Hi everybody!
It’s Wednesday now, so I already had a few days of internship, that’s why I wanted to update you. I started on Monday, at 9 and Anna-Maria, my mentor, showed me the building. It’s so beautiful, there is a fitness complex and a sauna in here! I met my colleagues at the International Office and they were really kind.

I had a meeting on Monday with Jenny, Project Manager (International marketing), and with Anna-Maria, to talk about the tasks that I would get. Me and Alberto, that’s another intern from Mexico, already brainstormed about things we could do. We thought about making a guide for exchange students, so they won’t be having a culture shock. We wanted to discover the Finnish culture, the Finnish people with their habits and so on and describe that in the guide. So that’s one of our tasks, we’re going to set up a plan how to make this guide. We are aware of the fact that there is already a “Survival guide” available, but we want to make the guide more student-for-student and exposed on the internet, on Facebook for example. That brings me to another task I have: managing the Facebook account. I’m inviting all the incoming students to become a member of our group and I keep everyone up-to-date about upcoming events. My plan is to get in contact with tutors from Rauma and Kankaanpaa to involve them in the process of Facebook as well, but I’m working on that.

Another task that I got, is taking interviews with several Finnish students. Likely to be: one person who has experience in studying and doing his internship abroad, one student who is an international tutor and one student who is taking part of an international course. I really like this task, because I can get to know the Finnish people better. I’ve send a few students an email if they wanted to help me answering the questions and based on that, I will write an article for the Vaihtoon!-leaflet about those students. The goal is to stimulate other Finnish students to go abroad, become an international tutor or participate a international course. It’s a challenge writing this article and I’m really excited!

I have to say that I really like Finland, although right now I’m seeing only a small part of it called Pori ;-). But I love the weather, it’s around 20 degrees and it’s so light! The sun comes up around five and goes under around ten, so the days are so long and I love that. I also like the Finnish people, I have to say that they are so different than Dutch people!
There are a few things that I’ve noticed, as a Dutch girl (I don’t want to generalize but this is my experience after nearly a week, so please don’t judge me for this ;-)).
- Finnish people pick up the phone with just their name and then start the question they have. In Holland it’s like: “Hi, this is Sanne speaking! How are you doing? What have you been up to today? Hey I have this question…”. So Finnish people are more direct and I kind of like it.
- In Holland it’s common to greet nearly everyone you see when you walk down the street, especially in small towns and when there no other people walking the street. I did this the first day and based on their look, I think they thought I was insane ;-).
- People in the bar, like bartenders, are getting nervous when they notice that you speak English. Although they speak English very well, still they are getting nervous and get scared of making mistakes. But hey, my English isn’t that good either! That brings me to the next point;
- Everyone wants to help you and are trying to speak English. Most of them are quite good at it!
These are a few points that I’ve noticed in nearly a week, the list is getting longer when I’m here for a longer time I guess ;-).

That’s about it for now!
Ciao!