste nothing like each other.

But I don't complain when I have to eat it, in the end it's sweet and it's food, so it will make me a happy girl.

Nähdään!

Aniek

What am I doing here as...

A nursing student!

So for the ones that didn't knew, I'm studying to become a nurse. I have had two years of school already and I have two years left. So I'm right in the middle of it.

When I was younger (and I still do) I watched programs about the hospital all the time and my dad worked as a nurse at the ER. So when I made the decision that I wanted to be a nurse, it wasn't a surprise.

Honeymoon phase?

In the first lecture of the course Get Finternational (hey, what a familiar name right?) the teacher explained us about the different stages of the cultural shock. And let's be honest with you, I didn't even thought about getting a culture shock before I started my adventure here in Finland and didn't felt like I had the real culture shock.

But while I am reading the stuff about culture shocks, I am getting second thoughts about that.... It sounds all a little familiar, oops.

Aurora

Aurora
noun

1. A natural electrical phenomenon characterized by the appearance of streamers of reddish or greenish light in the sky, usually near the northern or southern magnetic pole.
2. Literary: the dawn.

We saw it. Aurora, the Northern Lights. Right in front our apartment. Standing at the balcony, looking at this beautiful phenomenon that colored the sky with green light. My heart skipped a beat and was racing. This moment, this place, I felt alive and happy. 

Turku city race

Ready, set, go!

Last week the tutors organised the Turku city race. A race through Turku, where we got to do different tasks and games.

First we got devided in different teams. Everyone had to stand in a line and got a number, in that way you would be in a team with people you didn't know already.

I was part of a team with a girl from France and two boys, one from Germany and one from my own country, the Netherlands.

It was so fun to hear what other people already did and what they are planning to do. And besides of that, we were a great team together!

There were 10 stops in total, we had to draw Finland blindfolded, guess Finnish food and eat it if you got it wrong, (I had to eat herring, my worst nightmare...), sing Finnish songs, dress someone in overalls  without hands (and of course it had to be the shortest person, me, but it was so fun), and many more games.

I've had a great evening and it was so fun to learn more about Finland and Turku by playing the race!

Nähdään!

Aniek

Citytrip!

What is your Erasmus time all about? Right, travelling. Uhm, study somewhere else of course.

So next to our hard work at our clinic practice and following our Finnish class, we want to spend our free time and weekends for travelling and exploring Finland and the countries that are close by.
But besides that travelling is good for the soul, it's also a great opportunity to get a look at the cultures, so it's the perfect subject to write about for this blog ;)

The next stop that we wanted to make is in a country that never ever crossed my mind or has ever been on my travel bucketlist: Estonia. I didn't even knew that the name of this country was Estonia in English, because in the Netherlands we say it so much different. But you know, topcats often begin as underdogs.