EXCHANGE IN Finland

The 1st day Sun 22/01/18

At eight o'clock in the morning we left Loimaa for Helsinki to meet our guests for the week. We arrived at the Eurohostel in Helsinki at 10.15 and after that we met our guests over breakfast. We ate bread, fruit and yoghurt with juice and coffee.

We left the hostel at 11.30 and started our sightseeing at 12.00 by foot. We walked to the Senate Square while listening to our tour guide talk about markable buildings around the square. From there we carried on by bus and drove around in Helsinki. We got to know a lot about the history of Helsinki and saw Sibelius monument, Finlandia-hall, Parliament house to mention but a few.

At 14.00 we were dropped off to Kamppi and there we ate lunch and visited Finnish shops and stores. At 16.05 we arrived at the museum of technology and we went on two 20 minute tours around the exhibit. The exhibition told about the development of information technology. After that we left Helsinki and arrived in Loimaa at 19.40. Then we went to our homes, ate dinner and went to sleep.

-Kristiina Kössi-

The 3rd day Tuesday 24/01/2018

This day was full of exciting activities. In the morning students took part in a workshop about digital footprints. They watched a great video about it and googled themselves in order to see what their digital footprints are like.

During the next activity students took part in a Quizlet Live game and they practised the vocabulary of IT and computers.

After hard work it was time to have some fun, so students played bubble football! They enjoyed it very much and they had a great time trying to play football inside big bubbles.

We could also learn some Finnish after lunch. We learnt some basic language such as numbers and important expressions for introducing ourselves, It was really useful. We could use these expressions during the rest of the week.

The last activity of the day was to shoot a video about digital footprint. Students worked in international teams and they had to create a short film on a given topic, for example Typical footprints of a European High school or Social media and future career. Students were really creative and solved the tasks very well.

After a hard-working day both students and teachers could relax a little bit, and as two of the guest students had their birthday on this day the students even had a birthday party.

The 4th day - Wednesday 24/01/2018

Today everything was covered by snow at dawn and just like the other days we had activities and workshops in the morning. Students were divided into two groups. While the first group was visiting the local library the other one attended a workshop about critical thinking and how to distinguish between fake and reliable news on the Internet. Then, they switched activities. When the second group returned from the library, all students took part in a workshop about symbaloo, a digital platform which is very easy and useful for collecting and organizing your digital stuff and creating electronic portfolios among other things. Then, everybody had lunch at the school canteen and, after that, guest students had the opportunity to attend different lessons that they could choose.

At four o’clock we took a bus to Mellilänjärvi lake where we spent the rest of the day. Next to the lake there were two cabins, the first one was a like a cottage but the second one had a big sauna which led to the frozen lake. We spent the afternoon playing games, taking photos and throwing snowballs outside; after that we could stay in the cottage or we could go into the sauna. The bravest had a dip in the frozen lake.

In the evening we had dinner and every country gave various performances about something new and something old from their culture The Hungarian, Italian, Slovene and Finnish students sang typical songs from their respective country. The Spanish team danced to some popular songs and the rest of groups joined . We spent a really good time there, It was an unforgettable experience for all of us.

5th day, January 25th, Thursday, a day in Turku

On Thursday 25th we went to Turku and we had the opportunity to visitit a famous library, We arrived there at 10 o’clock and immediatly we started the visit. It was so big and it is amazing that everyday 1800 people go there for studying, reading or visiting. The guide began to tell us, first of all, something about its history. The city of Turku, which has got about 170 000 inhabitants, offers library services in the main library, 12 branch libraries and two mobile libraries.

The Turku Main Library, an 2,900 m² old building, is a Dutch late Renassaince style building, constructed in 1903, built and delivered by Turku commercial counsellor Fredic Von Rettig .The first floor was a National library for the working class and the second was the city library for academics. These two libraries merged in 1912 to become Turku City Library.

Turku City Library expanded its operations and moved to a newly constructed building in 2007 and there is approximately 5,400 m² of space in the new building.1!

Turku Main Library currently occupies three buildings: the old and new buildings and a former office building for the governor built in 1818 which isnow CaféSirius .Thereisnow a walkway which connects the three buildings.

During our visit we could see the reference, magazine and the children sections, all located in the new building where there are computers, magazines, newspapers and 3D pinters. The fiction, art and music sections are, instead, in the old building where you can find CDs, movies and games. Here there’s also a small but beautiful room with two pianos where you can just sit and play…so wonderfull!

A very interesting thing was to find out that the books are borrowed and returned by modern machines. It's also incredible to know that the library has got 1 milion volumes and that every year 3 million loans take place.

After visiting the beautiful library in Turku, we went together to Hub Turku, a centre where we had a workshop about social media and internet. There we met some people who work every day in that place thinking about new and smart ideas .

Being in a circle we also talked to a Finnish ‘’ youtuber’’ who shared with us his personal experience about youtube.The boy told us that he started to record and share his video only for having fun in his free time,but after that this hobby became a real job for him.

The worst thing, the Finnish boy told us, is having no idea about recording a video, because having no idea means no video so you cannot take money without any videos or something interesting for your followers.

After leaving the library we went to visit Turku Cathedral. The cathedral was very beautiful and the finnish teacher gave us some information. Turku Cathedral is the previous catholic cathedral of Finland, today the Mother Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.The cathedral is situated in the heart of Turku next to the Old Great Square, by the river Aura.The cathedral was originally built out of wood in the late 13th century, and was dedicated as the main cathedral of Finland in 1300, the seat of the Catholic bishop of Turku. It was considerably expanded in the 14th and 15th centuries, mainly using stone as the construction material. The cathedral was badly damaged during the Great Fire of Turku in 1827, and was rebuilt to a great extent afterwards. We entered the cathedral and it was really amazing. After that we went to the bus and we had a little break.

After the workshop we had lunch in a fantastic place. We entered a building and we went to the top floor.There were many different foods and some were typical Finnish such as black bread. It was all very good! During lunch the Finnish teacher thanked us and gave each school the mascot of the project. Once we had finished lunch we had a few hours free to go to the shopping centers and do some shopping. We could stay in the shopping malls until six o'clock and then we had to go back to the bus. When we were all on the bus we left and we went back to Loimaa.

Martina, Eleonora, Agnese