Starting To Feel At Home

(I AM STARTING THIS BLOG POST WITH A BACKSTORY.)

I hate admitting this...but I was kind of having a hard time this past week. I wasn't homesick...but I did want friends.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE Finland.

I love everything about this place.

But it does get a little lonely when you don't have very many friends.

Its not that people don't want to talk to me, or that they don't want to be my friend, it is just that Fins are just shy and they are afraid to talk to you. It is just the culture, and you absolutely CAN NOT take it the wrong way, or think that people just don't want to talk to you. Just because people don't talk to you, it does NOT mean they don't want to and that they don't want to be your friend... But it IS hard sometimes when you don't have anyone to really talk with day after day at school.

So as a wrap up from the backstory, this last week was kind of hard for me... but this past weekend I had my 17th birthday, and I went with some of my friends on a road trip to Helsinki; and it was REALLY nice to be around them and get to know them better...especially after feeling kind of alone this last week at school. :)

And THIS is why I am making this post. For some reason I have been in a bit of a "list" mood, as you can tell from my previous posts; and so this post will be about some of the things I have learned while being in Finland, and shenanigans like that.

(END OF THE BACKSTORY TO THIS POST.)


Now to start the main point of this post,


I am FINALLY starting to settle into my life here in Finland, and I am starting to really get into the swing of things.

This week is MUCH different than last week...

I am finally starting to feel at home.

(I mean, I felt like I was at home at my host family's house, but at school I just kind of felt a little lonely and I was confused CONSTANTLY...)

I realized I am starting to feel at home today when I had an exchange student meeting with the school counselor about the exam week this next week and about the second jasko. (So we got new classes and such...which I will write about in another post). I realized I am starting to feel at home today  when I got to show the new exchange student from Thailand around the school.

While we walked around the school, I realized that I knew where most of the classrooms in the school were, and how things sort of worked.

It was great!

I also realized I am starting to feel at home today when a group of kids from my class invited me to sit with them and help them with their English homework. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal to you...but for the Foreign Exchange Student who has been standing alone in a hallway day after day, being invited to sit at a table full of my Finnish classmates ...is a HUGE deal! I felt like I was being accepted, and that I was no longer "The Weird Foreign Kid."

(So, to any of the kids from my class who read my blog: Thank you SO much for inviting me to sit with you today! It might have been something small, but it seriously meant the world to me!) :)

I feel like I am really FINALLY starting to make friends and really feel at home; which is seriously AWESOME because it has taken me SO long to make friends. (Which is NOT a bad thing at all, and I know that the meaning of friendship is a lot, because once you make a friend; they're your friend for life.)

So, now I want to make a miniature list about two important things that I have learned during my 7 weeks in Finland:

1.) You do NOT have to speak the same language to be friends with someone:

I have learned that just because you speak a different language, it does NOT mean that you cant be friends with someone...I have made some friends who NEVER speak English to me; and I think that our friendship is something really special.

You can speak a totally different language, and still be friends...you just find other ways to communicate with each other. We laugh together, and have fun together; and even though we have a hard time communicating using words- but it doesn't matter because we can STILL be friends.

Almost every Finn can speak English VERY well, and so when someone ONLY uses Finnish to communicate with me, it makes me REALLY happy and excited inside! :)

It takes a LOT of patients to talk to me only using Finnish.

You have to speak REALLY slow, and you have to try REALLY hard to understand what I am trying to say. It takes me awhile to say the words that I am trying to say to you, and they NEVER come out right, and the are usually NEVER grammatically correct.

BUT it makes my day EVERYTIME someone ONLY uses Finnish to communicate with me.

Even though you know that English would be faster and easier for the both of us, instead you take the time to be patient with me and teach me, because you know that I want to learn Finnish.

It really DOES mean the world to me; and I wish that more people would only speak to me only using Finnish.

2.) People respect the fact that you try:

I KNOW that I sound silly and REALLY unintelligent when I speak Finnish...but I try anyway. I KNOW what I say usually isn't ever grammatically correct, but I say it anyways because if I want to learn, I CANT be afraid to make huge mistakes.

BUT I have found that people will usually NEVER treat you like an idiot, no matter how much of one you sound like.

People really respect the fact that I am trying my very best to speak Finnish, and even though I make really silly mistakes ALL the time; people simply correct me and teach me the right way to say and pronounce things.

It really makes my day because I KNOW I sound stupid, and yet people NEVER treat me like the idiot I really sound like.

It is still really embarrassing for me to speak Finnish because I know before I even start speaking that what I am about to say is NOT correct and that I will sound silly...but I am always really surprised when I find that people never, ever treat me as if I am really stupid and cant communicate when I speak Finnish. They understand that I cant speak very well, and yet they are always willing to let me try to communicate in Finnish and they are always happy to help me.

I am no longer afraid to speak Finnish, and if someone speaks to me in Finnish I dont switch into English, and I will try my best to speak to them only in Finnish. I am REALLY hoping that eventually everyone just speaks to me in Finnish so that I can then REALLY start learning and speaking and communicating in the language.


The BEST compliment by far that I have ever gotten was from one of my friends when they told that I had some real Finnish Sisu in me.

Which meant a HUGE deal to me.

"Sisu" is a hard word for me to translate...

But I guess it means determination, perseverance and strength.

It is something that comes from inside of you I guess, and its is a part of the Finns. Its kind of the like the ability to stay the same, and the word, "sisu" has a very big cultural significance.


 I am REALLY starting to feel at home here in Finland and I am FINALLY settling into life here. I feel as though I actually LIVE here, and in a way I REALLY do. I have my own bedroom, I actually LIVE at my host family's house, I am a real student in school, and I legally LIVE in Finland for a year.

I have chores that I do at my house, I have my own house key, I know where the bus routes go (for the most part), and I know my way around the city, and I even take my host dog for walks.

Being on an exchange is NOT the same as being on vacation or a long holiday...I actually have friends here, and I feel as though I really do have family here. I go to school here, and I LIVE here.

I have a life in Finland, complete with my own little world.

This may sound silly, but I seriously feel like Hannah Montana, because I live two completely different and totally lives... and Oulu, Finland really DOES feel like my second home now.

Things are really starting to fall into place, and I am really starting to love my life here in Finland. :)


“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”
 – Robert Louis Stevenson