I am glad, that I was able to participate in this project.
It was interesting and important for learning English!
In Finland the time flew very fast now there are beautiful memories of this amazing country.
The best thing I liked was Treasure Hunt in Rauma.
It’s a beautiful old city! Our team did not win. It doesn’t matter, the winners were all, as we learned many interesting facts about the old Rauma.
I think that Rauma in winter is just as beautiful as the white Riga.
I found surprising and funny at the same time, a young girl modeling behind a shop
window in a very small town in Finland.
I heard about something similar in France, I think, but it was the first time I
saw that.
The picture is very funny with the 3 young boys looking at her.
I wanted to share with you this picture I took at Säkylä’s lake. It was a wonderful moment swimming in the lake after sauna. I think I’ll keep it in mind for a very long time. A real moment of peace and relaxation. Something everyone should experience once in his lifetime. It was a real pleasure for me to meet other students and teachers from different countries and get to know them a bit more than through Facebook or Skype. It was thrilling. Thanks again everyone for the moments we shared together! I hope to meet you all during the Belgian mobility. I believe these new friendships we made will last longer than the project and it’s probably the best part of it. The opportunity to make new friends across Europe.
See you all in Belgium !
Our trip to Finland was very nice! It’s a beautiful country with wild nature. I loved the evening sauna. It was the first time I jumped into a lake (with cold water) after going to sauna. It’s a great feeling! It was amazing! I chose this picture because we spent a pleasant evening.”
The picture you can see here was taken in Huittinen, on a very special day: September 30th. At first the visit to the Town Hall and reception with the Mayor hadn’t seemed a very exciting plan but I have to admit it was well worth it! We all met the nicest and kindest mayor I’ve ever seen. He gave a speech in the Town Hall, then the Director of Education explained to all of us the Education System in Finland, where some of the most famous Universities in the world are located. I have to admit that I was surprised when I learned about their system to study at university from their homes without attending the lessons.
When we left that room, around 6:30 p.m. we saw a table full of drinks and delicious Finnish specialties set on a long table in the middle of the hall. Surprisingly, the Mayor had organized all that for us, Grundtvig project people.
After finishing the meal, at 08:00 p.m., we all run to the center of the city to hear another speech from the mayor but that time it was addressed to all the inhabitants of Huittinen, and there was a small fireworks display. Afterwards, some people went shopping but some others, like me, went to a local brewery to have some beer, chat with each other and have fun. What an amazing trip!
It was exciting to start to think and plan for the visit of our new European friends here in Huittinen. We had already got a taste of the gathering from Estonia and Latvia. What could we offer? What could rival the spirit of the Old Town of Tallinn or beautiful architecture of Riga, not to mention the fabulous sandy beach of Jurmala? I have to admit that even though this is not a competition, I felt a little pressure. What is there to see in Huittinen? I might have thought about it more critically than the other members of our group, probably due to the fact that I wasn’t born here and I do not necessarily feel that kind of love to Huittinen as my home that would make my eyes shining, when introducing the uniqueness of our municipality.
So, what to show to you? The Church? What is so unique in our church that is so great that our visitors will be delighted? After all, it is certainly beautiful, but the fact is that every single town has its own church, and how might one expect people from different religions in general to see it as interesting or even beautiful? I wonder how many of us even here in Huittinen go there, so isn’t it a kind of fraud … to be proud to introduce the building, which most people, at least of my age, are alienated from and do not feel their own?
Here we were, in the middle of our fields, frantically wondering how we would spend the three rainy autumn days in an interesting way? We were hit by luck! We heard that The Crazy Night of Huittinen would fall on the same weekend when you come. At least people are on the move and even stores are going to keep their doors open later. Furthermore, when it is added with a tour in Rauma and sauna in Säkylä … would it be there????
All my fears and my doubts fell off as soon as I met you on Thursday evening when you arrived! There were no longer the guests and hosts, just friends who wanted sincerely, without prejudice to enjoy each other’s company. You were ready to accept everything offered. Even that sauna and swimming in the icy water, to which nothing in the world would have been able to take me if you all hadn’t wanted to experience it.
As soon as you arrived, there was conveyed a feeling of togetherness, immediacy, the desire to get to know our culture and our customs.
We did not offer you a great hotel and magnificent old buildings, no major shopping paradises. We offered darkness and silence. And ourselves. Your receptivity took off at least my reservations and got me to know the kind of immediacy that one often has to search only.
I wonder why we want to meet each other? The answer is obvious. That isn’t organized excursions or fine settings, but the people. People from all over Europe. People who are externally different from each other, but basically the same everywhere. We all breathe the same air, we eat, we sleep, we love … And now we are studying a common language, so that we are able to speak and to understand each other better. It does not matter where we meet, what kind of program we have in these meetings, at what kind of restaurant we eat and where we sleep. Only thing that matters is that we meet each other and learn to understand each other, each other’s cultures and ways of life. We’ll create experiences together.
I had to pick one photo for this entry. On Facebook there are hundreds of them, some of them are my favorites. But it would have been unfair to choose some other picture than this one of the whole group. In this picture, there is all that why that meeting in Huittinen has received so much praise. You. You made those three days memorable. I can hardly wait for February and seeing you again, the next event to make memories. See you all soon!
Regards, Satu
This photo was taken during the sauna evening in Finland. It was a beautiful place Pyhäjärvi lake, on 29th of September.
All the teams in the Grundtvig project went to the lake by bus and we were all talking about the sauna as something exciting and healthy for our bodies but when we got off the bus it was cold, about 10 ºC and I did not want to know what the water temperature was but I had a lot of doubts about whether I would enjoy “the sauna experience”
The day trip included having dinner in a beautiful detached house in the middle of the forest. Everybody wanted to have dinner quickly so they could go to the “sauna experience” but we men had to wait because all of us couldn’t take a sauna at the same time so the women went to the sauna before dinner and we had dinner first. We had salmon, salad and a delicious apple cake, finally we had coffee.
Suddenly the women came in very happy with the experience. “We took a sauna and then we took a dip
in the lake, three times!!”, they said. In all this time night fallen and it was our turn. We changed our clothes, took a cold shower and then entered the sauna. I couldn’t believe that we were at sixty
five degrees. I have to admit that I was suffering inside the sauna but when we went to the lake across a path in the forest and took a dip in the lake I felt very well. After wards we came back to the sauna and then we took another dip. When I went out of the sauna I felt very relaxed like never before in my life so I enjoyed the sauna a lot.
I have to admit that when I got off the bus I was thinking to myself that I wouldn’t take a dip in the lake but in the end It was the best part of the trip.
Maybe a lot of people in Spain go to the sauna in our country but I would tell them that is not the same as taking a sauna and then a dip in a beautiful lake at night.
We finished the trip having a hot coffee and talking to the others about this great experience.
I have thank to Valerie from Belgium for taking this photo and sending it to me.
The photo in this newspaper is not a photo of world leaders nor is it a picture of monetary authorities or that of a commission of military chiefs looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction in a distant country. This is a photo of people who attempt to connect, share experiences, build relationships, meet other people, know other places and … share two great days through English.
So sometimes I stop to think on how the same language is used for so many different purposes, it only depends on the people who say the words; in our case there were important words like moss, Town Hall, friends, Latvia, bar, Croatia, sauna, education, Finland, university, Spain, adults Center, Estonia, Natural Park, Belgium, cooperation…… but not other words that I don’t want to say because I am not any world leader. All these words floated in the air in the “very nice and clean” Huittinen that took care of us so well for three wonderful days.
Kiitos Huittinen !
I must admit than when I first saw the Finnish agenda for the mobility I felt disappointed, I was going to travel thousands of kilometers and I wouldn’t be able to visit the capital city Helsinki!, instead there were lots of places to visit and activities that didn’t seem very attractive to me at the time. I did tell Carmen on the day we all had a meeting previous to the trip and she told me: ‘Don’t worry, Ana, you’ll have a great time, you’ll see, and you’ll get to know places you wouldn’t be able to visit as a tourist’. Well, I wasn’t totally convinced but what I could do? nothing! things were like that and I couldn’t change them
Now, as I seat in my house writing this I must admit that not only was she right but the whole trip went way above my expectations!!
I started to change my mind while I was on the bus on our way to Huittinen. The landscape was what first called my attention, it was flat but with lots of forest, I started feeling relaxed and enjoying it. But a new surprise was waiting for me. People, I had never talked to before, welcomed me with open arms.
The place where we stayed was nice and cozy, All the places we visited and all the activities we took part in had been prepared with great effort and enthusiasm. I immersed myself into them easily, I just enjoyed them. I did not feel as a tourist in a foreign country, I felt part of it thanks to the Finnish people that were doing their best for us to feel part of them, and they succeeded in a way I would have thought impossible!
When I remember my first impression in reading the agenda, not only was Carmen right, I enjoyed myself beyond all my expectations!!
ACTIVE LANGUAGE 