sunnuntai 22. maaliskuuta 2015

Bye bye Germany, hello Finland!

Hello dear friends!

I have been very lazy lately writing new posts, because I was on a holiday for almost 2 weeks in Bulgaria and then I had a couple of days time to clean up my room in Germany, fly to Finland, where I stayed the first night at my parents' house and the next day I moved to Turku, where I study. So it's not only laziness, I've actually been busy (too).

Well my point is, that I wasn't actually going to keep writing this blog here in Finland since it was only a travel blog where I was telling my Finnish friends and family how I was doing while traveling. Well, now I start having a big bunch of international friends and I was positively surprised when I was a couple of times asked to keep writing this blog so they could hear how I was doing in Finland :) And I mean, who knows where I'll be working in the summer so maybe I'll keep writing about my life outside of Finland anyway ;).

Since it's been a while from the last time I posted anything I'd have a lot to tell you and I wouldn't probably have problems telling about my last few weeks in one post but none would have the energy to read it all the way through so I'll tell about the last days in Germany, and maybe about my thoughts about doing an exchange in Germany all in all.

So I arrived from Istanbul to Göttingen in the evening on the 14th of March. I was pretty much the only one left in Göttingen from the exchange students (others, who stayed only one semester had left one month ago and the others were traveling since there's a long holiday now between the winter and summer semesters). Luckily my flatmates were still in town so I didn't have to party all by myself that evening. And oh how we partied :D It was a lot of fun and haha the night turned into morning way too soon. Well, my only task for the next day was to pack my stuff (not too easy!) and to clean the tiny room so I had time to sleep in. Unfortunately I wasn't able to pack everything with me so I'm waiting for the rest of the stuff to be sent to me by mail :D Haha. I managed pretty well though, but I wouldn't have done it without the help from my Colombian flatmate who turned out to be great at packing!

The last night we went out for the last supper in the Innenstadt, which was very empty once again! It was like when I arrived early in September: everyone was still on vacation and the city is almost scarily empty and quiet. Only teenage groups wandering around making me feel so old and mature :D

The next day my lovely flatmate made me probably the best (Colombian) breakfast I've ever had!


  Then it was time to return the keys and close the door behind me. Since the first post from Germany started with a pic of my empty room right after I had moved in I have to end the last post about Germany by adding a pic of my empty room right before I closed the door for the last time. So sad, but I was happy at the same time for making this little ''trip'' to Germany :)



So all in all it was a very good choice for me to go to Germany. Not only because of the language, but because I like the culture, everything works and it's unbelievably cheap not to mention its delicious beer... :P
In the beginning I heard that I live ''sooo far away from the campus and city center'' and that I definitively need a bike but it turned out to be a 15 min walk to the campus and I never ended up buying a bike for two reasons: Göttingen is full of bikes and bikers. Too many bikes to be honest!! I'm not very good at riding/driving anything with wheels so I though it would be safer for everyone that I'd not buy one. And second, the bikes were around 80e. I think it's too much for a second hand bike especially when so many bikes get stolen in Göttingen. I know I walk extremely fast so not having a bike wasn't a problem for me, but I do recommend having a bike in Göttingen :D
Living in Studentendorf was also super! I paid 180e for my room, which is a ridiculously small amount for a room, which was small but pretty fresh. The other bathroom was newly renovated and it was cleaned twice a week so it wasn't too bad at all. It was never too crowded in the small kitchen even if I shared it with 10 others. First of all I never saw half of my flatmates (we even called one the caveman since he never came out of his cave and when he did, he went to the door to get the pizza from the delivery man just to go back to his cave to eat it). And the rest of the flatmates ended up being awesome! Some of them were totally out of their minds, and one of my flatmates once told us: "Have you all lost your minds? I live with a bunch of crazy people!" :D but maybe that's exactly why we came along very well :D Anyway I'll miss them a lot and I'm pretty sure I had the best flatmates I could have asked for! I was always rescued from the huge (seriously, mega big!!) spiders, I could always have company while cooking and I was always helped when I needed something (I got something to eat even if I didn't have anything in the fridge since I kept forgetting that everything is closed on a Sunday!). I'd definitively say that my stay wouldn't have been as great as it was if I had had different flatmates :) I'll always be thankful for them!

Since this post is getting (too) long it's time to sum it up: my exchange in Germany was amazing, if anyone is hesitating, don't, just do it!!! :)

L