Well, the first thing that I want to say is that Finland is a magic country, and all their people are fantastic. Now I can start.
My trip started at three o’clock in the morning, the sun wasn’t out even. I prepared my bag with some sandwiches for the travel, and some important things like the personal identification card and my passport. My teachers were waiting for us (Lucia and me) with a taxi. We had a travel by taxi to the airport in Alicante, which lasted one hour.
When we arrived at the airport we checked in our luggage, and we waited for our plane. The travel wasn’t very long, only an hour, and we were quickly in Madrid. There we waited for a while until to fly. This trip would be much longer…
As we were coming, we could see the snow and the pine trees. I remember that I thought that the plane was going to skate with all that snow. But I was wrong. Fortunately, the plane landed like any other.
I don’t remember how long we waited for the next plane to Oulu, maybe one hour, maybe two, I don’t know. We met there with more teachers and students from the different countries. Our flight had to take off in about an hour, but it was delayed.
When we arrived in Oulu, (I don’t know what the rest of students thought) I was very nervous. While I was picking my suitcase, I saw the Finnish hosts, and I was asking myself who’ll be my host. When I saw Aino and her mum I was nervous too, but I thought: “They are good people and very kind, and I’ll feel really comfortable with them”. And I was right, I was treated as another family member, and I’ll be always grateful.
That night, we had dinner, and we went to bed immediately, because we were very tired. The next morning, I got up at about seven o’clock, because the light from the sky didn’t let me sleep. I went to my room’s window and I drew back the curtains. In this moment my mouth looked like an “O”. I’ve never seen something like this: it was snowing, and the snowflakes were falling down like cotton, opposite my windows there were a lot of trees covered of snow, there were also swings, but I could hardly see them, because they were totally covered of snow, too. I grabbed my camera and I took a photo.
On Saturday, my really first day, we went to Oulu to go shopping. Aino showed me a lot of fantastic places in Oulu. In the afternoon, we had lunch in a Mexican restaurant. And then we went home, because that night we were going to have dinner with her family. We had a very good meal: salmon and mashed potato, different kinds of cheese and some Spanish food that I gave them. After dinner we went to the sauna, and we jumped into the snow :D It was really amazing! I skied too, but it’s better if I don’t tell anybody about all my falls…
The next day we went to an excursion with the school and the different people from the project countries. We went to visit Santa Claus and we visited also the Snow Castle. I slipped with some kind of sled, and a reindeer almost hit me, but the excursion was fantastic :)
On Monday, we went to school like normal students. I didn’t understand anything about the class, because the teachers spoke in Finnish, but I was fascinated because of the seriousness with which students took notes and paid attention. Teachers were very kind with us and spoke in English in the first part of the class.
On Tuesday, we also went to school. The teachers and students from there showed us a very beautiful dance typical of there, and they sang many songs in Finnish, too. After the event, we ate a typical bun, and juice.
In the afternoon, we went shopping with Niina and her guest. Then we went home to change our clothes, because then we were going to do a picnic with some students and hosts from the Comenius project. We had sausages for dinner and then we made a snow war =). We were next to a frozen river, in a campfire. It was a fantastic experience to say bye to Finland. I’ll never forget it…
Wednesday arrived with tears and hugs. I didn’t want to get up because I knew that everything was finished. I said goodbye to Aino’s dad and I picked up my things. Aino and her mum drove me to the airport by car. There I said bye to them…
We took three planes to Murcia, and I arrived home at half past twelve in the night.
But nothing finished, and now I speak with my Finnish host some days, and we keep in touch. I think that if I can go there again I’m going to go, because Finnish manners are fantastic. And I’m very surprised at all that I’ve learned in this trip. And now I can say: “I’ve been to Finland and I love it”.
Marisa López , Murcia, Spain
