Spending money

Spending money like I won the lottery.

If you would ask me on what I spend my money during this exchange period, the first thing I would say is food. We spend a lot of money on food. And not because Emma and I eat a lot (okay, maybe that is a small part of the reason), but because food here in Finland is quite expensive.

Most of the time Emma and I do our grocery shopping at the supermarket Lidl, just like the one we have in the Netherlands. But here in Finland, you have to pay much more for the same product as back home. The first time that we went grocery shopping we were quite shocked about the amount of money we had to pay. And not only this first time, every other time we went we tried to calculate how much we would have to pay and every time it turned out in that we had to pay way more.

Emma and I made it like a sport to get our weeks as cheap as possible, and I must say that these last few weeks went better than before. We are getting quite good at it.

Maybe it's because our parents brought a lot of food or maybe we now know how we can shop better and what we really need, but our cabins and fridge is filled up with food and we spent a little less.

So hopefully, by the time that we are real adults, we can shop like we know how to spend our money the best.

Nähdään!

Aniek

Pancake Party

While living in a building full of exchange students from all over the world, you make friends that have a different culture than you and have different eating habits. And as you might know, Emma and I love food and we love trying out new things.

Emma and I met this American guy, and when we talked about our differences in food we decided to have a pancake party. 

Emma and I both love the Dutch pancakes and were really excited to try the real American ones. Emma is the pro at baking the Dutch ones, so she made a ton of them. While waiting for our friend to arrive we accidentally ate some of them (read a bunch), but we saved some to start the pancake party. 

The Dutch pancakes are quiet big and thin, the American ones smaller and thicker. That's already the first difference. An other thing that we do not the same, is the toppings we put on them. While they put on this maple syrup, we do all kinds of stuff. Think about 'stroop', sugar, cheese, bacon, jam, Nutella and even peanut butter (I know, I'm weird). 

So when our friend saw our pancakes, he was quite surprised and he didn't think it looked like a thing that he would enjoy to eat. But he tasted them, and well.... he said it was alright. Not that enthusiastic..... 

But then you had us, we were out of our world about the American pancakes he made us. They were so good!!   

Next to eating we talked a lot about our lives and it's so interesting to hear all of the differences. The way how their school system works, what he normally does in his free time, the eating habits and holidays. 

And of course we had to show him 'the Netherlands second' movie that Arjen Lubach made. Emma and I laughed our asses off and he thought it was funny too, so maybe we will be second. We also showed him the translation of some Dutch sayings. And I must admit, when you see these translations, I get why people think the Dutch language is a little bit weird...

We had a really fun night, learned some new English words, tried to learn him some Dutch words (not that easy, because we have so much ggggg) (make the choking sound to pronounce it) and laughed way to much. 

Nähdään!

Aniek 

Roadtrip - part two

Another day at the road! Our second day of the road-trip took us to Tampere. A city that is places more up north. And again, a two hour drive to get there. I felt a little tired, but got more awake with Emma singing next to me.

The drive to Tampere was a long one. It was one straight way for over a 100 km and there were not that much other cars. The surroundings were still beautiful and a little white so that made it a little better.

Roadtrip - part one

Last weekend it was time to do some roadtripping! Emma and I rented a car for the weekend so we could explore some more of Finland and got a chance to go a little bit off the road, instead of spending our time in Turku or Helsinki.

We got up early on Saturday to pick up the car. When we got there I had to show my drivers license and sign some adult looking papers. When we rented the car online, the picture told us that it would be a small, white Volkswagen Polo. I think the guy who rented us the car thought that we girls needed something else, that made us look more grown-up and glassy... So we got this (for me) huge, red, Renault Clio. I must admit that it made me a little nervous, because the last time I drove a car was a little while ago and our car at home is not that big. But we hopped in and made us ready to get on the road! 

Moving trough Turku

I have to admit, the public transport here in Turku is quiet on point. I'm sorry Holland, you can learn a lot from this. 

First of all the buses are almost never late, they will arrive right on time to take you to your next destination. Sometimes quiet frustrating because that means I have to run a lot to catch the bus, but hey good for my condition and running skills right?

Unlike how it works in the Netherlands, the bus will not stop if none of the people that are standing in line raises their hand. Someone has to do it! 

Another thing is that you have to make sure that you are focused on the road and not on your phone, so you can see when the bus is almost their, to avoid that you only see the bus when it's already passing you.... 

The payment for the bus works almost the same as in the Netherlands. We bought a monthly pass and with this pass we can use the bus as many times as we like. Every month we have to pay again for the next month. When you don't have this pass, you can buy a ticket in the bus, which you can use for the next two hours. 

The bus is not the only transport thing you can use in Turku. Emma and I also rented a bike for our time here, because you know, Dutch people know how to ride the bike and we thought it would be nice to go somewhere whenever we wanted. 

But time is passing by and we adjusted ourselves to the Finnish lifestyle and took the bus many, many times. I'm wondering how my friend the bike is doing in the storage room.... I think we used it like six times and I hope I didn't forgot how to ride the bike by now, oops. 

For this weekend Emma and I rented a car, so then we can see what the traffic is like here in Finland. Hopefully they can see that I still have my drivers licence, so we can enjoy this roadtrip! 

Nähdään!

Aniek

Trying to be on the same level

While being here in Finland there will always be the change that there will be an issue with the communication. Every culture and country has it on ways of behavior and understandings of what is polite and what isn't.

Especially when I was in my clinical practical I wanted to fit in with the Finnish people. But soon I realized that it was not that easy to let go of your behaviors.

The Lewis Model is based on behavior and divides humans into three categories.
The three categories are the linear-active group, the reactive group and the multi-active group.

1. The linear-active group is the English speaking world. - The Netherlands and Finland are also in this group.
2. In the reactive group you can find all of the major countries in Asia. 
3. The multi-active group is more scattered around the world. - Although they are widely spread, they follow the same pattern as behaviorally. 

Back to school

After doing clinical practical for six weeks it was time to go back to school. In our previous school year in the Netherlands we finished our first clinical practical of six months, so it was a while ago that Emma and I had set a foot in a school building. But this was a thing we couldn't hide for, so it was time to go back to being a student! 

Overall Party

Maybe you can remember my previous post about the thing with the overalls here in Finland (if you don't, go read it!). This week we finally got the change to show our hard work of hours of sewing patches on our bright yellow overalls. It was time for an overall party! 

During our stay here in Finland we already collected a bunch of patches to put on our overalls, but we could never find a needle and thread to sew them on our overalls. When my mother came, she brought some with her so I could finally start sewing them on! 

Never thought it would be so much work, but after many hours, after sticking myself with the needle and sewing my trousers together, I was finally done. And I must say, it turned out pretty good. 

Because Emma and I have the yellow overall, it represents the nurses, every Finn thought we were Finnish too. When we told them we couldn't speak Finnish, they were quite surprised, because normally the exchange students wear the blue overalls from the ESN organisation. So we blended in pretty well with the Finnish students. 

The overall party was the best party we had attended in Finland, don't know if it was because of the overalls or the nice people we met, but we had a blast! 

Nähdään!

Aniek

Dutchies on a visit! Part two - mommy edition

Last week it was time for a generation visit in Turku, my mom and grandmother came to visit me! We had such a nice time and it was great to show them my current hometown. Just like my previous 'Dutchies on a visit' post, my mother wrote something about her time her.

Cultural theory of a Dutchie

As a part of the assignment for this blog, I have to write about two theories on cultural awareness, one of them includes the theory of Hofstede. And you Dutchies may already noticed, it's a Dutch man! What a coincidence. Geert Hofstede wrote a theory based on five dimensions. His theory should be a measurement for the differences in cultures and help to overcome the differences while communicating with people from other cultures. I thought it was a good time to write it now, because I just started my courses at school and I can compare Finland and the Netherlands much better. Finally I can dive in the Finnish school culture!

Stockholm

You have to go through the worst to get to the best...

Time for a city trip! Maybe not what you expected while reading the first sentence, but we had to survive a hell of boat trip to get there.
This time it was the turn of Stockholm, Sweden!

Although Sweden is next to Finland we had to be on a boat for quite some time. Almost 12 hours to be exactly...... Watched some series on Netflix (hello Arrow, my old friend), read some books, tried to sleep, try not to have a karaoke session while listening to music, making crazy faces towards Emma to let her know I was bored. But we made it, hello Sweden!