Dilara The Explorer

Today, I and my friends decided to visit Parainen. We didn't really know anything about the place, we only had seen about the chalk mine. I had seen it but they hadn't so we thought it would be fun to go and see it. We set off and around an hour later with a bus, we dropped off at Parainen. I must say, I think we were the only tourists. We started to walk around to the city center where we entered a local coffee shop. Our friends got coffee and we decided to buy this giant donut. It tasted quite good! We loved the fact of antique stores swarming the place and wished that they were open. All we could do was, stick our faces on the windows to see what they had inside. We walked towards the sea and sat down along the sea for a while, just relaxing, looking at the boats and talking. It was nice to relax there and feel the wind against our skin. From there, we set off to walk to the chalk mine. It was nice to climb up there and see the view. Interesting mine. From the mine, ...

First of all, I always wanted to take a trip to the Finnish Archipelago. Everyone was talking about it when I arrived in Finland. It wasn’t really the best times to go since it was wintertime but I had plans for the summer. Unfortunately, the trip was postponed since the epidemic made its great appearance. Expect from today. Today, I and my Finnish family decided to make this trip happen. So everyone packed whatever they needed and off we were. I must say, it was a long car trip but just looking out of the window, it was amazing. It was also very interesting to see all the people going to their summer cottages. Everyone either were taking their boat or other things attached to their cars. We waited a little bit at the ferry line but it was okay. For the first time since the epidemic, it really just felt normal and you could feel summer. After the ferry and going through different areas, we went to our secret place that my family had discovered before and had a barbecue. ...

Let’s talk about something I really love in general: Ice Cream. Now, I must say that summer has officially come (not to Finland in this case since it was basically raining and snowing a couple of days ago) but, summer is out there. And here we are still wearing coats. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t have ice cream! Ice cream is life. One of the best things about summer is, you can have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can even make your own ice cream or popsicles. I remember making these lovely strawberry popsicles last summer, they were healthy too! Overall, everyone loves a bit of ice cream. Coming to ice cream flavours, I am a great bitter chocolate, normal chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and another ice cream type they have fan. As long as it is ice cream, I have no problem gobbling it down. But…Salmiakki ice cream? We need to talk. First of all, as we had tried Salmiakki which you can check out from the video up there! It wasn’t the sweetest f...

Did you know that dinosaurs can sing too? Probably not, expect from Barney. Oh Barney, the cute purple dino. When I say dinosaur, Jurassic Park pops up in my mind. As a child I loved to watch that movie and am hoping to visit the Universal Studios to see them too! Now here is the fun thing about dinosaurs in Finland, they are cooler. I might have had a traumatic shock when me and my friend were doing some research for our radio show to come upon…Hevisaurus. Yes! They are real. Like really real. It’s happening! I am talking about some dinosaurs but what is cooler than just dinosaurs? A group of dinosaurs playing Heavy Metal! There is Komppi, Riffi, Herra, Milli and Muffi! Muffi is my favourite one cause he has the purple hair but other than that, who would’ve know that we would have dinosaurs compete in the music industry? They have an amazing website in Finnish that I couldn’t understand at all but Google translate is there for nothing! And you will have a laugh s...

I’ve been through many education systems. From home schooling to the Slavic education system, from British to the American and Turkish school system. So, I’ve been through a lot and I can definitely point out what Finland is doing differently. First of all, when I visited the primary school in Finland, one of the things I noticed was, you cannot enter the school with shoes. I think it really starts from there. That type of thing we also had in my school at Slovakia. We were not allowed to proceed with normal shoes, we would change into our indoor shoes or socks and go inside the school. I was shocked when I saw that. It was familiar with me but I like the idea. It is more like, school is your house. So you respect it. Keep it clean. I think that is one of the most important parts of education in general. Respecting your environment. One of the others things I noticed were the classes. You don’t just sit around. The classes are different, a lot of group activities and individu...

One of the awesome things I ever noticed about Finland was the fact of everyone speaking English! I have never come across anyone that does not understand! I believe that for sure there might be people who do not know but, the majority knows it too well! I was so surprised and relieved. I loved the fact that everyone knew English otherwise, it would definitely be a great trouble for us to communicate. I find that Finnish is a very complex language and I really appreciate it. It has so many words and letters, even when we had our class, it was so difficult for us. We had learnt some stuff to help us around town but we didn’t really need them that much. Everyone magically knows English. It’s like magic. I also find it very good for the Finnish people since English is such a worldwide known language, it is very easy to communicate wherever they go.  That being said, I really like that. Along with this, when I joined for the English classes at the primary school, I could ...

I and my friends also decided to visit Saaronniemi. I had heard a lot about the place and how you could go ice swimming but we decided to visit and see the sea. It was exciting to be somewhat out of Turku and just explore the nature and surroundings. So, from the Turku train station, we took a bus and not even half an hour later, we dropped off at Saaronniemi. I must say, it was very nice when we stepped off. We were greeted with Villa Saaro and we love the building. It looked so lovely but it was closed. We started walking towards the sea and the beach where the saunas were, and I could imagine people running to the sea and running back to the sauna at winter time. It looked exciting. I must say, the weather was terrible. It seemed fine in the morning but when we got there, it was all windy and absolutely cold. But that didn’t stop us from exploring around and just sitting down and watching the sea. It looked fabulous and the sea was amazing. We were having a nice time. We even ...

After things started to turn back into more of a ‘’new normal’’, me and my flatmates decided to go to Naantali. My friend had gone there once and I wondered about the place a lot, so we decided to go again. I had heard a lot about the place and how beautiful it was. So, we took the bus 7 and were on our way to Naantali. One of the famous things of Naantali is, of course the Moomin World. I must say that when we stepped out and started walking around, it was very exciting to see such a beautiful place. We first went down the hill to a beach, where you could see the cathederal. Later on we took a walk around the port and crossed the great bridge to visit the Moomin World. The Moomin World was closed due to the epidemic, so no shops or restaurants were open, but the gates were open to take a walk inside. So, we did that and it was amazing! It was like wandering around and exploring a new island. Also, I did look through the windows too see the props inside and one of my friends knew...

One of the things that I really like about Finland is the outdoor activities available. It is everywhere! Even during this time, you can go out and have fun out in the forest. I just love that. Also it is a good way to exercise and get some fresh air without any contact with people. So, my Finnish family invited me to play some disc with them. First of all, I have never done such a thing. I mean, the last time was probably when I was 10. I was not good at it at all. What I thought was that, it would be like a Frisbee game. I was so wrong. So wrong. All I was told to do was, wear shoes suitable for the forest. I didn’t know what was coming up. We arrived and when we opened the trunk, they had a lot of colorful discs. That’s when I knew, this was serious. Different colors meant different speeds and techniques. I chose the orange color, the most basic one. I didn’t know if I could even throw properly. After a bit of training and looking at the map, we decided to dive right into ...

Ever since even before coming to Finland, I have always wanted to learn more about the Finnish education system since it is known to be the best in the world. So when I came here, I had messaged a couple of schools and asked them if I could join them and learn and experience but never got a reply so this was a great opportunity for me! Let me start with day one. On day one, I went to the school at 9.00 and was greeted by the amazing teacher! She was so happy and passionate about her job and you could see that by her expressions and also she had a very theatrical way! She divided me and the other 4 girls into groups and sent us to different parts of the school with papers to help us. We all sat down with 5th and 6th graders and talked about their favourite foods and interests. Some of them were very shy and some of them were very excited.  We even talked about what I was studying and the aim was so get them to talk English so I think we did a good job. We also met the prin...

On Vappu Day, I and my friends also combined another idea to have fun during Vappu. We decided to get all the snacks we could that we hadn’t tried yet, and actually make a video of us trying them! I must say, it was a very fun and interesting experience especially as we tried Salmiakki! It was so funny to see our faces! We did some sort of a reaction video. We had a lot of things on the menu. I think one of the most exciting things were the Vappu donuts and Tippaleipä. We also had a lot of fun, trying to read the Finnish words on the packages. Now that was very interesting. Here is a list of the things we tried: 1)       Fazer – Doris 2)       Moomin Biscuits 3)       Fazer Praline Biscuits 4)       Tupla Original 5)       Kartanon Tilli & Kermavilli 6)       Kartanon Original 7)       Vap...

During our time in Finland, we were very excited to see what ‘’Vappu’’ was like since from the first day, everyone was talking about it. It sounded very interesting and fun. So, as all the other students, we all were very keen on seeing it and joining the celebrations. In Turku, we had heard that you would gather at a park or by the riverside, spending the day with your friends, eating donuts and Funnel cake (Tippaleipä) while drinking a beverage called ‘’Sima’’. So, it sounded very fun. Unfortunately, the epidemic beat us to it. But that didn’t stop people to celebrate it virtually. It was very interesting to see. We were pretty amazed at how we as humans could still find ways to work around things, even at a lockdown. Our university student union made an online ‘’Vappu’’ virtual room where you could join. Our radio station also had a ‘’live’’ program during Instagram, where everyone was joining and there were a lot of guests talking about what they were doing and how they were cele...