Moving to Finland
7 months in another world
I got my acceptance letter for an exchange program at the University of Tampere, Finland, back in November. It was the best news I had received in that (not so great thus far) year of 2014. After the initial excitement, a feeling of worry and anxiety started to come up — I had to get a visa, a place to live, clothes, documents, flight tickets etc in just one month. I was also moving to a complete different country from Brazil, with different culture, weather, food, people and language, and I would be all by my self.
Everything went just fine, but it seemed that the day I would leave Brazil was taking forever to arrive. Sure enough, when it did arrive, it seemed like I have not had enough time to enjoy the last few days I had with all the people I love and would not see for the next 7 months. When I entered the boarding area, all alone, that was when it really hit me. This was it.
I flew from São Paulo’s International Airport by KLM, making a stop in Amsterdam and then taking another KLM flight to Helsinki. Everything went fine, except for the cloudiness over Europe during most the time of the flight, which made my seat by the window not that awesome. Still, the view from an airplane is one of the coolest things to see for me, regardless of what you can actually see.
Unfortunately, the only country we really flew over was England. I was hoping the flight would go over continental Europe, where I would possibly be able to see more interesting things. Still, flying over England’s countryside and London was a nice experience.
A very cloudy sky welcomed us to Amsterdam, which was cold and gave me a glimpse of what I would experience in Finland. Unfortunately I had only 2 hours untill my flight to Helsinki, so I was not able to leave the Schiphol Airport to check the city.
My flight to Helsinki was above cloud skies as well, though the sunset (actually the sun never really gets that high in the sky during winter here) made things a little bit more interesting.
Arriving in Helsinki, I already got two “firsts”: first time I was in a below zero temperature (Celsius) and the first time was seeing snow. From the airport I got a taxi to the Helsinki railway station with a nice driver, which made that stereotypical idea that Finns don’t like to talk seem not true at all. After buying my Pendolino high speed train ticket, I finally ate a “decent” dinner, at Burger King. The trip to Tampere takes 1:30 hour, and the train is very comfortable. After arriving in the city, I had to walk in the snow to my hotel, a couple of blocks away, since my accommodation with the student organisation would only be available beginning January 2nd. Sleeping in a (amazing) bed again never felt so good, and due to the conditions of my bed in the student’s accommodation, it won’t feel that way for a while.
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