As days turn into weeks

He everyone,

I finally found some time for a second update! I am glad to tell that I have currently surpassed the settling-stage by now, leading to the first adventurous activities both within and outside of the city. The first days at university have passed, the first actual deadline was last week, in short, academic life has once more begun. Time goes by as if you're on a plane from Amsterdam to New York, the weeks flew by like they were just hours, confirming the fact that I very much enjoy my time in the country of a thousand lakes. My opinion considering my housing situation has not changed at all, I have two great roommates (which I spent a lot of time with) and in general an awesome group of people living in the same building. Harustie, which is the street the building is part of, has become  the place to come together at all times (mainly for parties), emphasizing the formidable athmosphere hanging around the place.

So, let's start with the main purpose and most serious business of my stay here, Hanken School of Economics. Over time I found out that Hanken is not your average university, it is comparable to a private school with Swedish roots and the language (Swedish) that is generally only spoken by the 'upper class'. Nonetheless, I feel at home, the students are very helpful and very much open to conversation, the level of education is up to scratch (at least the Finnish students are) and the university sponsors a lot for its students (lunch, sports etc.). I have started on the first block of my semester abroad, currently following the courses of Project Management, Entrepeneurial Business Creativity and Russian. Till now I have not regretted any of the picks, both PM and EBC provide the challenges and additional theories that I had hoped for from the start, while Russian is pure and utter fun. As mentioned earlier, my first deadline has passed and I can sometimes feel the 'fun-weeks' are history. Especially three weeks back and last week have been stressful and exhausting, as it was three weeks ago it was the week of the "International Helsinki Days" in which a lot of activities, special guest lectures and parties were organized. It meant I had to start planning real tightly, something I apparently still have to work on in the upcoming years!

Anyhow, I survived and had a trip to Lapland coming up (on Wednesday the 10th of February) which helped me to relax a little. Still, a week of fun means you are going to have to make up for it at some point, which was last week, in which three projects and my mid-term exam were all crammed into one small week. After returning on Monday morning (6 a.m.) I had to be present at a mandatory guest lecture at 10.15 a.m., which simply meant that after a 15 hours bus-drive without hardly any sleep, I had to drag myself to class in the same morning. The rest of the week turned out to be about the same, I fully had to focus on studying (I know, I know, not necessarily a bad thing) and finished with my exam on Friday. To be fair, I think I did pretty well, especially the exam, and once more I have time to start doing some more pleasant activities!

So, on to this less serious part I was talking about; trips, events, parties, dinners etc. I will open with a topic that is primarily a tradition to Finnish Student Unions, the Sitz. I have had the pleasure of being present at two of them till now, one that was organized for the exchange students only and one that was linked to the "International Helsinki Days", meaning a lot of international students from all over the world (besides the exhangers) joined in as well. Technically speaking, the Sitz are supposed to be a dinner with lots of singing, socializing and food, along with alcohol refreshments once in a while. I have to admit that they have been my favorite get-togethers, providing a very lively athmosphere filled with tradition, companionship and great after-parties. Every Sitz has had its own theme, the first one was "Anything Finnish", which made us decided to become a "Dopplegänger" of all our student tutors, while the second theme was masquerade. (see photos) Besides the Sitz's we are quite active ourselves as well, over the last couple of weeks we have had several house parties (yes, at Harustie), a beerpong-tournament, a gentlemen's-dinner and a bowling evening. We just try and make sure we do get the best out of our exchange period as possible, which means socializing the hell out of it.

In the meanwhile we went to a game of ice-hockey, the number one sport in Finland, something I as a sport fanatic could not miss out on. We have seen a clash between the local, Helsinki-based, HIFK and the Espoo Blues (an area which can be considered to be part of Helsinki as well), a fight between the nr. 1 (HIFK) and rock-bottom (Espoo). In the end it meant we did not have to worry as much about the end-result, as HIFK was clearly more experienced, tactically and technically stronger and was playing at home. Although the game was quite tame, we enjoyed just seeing some high-level plays in the end. The home-team succesfully set aside Espoo, defeating them by three to zero, so the athmosphere in the end was relaxed, cheerful and to some extent buzzing as it meant the third win in a row.

Fun fact: Finland's league is considered to be the third best league after the NHL (USA/Canada) and the KHL (Russia).

Considering the trips, we have visited Tallinn in the meanwhile, which I can still remember as this beautiful city during summer time! However, it is winter and the town was awfully greyish everywhere, streets were desolated, leaving the city without the ambiance I had once been able to experience. In the end, this trip mainly turned out to be all about cheap purchasing of groceries (and yes...alcohol). I might return later during my stay, hoping a sunny day can bring back the delightful memories I have of this old Hanze-city.

So, Tallinn might have been dissapointing, but Lapland was one of the greatest experiences I will ever have been able to be present at! Although the trip can be compared to a diesel-engine, it started off tiresome, a little boring and slow, it got better day-by-day. Ofcourse, a 15 hour bus-drive is never very much appreciated by anyone, especially not when it involves travelling by night, meaning actually sleeping is not considered to be very pleasant. In the morning we stopped at Santa's village, close to Rovaniemi (the most Northern city of Finland), but this was a huge letdown, it is such a commercialized happening and clearly an U.S.-originating tradition, so I'm not going to explain much more. However, things started to improve once we got to Levi, the place of destination and a huge (in Finnish terms) ski-resort within the Arctic-circle. This was going to be the place we were about to spend the next four days at, with activities such as driving a snowmobile, enjoying a husky-trip and ice-karting on the calendar. The surroundings were beautiful, loads of nature, covered by a thick, white blanket of snow, icicles hanging everywhere, an impression you will not be able to see that often anymore. During the first actual night in Levi we have been extremely fortunate when suddenly in the middle of the night the Northern lights appeared, very weakly at first (white) but after and hour or so fully green. I cannot express how astonishing the experience was, I had been hoping to see them ever since I chose Finland as my exchange destination but had always kept in mind that the lights can be blocked by clouds, do not even show up or in a very weak manner. The activities only kept adding to the memorable trip to Lapland, one-by-one they all contributed to a stay that will leave its tracks in my memories for the rest of my life.

In the meanwhile, a quick heads-up for future blogs, I booked a trip to Riga in March, Stockholm is scheduled to be visited in April, I am going to visit Russia in May and somewhere in between I hope to find some time to at least visit Norway as well. For now, I guess I pretty much ran out of stories to add, if I left anything out you will be hearing about it next time and that is how I would like to end this story!

Greetings to you all from Up-North!

Jasper