A Visitor from Finland - part 2

The second day started with me not having almost any voice, which was rather funny! The more I talked, the better my voice became, tho. The day was mostly spend walking around the city and visiting stores, as well as a cafe. 

We both agreed how funny it's that the rules of EU are followed so differently in different countries, mainly concentrating on Finland and Greece. Let's start with smoking, in EU it is forbidden to smoke inside. In Finland people, who try to smoke at a cafe or restaurant are most likely thrown out if they don't stop smoking. And in Greece people smoke happily inside next to a sigh that says smoking inside is forbidden, even the waiters smoke inside. The next thing is about selling meat, in Greece it is sold on streets and in Finland you need to have all special fridges etc. for selling it. There are even some restaurants needing to quit the business because they don't have enough capital to buy new equipment for storing meat, while in Greece they don't even consider using such equipment. I believe it's somewhat unfair!

And then back to the topic. After we finished shopping, not that I would have bought anything, we visited two more churches. One of them is called Aghias Sofias but ,unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it. I took many pictures of the other church, which name is unknown to me. However, it's funny how newer buildings have been built right next to the church - the walls are actually shared by those buildings. 

The day ended with eating dinner at a nice restaurant, recommended by the hotel. A funny thing is the restaurant didn't have an English menu, and the waiter asked another customer to tell about the menu in English. haha. We ate a Greek salad (which I forgot to photograph), a stake and ice cream as a dessert. We considered it as a late 'Father's Day' dinner, as I wasn't in Finland celebrating Father's Day on the second Sunday in November. 

That concludes my dad's trip to Thessaloniki. It was great to have him here and show my 'second hometown' to him. It was something I shared only with him, so I shall remember these days as father-daughter moments. :)

Ending with a view from my balcony!

A Visitor from Finland - part 1

The White Tower

In the evening of November 15th I headed to the airport by a bus. It was good to check how long it would take to go there, considering my trip to Athens. Anyway, I went to the airport to meet my dad, who traveled to spend some time with me in Thessaloniki. We didn't do much on the first day, as his flight arrived rather late in the evening. 

Some cute cats!

On the next day all the stores were closed, as it was Sunday, so we had to find some other things to do. The weather was somewhat nice; the sun wasn't shining, but it wasn't raining either. That's why we decided to walk a bit and go to the White Tower, which this city is known for. 

After the tower we headed to the Olympics Museum, which wasn't as easy to find as it's seen on the map. We did find it in the end, and walked through the place. I don't think I had been to such a museum before so it was interesting to see, tho it was mainly concentrated on summer Olympics and the success of the Greeks. haha. 

Our next stop was supposed to be a cafe close to the museum, but then I realized we were somewhat close to Ano Poli, so that's where we headed next. I just love to climb the hill - or not! I must say the view from there is very nice, however, it could have been better if there weren't so many clouds on the sky.

We found a nice cafe/bar there, where we decided to drink and eat something small. I had a mint tea, which didn't taste like mint in my opinion. Both of us took 'club sandwiches', but we had no idea there would be 4 pieces of them on a plate as well as fries. There our plan of eating at a nice restaurant in the evening went to the trash, as these plates were so filling. 

Later in the evening we went on a walk and decided to visit this one church. I'm not completely sure of its name, but anyway it was beautiful inside. It's always funny to compare Catholic churches, which are always super decorated, with churches in Finland (most of the Finns are Evangelical Lutheran, btw.), which aren't much decorated at all. 

The second day shall get a post of its own. :)

Two Random Journeys

Here in Thessaloniki I have made two rather random trips to close-by places. The idea has been to go on a walk and to see, where I end up. Such journeys are sometimes rather fun, I think! However, it's a good idea to carry a map with you, in order not to get lost in a place, where you haven't been before.

On my first walk I ended up visiting a Chocolate Factory Museum. It was clearly built mainly for children, but who cares. haha. It was still interesting to read about the history of cocoa, and also the journey of a bean to the chocolate that we eat.

There were many secondary school classes on school trips, which was rather funny. At one point you were able to watch a short film about the journey of a bean to 'real' chocolate. It was meant for children and it was in Greek, so I didn't understand much. It was still funny to hear the children being so fascinated by melted chocolate. heh. 

Of course, they sold chocolate and other candies at a place like this. I bought a bit of super expensive chocolate, which were delicious, btw. 

The second trip was to Ano Poli, which is a place in the upper town of Thessaloniki. It's an amazing place for sight-seeing. When going there, be prepared to climb quite much. hah. At this point I believe pictures tell more than any words, so...

 

Ano Poli is a place that everyone, who visits Thessaloniki, should see!! 

Summer Work on a Grave Yard

A cemetery in Thessaloniki, Greece

One day I went on a walk here in Thessaloniki, and ended up walking on a cemetery. I was actually planning on exploring cemeteries here because I was sure Greek cemeteries would be different compared to the Finnish ones. I was rather surprised when I saw how they looked like - everything was so white and they surely don't have any gardeners working there. Also the way of burying people was different, as the ''coffins'' were on top of the ground compared to Finland, where the graves are underground with only a grave stone seen on the top. There is one exception, however, which is very old graves, which may be covered with sand and small decorative rocks. 

However, this made me think of my previous summer job on a grave yard. I want to share this story, who knows maybe some Finn finds him or herself reading this text while considering a job on a grave yard next summer. 

My great-grandmother's grave

My summer job search was long and tiring, I already started to feel I wouldn't get any job for the summer. Then I was called for an interview, which ended up me signing a work contract for Hämeenlinnan seurakuntayhtymä = congregation of Hämeenlinna, which consists of congregations of Hauho, Hämeenlinna-Vanaja, Kalvola, Lammi and Tuulos. I worked on the grave yard of Kalvola, which is situated in Iittala, a smaller part of Hämeenlinna. It is an old grave yard, where the oldest grave stones have been replaced or even stolen. The grave yard has older and newer parts, and also a specific burial place for war heroes.

My job started on May 5^th, 2014 on the grave yard in Kalvola and continued till July 31^st. I worked every week day, work starting at 7 am. Every week I worked for 38 hours and 15 minutes. In the first place it was a bit difficult to wake up so early, but I got used to it. Besides a big plus for work starting so early, was also getting home rather early. It meant there was time for other things in the evenings, not that I would have actually done much. 

A grave yard of Kalvola, Finland

The job that I was conducting there was mainly related to gardening. In May we took care of the overall look of the grave yard before starting to do the maintenance of the flowerbeds and fertilizing. After the flowers were planted for those, who paid the service, the job was mainly about taking care of the flowers, watering, cutting the grass and doing some things to make the grave yard look appealing. 

One of the job tasks was to do customer service, every time that someone came to me for some help, I tried to help him or her with the best possible way I could. It also is a nice touch to greed people, who visit the grave yard – it makes them feel welcome even though grave yard can be such a miserable place. It was also important to remember the emotional bonds that a person can have, when visiting a grave yard. One extra duty for us was to open the door to the church and switch the lights on before a volunteer came there to work as a guide.

The work taught me a whole lot about gardening as I have never been such a green finger before. While working I understood how much the quality of our work had to do with the amount of customers that pay for gardening services. Grave yards would not look as good as they do now if people did not pay taxes to the churches and if people did not buy the services. 

A grave yard in Hamina, Finland

I was able to enhance my team work skills as the job was almost always done in pairs or in a bigger group. The age difference between the youngest and the oldest worker was 40 years, which naturally taught me to work better with older people. I was lucky to have such great co-workers, with whom I got along very well and we sure laughed a lot. 

Working at the congregation of Hämeenlinna, on a grave yard, was great and I truly enjoyed my time there. I was lucky to work with such amazing people, with whom I got along very well. After finishing my work on the grave yard of Kalvola, I worked two more weeks on a different grave yard in Hämeenlinna. 

For anyone thinking of a work on a grave yard, you should be ready to: 

- wake up early every morning 

- be ready to work in any weather condition 

- believe the work is physically more demanding than you may think 

But over all if you like to be outside, this job would suit you very well, so go for it!

A cemetery in Thessaloniki, Greece

On a Positive Side

The previous post was a bit negative towards the whole exchange semester in Greece, so now I want to list down some positive aspects of it. Like every topic, an exchange semester abroad has pros and cons, and now it's time to bring out the best sides of Erasmus.

Experience & Greece:

Through Erasmus you get to know many foreign people and use English. Due to this your social networks grow and your English skills become better.

Of course, you become more independent through this experience, as you need to do all household work including cooking, laundry, washing dishes etc. For people, who haven't thought much of money before, living abroad might teach something about economy and how to spend money.

Living in a foreign country always teaches something about the culture and ways of living. You learn a lot about cultures, and perhaps to respect them more. Personally, I have always been interested in learning about different cultures, which is why snail mailing is my hobby.

I'm sure studying at a different university is also an experience. At least I have noticed so many differences between my university in Finland and the one in Greece. The biggest difference is how organized different things are, which can be said about almost everything.

You get to do lots of sight-seeing at your new hometown and places around it. Personally, I have visited some museums in Thessaloniki. Last Sunday I was also on a trip to the district of Serres and on Monday I visited Meteora. Later this month I'm going to Athens and some weeks back I was in Istanbul, Turkey. I believe traveling is one of the best parts of an exchange semester.

The future opportunities:

I have strong believe in companies valuing people, who have challenged themselves and done an exchange abroad when searching for new employees.

Also the fact that you have lived abroad and your language skills are good enough might help you to find a work abroad later in life. This experience shows that you are qualified in dealing in an cross-cultural environment.

In the end I can say this experience teaches you knew things, to appreciate your roots and helps you in creating your future life! Based on this I can recommend exchange semester or two for everyone. It's not always easy, but it's surely worth it! 

What Do I Miss?

There are many things, which I miss, and that's what this post is all about. There are a few things, which I didn't think of missing before coming here, and some things I knew already when thinking of applying for an exchange. However, my aim is not to list down every single thing that I miss. heh.

Home:

I miss being at home, and not needing to worry so much about grocery shopping, laundry, washing dishes, cooking, etc. I mean I don't mind doing these things, as it's called living, but I'd prefer doing them with someone. Besides, home is always home!!

I miss the possibility of drinking the water that comes from the tap, as it's rather annoying to carry drinking water from a store. Another thing related to water is taking a shower - I can't wait to get to a shower, where the water temperature doesn't change all the time from freezing cold to extremely hot! As a Finn, I miss taking a sauna! I miss the relaxing atmosphere in a sauna and the relaxed feeling afterwards.

Naturally, I miss my room, which I just renovated before moving to Greece. As a snail mail addict I miss coming home and going straight to the mail box to see if I got any mail today - now I don't even have a mail box.

It's annoying not to be putting Christmas lights all over our home at the moment and trying new Christmas recipes! I miss having an oven and proper kitchen equipment! Here I don't have an oven, nor a microwave, and to top this all I don't even have a pot for cooking.

What else, oh yeah, I hate having shoes on inside and the fact that my bathroom ain't connected to my studio apartment. At home I don't need to walk on public halls after taking a shower!

Finland:

What first comes to mind is everything being well-organized as in Greece everything feels so not organized! I miss not having people everywhere, empty buses, empty streets and the nature. What also annoys me is the timing, as the timing issue doesn't seem to be very strict here.

I miss the weather! I mean the weather in Greece is alright, in October it was very warm and now it has been rather gloomy and not cold, but not warm either. I just like cold autumn mornings, when the temperature is just under zero. I'm also waiting for snow, so I hope it snows a lot during the Christmas vacation, when I will be in Finland.

The darkness of the fall is somewhat nice in Finland as well. It's perfect for lighting candles and putting Christmas lights inside and outside.

I also miss cheaper milk products! All yogurts, milks, cheeses and such are expensive here, and I like drinking milk with every meal and I also put quite much milk in coffee. Well, I do miss Finnish coffee as well, not that I would particularly like the flavour, but still.

The air is fresh in Thessaloniki as well, but here you can see much many smokers as it's so crowded everywhere. So I miss emptier streets, where I can walk without people smoking around me. In Finland I can pass a person who smokes while holding my breath, but here it's not possible.

People: 

Mainly I miss my family, people that are close to me!

I miss waiting for mom to come home from work, and then drinking coffee together. This same applies for weekend mornings; waking up and having breakfast together. I also miss some crazy things that we do, digging birch roots from our back yard, for example. hehe.

I miss going to granny's place for lunch. I used to go there once or twice a week before coming to Greece, so not seeing her for months is rather difficult. She is one of the most important people in my life! When going back to Finland, I will surely go see her straight away.

I do miss the relaxing evenings at my dad's place, going jogging with him and then perhaps watching some TV while having a fire in the fireplace. Luckily, my dad is coming here for a visit soon! I do miss my brother as well, not that we would talk a lot!

To sum up, I miss many things! However, I believe living abroad teaches me to appreciate these things more when going back to Finland. Soon I will be in Finland for Christmas, which will be amazing! :)

Time for Sleeping

The headline is a bit misleading because I'm mainly thinking about the time when people should sleep. haha. Thessaloniki (also known as Thessalonica and Salonica) is a major student town in Greece.  Therefore, the city is full of nightlife possibilities. I haven't attended these events nor visited bars or nightclubs because they simply are not my cup of tea. Instead of that I have taken a few walks and seen the beauty of the city in night lighting - waiting for the Christmas lights to appear, tho!

Most of the evenings I have spent at ''home'' watching TV series and movies, browsing the internet or writing letters (yep, you can expect to receive letters from me). During the past few evenings (and days) my interest has been in blogs related to Christmas. I have got so many new ideas, which I plan on executing when I go home for Christmas. Nothing is better than spending Christmas at home with the people you care about, especially if Christmas happens to be your favourite celebration of all. 

What comes to the time when I actually want to sleep, it's so difficult to fall a sleep. Thessaloniki is such a noisy place compared to my hometown, Hämeenlinna. It's not surprising really, because the places are so different by size and also I live almost in the heart of the city here. During the three weeks of living here I have sort of gotten used to the noise, as it doesn't disturb me while sleeping. The difficult part is to fall a sleep, but it's very easy to wake up. Near my ''home'' they are doing some road-construction work every day. And yes, also during the weekends! 

Well, at least there's no chance of over-sleeping. heh. 

Waiting for the Christmas Spirid

People, who know me, also know that I'm a Christmas-person. My interest in Christmas usually makes people around me a bit annoyed, or at least they laugh at me a lot. I don't mind about that, Christmas is my favourite time of the year and that's why I plan on being happy about it getting closer day by day.

Some may say it's way too early to think about Christmas in October, but to be honest I have started thinking about it a lot earlier. For a few days there has been a countdown to Christmas Eve (Dec. 24th) on my blog, because that's when Christmas is celebrated in Finland. And I can say I'm pretty proud of the snowflake effect on my blog - I'm not a very technical person, so I'm quite glad it actually works. haha.

Here in Thessaloniki, I have been trying to search for any Christmas-related things. I have been very unsuccessful with this search. I have read on many Finnish blogs, how they have visited IKEA to see their Christmas sections, which annoys me because here IKEA had zero Christmas related things for sale. heh. I still found a store called 'Jumbo' which had some Christmas things for sale already.

I'm hoping to find Christmas lights for my studio apartment and soon. This time of the year doesn't feel the same without Christmas lights, because if I was at home, I would have had these lights in my room since the beginning of October. The other things that I'm trying to find are Christmas cards. It would be interesting to send Greek cards for my pen pals this year, it would be something different than normally. I can't wait for the Christmas sales to start in Greece - hope it happens soon!

For the past week I have also listened to some (or many!) Christmas songs. Here is one of my favourite Finnish Christmas songs; 'Varpunen Jouluaamuna' sang by Suvi Teräsniska.

Have a nice wait till Christmas!

One of Many Days

For today I had a very good blogging idea in my mind, but I wasn't able to sleep well last night due to being a bit sick. I'm still not feeling good, so this post will be a bit random.

Today my activities have included going to school to discuss with a professor, going grocery shopping and alloying myself to eat some unhealthy delicious things. Come on, when being sick it's allowed to eat not-so-healthy things. ;)

My highlight of the day has been receiving a card from France! :) If you are planning on sending me any mail to Finland, you could ask for my Greek address. I don't want to tell it to everyone because I try to avoid any mail arriving here when I, myself, am not here anymore. Thank you for understanding! 

Why Greece?

Many people have asked me why I wanted to go to Greece for my Erasmus exchange, and honestly I don't have any good answer to this question. Others say, they applied here because of the climate or because of the city being famous for its nightlife. I don't have those reasons for why I'm here, which may sound strange. I love all seasons, and am not that fond of temperature over 25 Celsius degrees. I don't like partying/clubbing either, so this screams me being in a wrong place for the exchange.

To start the story from the beginning, I have always been interested in traveling. This may be because of my dad traveling so much due to his job, tho it doesn't explain my interest in different cultures. I'd say that is my mom talking, as she's one of the reasons why I started correspondence first with Finns and then with foreigners. While writing letters I became more and more interested in different cultures and countries, which boosted my interest in traveling. Then it started, me wanting to experience how it would feel like to live in a foreign country.

Already back in upper secondary school I thought of an exchange year abroad, however, it was impossible due to the high costs of such exchange program. After upper secondary school, I ended up studying international business, majoring in marketing (though, I'm thinking of changing it to management) in English. The fact that I'm conducting my studies in English, opened many new possibilities. All the exchange options felt more possible at this point, as I knew my English was strong enough for conducting my studies in English already in Finland, so I knew it would also be possible abroad.

The timing was easy to decide, as I knew I preferred the fall semester. Why? This is an easy question to answer, because I love snow and winter, so I want to be in Finland that time! Especially because previous winter wasn't very snowy, so I wasn't able to cross-country ski that much - hoping for the up-coming winter to be long and snowy.

What comes to the destination, Greece wasn't my first choice. When I was thinking about the country, my interest was in Canada and Malaysia, but ended up thinking it would be better for me to stay in Europe because I'm a family-person - I like being close to the people I care about. The next idea was to look for universities having the fall semester at the same time that it would be in Finland. That wasn't so easy because most of the European countries have their semester starting later than Finland. I ended up applying to Czech Republic because I found the timing of the semester and the courses most suitable for myself. Unfortunately, my application was denied due to the universities renewing their co-operation contract. I got that information at a time, when Greece was the only place, where it was still possible to apply to.

I was mentally prepared of not being in Finland this fall, so I still wanted to conduct the exchange somewhere. So, that's why I'm here, in Greece. Now I need to deal with some problems that I was trying to avoid, like having overlapping studies for the whole January. I try not to worry too much about it, as January is nowhere close yet. My current goal is to try to enjoy this exchange experience as much as I can!

My Journey to IKEA

One day after waking up I wondered how in the earth would I get this day go by. That time the day seemed to be so long, with nothing to do. I didn't want to just stay inside, I mean who goes for an exchange to stay inside of four walls every day? I started browsing the internet, and got an idea of going to IKEA and checking out the near by shopping center also. I decided to travel there by luck, so I went to stand on the bus stop and took a bus that said IKEA. It was surprisingly easy to go there even though I spent the whole way wondering how long it takes to go there. In the end it took almost 50 mins. During that time I was already worried if I had missed the bus stop, not knowing IKEA was actually the last bus stop. 

After arriving there I decided to head to the Mediterranean Cosmos shopping center. I wasn't completely sure of its location, so I ended up visiting JUMBO store first. It's a place that my tutor recommended me to visit, so I thought why not. The store is a place that any kid would love - it's full of toys. Well, you can find some other things there as well. Personally I was happy to see all the Christmas stuff. I'm a real Xmas person, so I don't mind how early stores start selling Christmas stuff and playing the lovely Christmas songs. Seeing all Xmas related things made me smile, I was happy, even bought cute Christmas-y cupcake cases. I definitely need to go visit this store again when Christmas is closer!

After JUMBO I finally found my way to the shopping center. I didn't consider it any special and found nothing to buy. I mean, most of the stores can be found in the center of Thessaloniki, so why would I go somewhere else to check out the same stores. Yes, it's clear that I'm not fond of shopping. On the way there I saw this abandoned-looking amusement park. I have no clue when it has last been used, but it seemed quite creepy to me. haha. 

Then it was finally IKEA -time. I actually don't know why I wanted to go there, it might have something to do with the fact that I sort of like decorating rooms, or then just because I miss Finland and IKEA is somehow related to it. haha. Anyway, I'm glad I went there. I took my time when walking through the whole place slowly. It was nice to look at all the furniture and think which would look nice in my room, or at our summer cottage. Of course, I also went to eat the famous meatballs. 

After I had nothing left to see, I went outside and noticed the temperature, it was +29!! I decided to walk a bit more before going back ''home''. It was a good idea because I found this sort of a beach kind of a place. In the end the day was nice, but I got a bit sick due to the open windows in the bus and the ride taking so long, still glad I went to IKEA!