Going Kokkola

Altough I go in January for a whole month to Kokkola to get some practical training in the Finnish social welfare system. I already am there now to have a little reunion with some friends. Not I only met the Finns I know frome an exchange project, but also a Dutch fellow student of the same project who studies also in Finland. Seinäjoki to be precise.

Before I was in Kokkola, I had to take the train from Turku. The journey itself takes 5 hours with 15min trasfere in Tampere. This fact is already amazing for me. In the Netherlands you never have to sit in the train for that long. We are not that big... Also that there is a restaurant on board jn the train is amazing. I understand why, because if you are hungry or thirsty you need to eat or drink something, especially on long distance trains. But still I find amazing. What I also find remarkable, is that the conducter memorizes if he already has checked your ticket or not. In the Netherlands he checks your ticket everytime when he is doing his round. But in Finland, he does only once because he reconizes your face and I think that is great service and professionalism.

The last 90min I was joined by my fellow Dutch student. We discussed how we experienced our time in Finland and adventures we had here. When we arrived in Kokkola it was one explosion of happiness. It was so great to see our Finnish friends from Kokkola again. After some shopping we returned to one of our friend home, where we'll stay the whole weekend. There, her husband made a full course dinner for us. I forgot what a great cook he is, because I already visit them once, but he deffently is. I still have to get used to the fact that in Finland you have to cut your own part of the cake. While in the Netherlands, the hostes does this for you. The rest of the evening all of us relived memories from our exchange project in Belgium and how our lives went on after that.