Erasmus-matka Turkkiin 9.-16.10.2022

Our Erasmus trip to Turkey began at the Kupittaa railway station. There I met up with Saimi and Linda-Maria. From there we went to Salo where we picked up Toini and continued towards Helsinki airport. At the airport the last member of our group Edina joined us. Once we were all together we took a couple of group photos and continued our way to check in. We printed out the tickets, dropped our baggage and went past the security check. We still had a couple of hours until we could get on board the plane so we went to get something to eat. Once that was done we chilled around for a bit before heading to the gate and going on board the plane. 

For me the plane ride to Antalya was quite chill. I tried to sleep, but wasn’t able to, so I eventually resorted to playing with my phone to pass the time. We arrived in Antalya at around four in the morning. After reclaiming our baggage we went to look for the taxi provided by Antalyas high school, that would take us to the teachers hotel. Once at the teachers hotel we were picked up by our host families and went to sleep for the rest of the night. 

On Monday morning it was a bit rough to wake up due to only having slept three hours last night. I had breakfast with my host family and then started to head off towards the school. Me, my host, my hosts’ friend and the Czech who was also from the erasmus project got a ride from the father of my host. We got dropped off at a caffe near the school where a few other students from the erasmus project tagged along. 

At school we first went to an English class. After that was done we headed down to a hall where the principal gave a short speech. Once the speech was over we got a tour of the school building. We had a lunch break after and then we held presentations. We also went to hear a speech from the former health minister of the municipality. After the school day was over the hosts took us to see the city.

On Tuesday we went to hear a speech by the municipality's minister of education and toured a local sport center. On Wednesday we went to a beach to play beach ball and swim. After which we had a tour of another sports center. On Thursday we gotta visit Olympos which used to be a city at the bottom of the Olympos mountain. Later the same day we decided to go to an amusement park. On Friday we had more presentations at the hall in the school and the ending ceremony where we got diplomas and cake. Saturday was exiting because we got to go rafting. Our raft was actually the first to finish and was four- to fivehundred meters ahead of the other two rafts. I finished the day with my host by watching his favorite soccer team's game from the TV. 

I stayed up that evening because we had to leave early in the morning. At one o'clock my hosts father came to wake us up from the living room and we started heading to the teachers hotel. I said goodbye to my host family and started to wait until the rest of our group would arrive. A few of the groups flights had been canceled or delayed, but luckily we got to leave on time. 

Our first flight back to Finland was to Arlanda. There we stayed a few hours before getting on our connecting flight to Helsinki. At the Helsinki airport we split up. My teachers, Saimi and Edina headed to the train station to go back to Naantali, while I was picked up by my grandma and taken to my cousins in Espoo.

Niklas Porkka