Helsinki 2016-2017

Helsinki, Finland.

On Monday 12th March 2017 at 1.45am we gathered at our school, where we waited for the ride to the Venice airport Marco Polo. After a two- hour drive we finally arrived there and we looked around the airport. From Venice we flew to Munich, Germany. From there we took another flight to Helsinki, Finland. After a couple of hours of searching we eventually arrived at the student dormitory where we stayed for the next month and we felt like home.

The next day, at 7.30am, we met our teachers, who went with us to Finland to help us get around, at the bus stop. From there they showed us how to get to the school. When we made it there, we were greeted by our new classmates and another teacher, our mentor Marija. They welcomed us and showed us around.

That day went by and another one came. After school we took a sightseeing tour with our teachers. We visited the Church of Temppeliaukio (a church engraved in stone) and the monument of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The next days we also saw a Protestant cathedral and remarkable Finnish wooden houses. We also took a ferry to Suomenlinna island and we learned a little more about the history of Finland’s war with Russia.

At school where we spent most of our time( Mon-Fri, 9am-2pm) the system is pretty different from ours in Slovenia, so it was really interesting. Students learn and practice on customers that come to the school every day. In Finland having light hair is trendy now so they learn a lot about that.

Finns speak English really well so we didn’t have any problems with  communication. They’re also really calm, quiet and are a little shy.

On weekends we enjoyed a nice lunch and a stroll trough the town.

After one month of staying there it was quite challenging to leave the city. At 1pm we took the bus  to Helsinki, there we took the train to the airport. We flew to Germany and back to Venice where the ride to Slovenia was already waiting for us.