Lapland Trip - Part 2

The second part of our journey started off way too early! We left Saariselkä at 7.05 for Norway. The little village of Bugøynes was waiting for us. We drove another 290 kilometers. By now I can proudly say that I have crossed Finland completely! Most of the area we were crossing were natural reserve areas. Our first stop was at Näätämö, shortly before the Norewegian border. We paused at a small gas station which was attached to a K-Market. The people seemed to be annoyed by the crowd of our bus and the cashier was quite busy with all the customers. While waiting in line for the only bathroom, I spotted the offer of white cabbage, which costed 49 cents per kilogram. 

The shops opening hours were also interesting! It opens only 5 days a week. Monday to Thursday from 11 am to 5 pm and Friday from 10 am to 4 pm. However it was a cozy shop and the vendors seemed to be satisfied in this part of the country. Our tour guide told us later that the village Näätämö, which is located close to the gas station counted 14 inhabitants. Only a couple of minutes further, we crossed the Norwegian border! :) As Norway belongs to the Schengen Area, our bus chuggled across the boarder into the landscape of northern Norway. The change of the scenery was tremendous! On the Finnish side, we could see lots of conifers and relative low hills and rocks covered with deep snow. In Norway, we discovered that there were hardly any conifers. The trees were very small and the hills had turned to enormous mountains. However both sides were so beautiful that all the occupants of the bus stared outside on the entire 4 hour ride. On the side of the roads we spotted a lot of Russian road signs. The tour guide told us, that they inform Russian visitors, that they can not go any further without a valid visa. Only after I checked on Google Maps, I realized how far in the North we actually were! 

When we arrived in Bugøynes, an elderly lady warmly welcomed us and told us about her village and how the inhabitants are trying to act sustainable. The lady told us, that she invented the very fist Sauna without a shower. As the Arctic Ocean is pretty clean and healthy she recommended the water to prevent lots of diseases. Due to my sickness (which btw had improved in spite of the cold climate) I decided to only dip my feet in the water and skip the Sauna. While the others roasted in the Sauna, I got rid of my shoes and socks and steeped my feet into the cold, clear water of the Arctic Sea. Fortunately I brought some warm woolen socks - believe me my feet never felt that cozy :)) 
After that I wandered around the village. The village had everything they needed to survive, a small shop, a cemetery, a school, a church and there was even a fish farm nearby, which is the main provider for work places. The people seemed quite reserved and I wondered how people greet each other in Norway. 
For lunch, we were invited in a local club house. We had Norwegian fish soup with white fish. At this point I have to mention that it impressed me how well the elderly knew the English language. For desert, we tried Norwegian brown cheese "Brunost". We learned that the caramelized sugar in the milk creates the brown color of the cheese. The stay in Norway was limited to 4 hours, but the 8 hours of driving there were totally worth it! 
When we got home, Kathi and I went on a big walk around the town. We were lucky as we saw the Northern Lights for the third time that week. 
On Thursday, we  visited a reindeer farm. The animals looked a bit tired. We later found out that they were castrated and therefore not impressed about anything. I felt so bad for them! The Huskies seemed to like pulling the sleigh, but the reindeer simply looked sad and somehow tired! So I couldn't get myself to ride on a sleigh. :/ Later on, a Sami woman informed us about Sami people's lives and their relationship to reindeer. She told us that every reindeer in Finland belongs to someone and therefore it is forbidden to randomly hunt down an animal. At the moment, 1 kilogram of reindeer meet is worth 8 €. Every reindeer owner gathers his animals twice a year. Once on midsummer and once in fall. On these occasions, the reindeer are counted and tagged with new earmarks. She mentioned that it is usually not hard to find reindeer during these times as they like to stay in groups in summer to keep the mosquitoes away.  If they do not find a group at all, they will use a helicopter. She advised us to never ask a reindeer farmer, how many animals he owns. 
We left the reindeer farm to go on a Snowshoe walk in the evening. It was quite challenging to put on the Snowshoes. When snowshoeing, it is important to use the spikes in the front of the device. Basically our tour guide chased us two times downhill and uphill, so we would get tired. When we arrived in the deep forest, we were able to see green Northern Lights for the fourth time that week! After the Snowshoeing, we ate reindeer! I guess it is rather barbaric to visit a reindeer farm in the afternoon and eat them in the evening! :I Hmm. Poor guy! ....! I guess it tastes okay but I wouldn't want to have it regularly! 
When we got back home, we tried to heat the Sauna in our cottage but without avail. I guess we would fail the Finnish survival test. So we took hot showers instead and enjoyed our last night in Lapland. 
On Friday, we were finally going back home to Southern Finland. We had another 1000 kilometers in front of us. However this time it took us only 13 hours. I was happy when we left the ice behind. Nevertheless, I already miss the snow. 
When we arrived in Lapland, there had been a solar storm, which caused the intense appearance of Northern Lights.
Out of all the activities, I liked the Husky Safari the most! The animals were gentle and cuddly. I would have loved to take one with me!

Thank you Lapland! Really enjoyed it! :)

Raisa

Lapland Trip - Part 1

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Our journey to Lapland started off from Helsinki. We decided to go on our Lapland experience with the Finnish student travel agency time travels, which meant that we would travel with exchange students from all over Finland. The bus left from Helsinki at 9 pm on Sunday night. We had about 1000 kilometers in front of us.

Both of us – Kathi and I were excited for the snow and the location but also worried, as we are finally fed up with icy roads and cold, windy weather.  As I got sick, about a week before our trip, I was especially worried, that it would get worse in Lapland.

The bus stopped every other hour for a potty break and to pick up fellow travel mates in Tampere, Oulu and several highway rest areas. Our first big stop was at a rest area near Jyvaskyla. As we drove by night, the rest areas as well as the highways were almost empty and gave me the impression of desolated, gloomy places. There were huge restaurants with lots of seating places. The only “customers” were some youngsters and tourist groups like us. It seemed like those destinations were waiting for crowds of people in vain. By the way – I counted 16 toilets at one place.

The lake - which wasn't a lake :D

At that time my sleep-pattern had been totally messed up, so I decided (more or less unintentionally) to stay awake all night. However my cervical spine collapsed several times, so I had quite a restless night. When the sun rose, at about 7 am, we had left Oulu, heading to Kemi. In Kemi, we visited the famous snow castle,which is built every year from scratch since 1996. The castle is quite a tourist attraction. It is rebuilt every winter with a different architecture. The area covered by the snow castle varies between 13.000 and 20.000 square meters. There were lots and lots of small rooms with decorations carved in the walls. Beside the castle, we spotted a huge lake. People were riding their snow mobiles, doing cross-country skiing or just going for a walk on this “lake”. The weather was great and we enjoyed a marvelous view across the white scenery. We later found out that this “lake” was part of the Baltic Sea. As Kemi is located in the Bothnian Bay. It was quite impressive how thick the ice was in this area and a few kilometers farther, we could see open water. Our next stop was the Santa Claus Village near Rovaniemi. At this point we crossed the Arctic Circle :)) In the Santa Claus Village, we visited lots of tourist shops, met Santa in person ;) ate a Finnish Salmon Soup and took lots of photos. I also approached my very first reindeer in Finland. It was a short and awkward encounter. We both seemed to be creeped out by each other’s appearance.

Finnish Salmon Soup!

After Rovaniemi, we drove another 4.5 hours to Saariselkä. The roads got more lonesome and there were hardly any street lights. The snow lighted up the curbs but the conifers on the sides of the road created a murky atmosphere. All of the occupants of our bus including the bus driver were exhausted. Our tour guide waited for us in Saariselkä and showed us our cottages and our neighbors for the next week. Our cottage mates were quite diverse. We had people from France, Italy and Brazil in our cottage and of course Germans ;) However on our first night we decided to climb the ski hill behind our house to get a glimpse at the Northern Lights. I have to say, we were lucky! Very lucky! At first we only saw light white stripes at the sky but the more we diverged from the village, the stronger they got. The guys in our group made us go to the very top of the mountain across country. There were no tracks so we sank into deep snow every other step. It was quite a workout! At the very top of the mountain, we enjoyed an impressive 20 minute “performance” of Northern Lights. We weren’t able to catch them on camera though. When we arrived back at the cottage, we all fell into our beds and slept like polar bears :)

After that trip I can tell, if you want to have a good night’s rest, you got to go to Lapland!

Our lead dogs :)

The fluffy swing dog <3

On Tuesday, we got up early to visit a Husky Farm. The bus took us to the ranch, which was located about 5 km outside of Saariselkä. We were welcomed by a horde of Husky puppies yowling at us. The keeper took us to a tent and gave us an introduction to life on a Husky Farm. She told us the difference between Siberian Huskies and Alaskian Huskies, Siberian Huskies seem to be prettier and are used as show dogs. One dog eats about 15 kilograms of meet per day and normally does not drink anything except for some kind of meat soup once a day. When they feel thirsty, they eat snow. We also had to opportunity to go on a Husky Safari for half an hour. For me, this has been the most impressive adventure of this trip. Before we met our dogs, we were told about the basics of steering a sleigh and the most important to never let the sleigh and the dogs go. The keeper told us that a sleigh is normally pulled by 5-6 dogs. There are two lead dogs in the front, one or two swing dogs, which are basically in training and two wheel dogs, who basically pull the sleigh. The dogs on our sleigh were very calm. However the lead dogs were quite excited and always tangled up in their team. I cannot tell, if steering the sleigh or sitting in it was better, but I really enjoyed the interaction with the animals. They seem to love their job and long for constantly moving their paws. When the safari started, I used the break quite a lot because I was afraid that we would crash. However it turned out that our dogs were quite nice and at the middle of the trip, they had perceived that we were slow, cautious passengers. The trip ended way too fast, but after 30 minutes, the Huskies were thirsty and new passengers were waiting.

 We spend the rest of the day in bed, eating and exploring the village. In the evening, we had booked a Snowmobile Safari. We were provided with snow suits, boots, helmets and gloves so we won’t freeze on the vehicles. Riding on the backseat of the snow mobile was another highlight of that day! Especially as we saw green Northern Lights, while riding through the forest. I have to say that it is physically demanding to keep the snow mobile on the tracks. I highly respect Kathi’s driving skills, especially since I kept on talking to her steadily and pointing at the Northern Lights. When we switched drivers, I got off the tracks immediately only after a couple of meters, so the guards had to rescue us from the deep snow and drive us back on the path. After that incident we were placed in the very front of the caravan, right after the leader of the group :D :D My driving skills still didn’t improve but with the help of Kathi, steering from the backseat, we were able to keep up and get home safe! :) I definitely preferred being a passenger on the Snowmobile! ;)

This day ended similar to the day before. We fell into our beds and slept immediately.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our Lapland Trip, when I will tell you about our trip to Norway, eating reindeer meet and our journey back!

Raisa

Getting started at UAS Landshut

The University of Applied Sciences Landshut has a much larger campus than Novia and about 5000 students. However, I can assure you won't get lost on the Campus! During your studies you will not only get guidance from the International Office but also from your 'Buddy' and fellow students on the Campus.
Before you leave Finland, you should find out where you can get further information!
In the following I will give you a briefing about your first weeks in Germany and the people to contact if you have any questions:
Most likely the very first person you will meet in Germany will be your "Buddy". A Buddy is a local student, who helps you during your stay in Germany. He will give you information about the way of life in Germany, hints and guidance regarding university-related matters, and maybe accompany you on trips or show you around Landshut.
The Buddies will be assigned by the International Office during the semester break (August). You will receive an E-Mail by your Buddy, who will inform you about your arrival the dorm and your schedule.
Depending on your arrangements, your Buddy will pick you up from the airport or wait for you in Landshut. He will assist you when arriving and help you to get acquainted with your new environment. You may want to ask your Buddy about Internet access in your dorm, the syllabus and about German customs.
Of course he will accompany you to register at the city hall, go grocery shopping and show you around Campus.

Basically your Buddy will be the first contact person during your study year abroad.
Regarding university-related affairs you can contact the International Office. This might be important in case you want to change your Learning Agreement. It is located in SH 09 + 10, right next to the business faculty. The contact person for the incoming students is Sabrina Bornemann. You should visit her soon after your arrival to get your 'Certificate of Arrival' confirmed.

Moreover the International Office organizes 'Welcoming Weeks'. Within these 2-3 weeks you will meet foreign students from other partner universities and discover your new surroundings. The president of the UAS Landshut will kick-off the 'Welcoming Weeks' by welcoming you to Landshut. In the following days the administrative part of your studies will be taken care of. You will get a student card, which permits you to free bus rides and enter the library 24/7. Moreover you will learn about the online student pages, printing and  access to computers.
Besides there will be an intensive German course for beginners, which you will attend together with fellow exchange students from other partner universities. Of course you will not only be engaged in administrative work and studying German! A visit to the Oktoberfest, the Deutsches Museum in Munich and maybe a a personally guided sight-seeing tour through Landshut will be on your agenda!

The International Office also offers special cultural activities throughout your stay in Landshut. The activities include a visit to the BMW plant in Dingolfing, a town close to Landshut, a visit the Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg or trips to nearby cities.
As you can see, you will experience a rather active social life on Campus! Compared to Finland, your learning environment, party locations and the dorm will be close by. You will be able to connect to local students as well as to other exchange students.
Hope you enjoy your stay in Germany!

Raisa

Weather in Southern Finland

This blog post is concerned about my personal experiences regarding the weather and the daylight hours during my stay in Turku, Finland Proper.

Up to now I have been in Finland for 8 months. I enjoyed a beautiful, warm fall and a long, dark, Finnish winter. And now, spring time is around the corner. The trees are already showing buds and the snow has almost diminished. :))

The Aurajoki river near Halinen

However, the weather has influenced my lifestyle tremendously! After this winter I do understand certain things about the Finnish culture much better. After my visit to Lapland, I also learned more about the Finnish silence and actually appreciate it a lot ;)
I agree with the Finns, that a Sauna visit at the end of a cold, dark winter day is mind-clearing and revitalizing.
Fall was actually longer and warmer than I expected it to be. I was able to ride my bike until the beginning of January. Also in Turku it didn't start to snow until shortly before Christmas. However, it was great to finally have a White Christmas (never experienced that before)!

View from my window

Personally, I was mostly affected by the ice on the roads. At some point it was not possible to go by bike and even walking was challenging - at least for me. I managed to fall two times, while standing. :D However, I never saw a Finn slip on the ice. I still do not understand, why the streets and pedestrian walks are not cleared from ice and snow. On the other hand, it might be in vain, especially in cities, located in the north.
I am somehow glad, that the winter was that

This is not funny to walk on!

mild. I experienced about 2,5 months of snow and ice. It actually didn't snow too much here in the southern part of Finland. Nevertheless most of the time, the roads were covered with ice and it got bad as the tracks formed by cars and bikes froze. Going by bike and even jogging is nearly impossible, unless you are an experienced athlete.
Together with the darkness, it was somewhat depressing but I am proud that I preserved it! However as soon as February started, I could tell that the days were getting longer. I helped myself by regularly checking the increase of the daylight on timeanddate.com. It helped a lot ;)

The Aurajoki river near the city center

I also checked weatherspark's websitefrequently to

In the end, I can say that I am glad to be able to use my bike again and not to be dependent on the bus, to go outside and see the sun or even daylight for more than just 4 hours and to go jogging at daylight. For the last 2 months of my stay I will happily observe the increase of the daylight.

Raisa =)

Stockholm - let's go

First of all - Stockholm is a big "Wow!!!" I totally fell in love with this city already in the very first seconds after I have arrived there. Stockholm is totally different compared to the Finnish cities I have visited. In my opinion it radiates joy, beauty and an own flair!
I met with a good friend of mine in Stockholm for about 4 days and we tried to figure out before where we would like to go and what we would like to see in order not to "forget" anything.

My friend and I met at the Arlanda Airport in Stockholm as she came from Germany and I started my trip from Helsinki by plane. From there we took the "Arlanda Express", which needs only 20minutes from the airport to the city center and costs only around 15€ for students. Good option, fast drive and not that expensive as well :-)

After we have arrived in the city center we started our way to our Hotel, which was the Best Western Plus Time Hotel. This hotel was really nice regarding the rooms and breakfast, but for a city trip too far away from the city center in my opinion. We had to walk about 15 to 20 minutes to the center and this is in my opinion too long.
Our first evening we spent outside in Stockholm for some first insights of this beautiful city.

The next day we started with the Royal Palace, which is one of Europe's largest and most dynamic palaces. It is the King's official residence and also the setting for most of the monarchy's official receptions. Besides this, it is also a culture-historical monument open the whole year to visitors. This combination of royal residence, workplace and sightseeing spot makes the Royal Palace of Stockholm unique amongst Europe's royal residences. From the outside it looks quite nice and inside there are a lot of rooms you can visit: the treasury, the tre kronor museum, the royal chapel etc. For me, the different rooms and museums were indeed interesting to look at, but to be honest I have seen quite more impressive Palaces than this one and after a while my friend and I got quite bored by all the exhibited jewelry, dresses and dishes. Nevertheless, we had a great shopping experience in the gift shop and are now proud owners of little princess crowns :-))))).

Before we left the Royal Palace we were lucky to see the shift change of the guards :-) It was funny to see that they still do it in such a traditional way.

Afterwards we walked around and enjoyed the different sides of Stockholm - colored facades, little alleys and the view on the water. Here are some pictures and I hope you can see what I am talking about :-)

A few minutes before the sunset started we found an observation platform, which offered an incredible view over the whole city. There was no entrance fee, which might be due to the fact that the actual platform was closed, because of some constructions going on there. Anyway, we could walk on the bridge and take some photos and enjoy the view.

On Saturday we started our journey to Djurgården Island, which is easy to reach by foot, by the Djurgården ferry boat from Gamla Stan/Slussen, by tram from Norrmalmstorg or by bus. We went by boat and visited two famous museums of Stockholm - the Vasa and the Skansen Museum. 
Before we entered the Vasa Museum I was quite skeptical as I am not really a museum fan, but afterwards I was really impressed. They exhibit the warship Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. After 333 years it was savaged in 1961 and since 1990 people can come and have a look at it in its own Museum. 
Our next step was the Skansen Museum, which is Sweden's first open-air museum and zoo. Here you can explore the ways of life in the different parts of Sweden before the industrial era. Some locals are sitting in the cottages with typical clothes on from that time and tell you stories about the lives back then. Nearly all cottages are decorated in the way they used to look like and 
you can see some bedrooms and living rooms. Besides this, there is a little zoo in Skansen with moose and rabbits etc. Before we went back home to our hotel we had a delicious food in the restaurant directly next to Skansen and then we started our way back home to the hotel by foot.



On Sunday we just walked through the city center, did some shoppings and enjoyed the city before our flight started back home to Germany and Finland.

If you ever have the chance to visit Stockholm - go for it!!! It is definitely worth a journey and I am sure I will go there again, but next time during summer season:-)

Hejdå! 

Katharina