Being "home" again - alias Finland, HERE I COME!!!

Oh yes, I was there. I mean I was in Finland AGAIN! After one year (and a few days) I finally came back. You know, I needed to check if Finland is still at the same place and still as beautiful as it used to be. And guess what - it IS!! And I still enjoy it as much as I did before, even though my trip was accomplished with quite a few problems and unpleasant moments. But after all, that’s life, right?

Anyway, I decided to visit Finland during this summer already a year ago, though many of the other ex-exchange students have already been there in autumn or winter, but I was a little bit too busy with managing my life and studies here in Prague to leave. Even though I wanted to go back so badly! But Finland was on my mind for whole the time and soon I was quite sure that I would go there in July for 3 weeks (one of them was a work-camp in Lapland). By June I was already done with my school - I graduated (yippee!!) and passed entrance exams to universities (in the end I chose the veterinary one) and started finishing my preparations for trip to Finland. Here came the first complications - flight tickets and place-to-stay problems.

I would never believe it can be sooooo damn difficult to get the flight tickets! I saw cheap suitable flights disappearing right in front of my eyes just because the credit card refused to communicate with the server. The prices got so unbelievably high that I thought I would have to walk to Finland! But in the end I solved the problem - business class flights over Amsterdam to Helsinki. Ridiculous, but why not?

My second problem was accommodation. I thought I would stay at my host family, but some misunderstandings appeared and in the end I couldn’t stay there. So just a few weeks before my plane took off, I got this “amazing” news and I started searching like a crazy for places to stay -  I’m not a millionaire to stay in hotel (or even hostel) in Finland and therefore it was clear I had to find accommodation somewhere else otherwise I would have to cancel the whole trip. I would never believe how such a situation can make a pretty thick line between your friends and "friends" - some of my good "friends" ( before I thought they were in the friends group) didn’t even bother to help which quite disappointed me, but at least I know with who I shouldn’t waste my time anymore. Luckily there are still some very very nice people in Finland who immediately offered to help me and hosted me which, in the end, was surely much much better and more interesting than staying at one place for almost 2 weeks. In the end I stayed at 5 different places and I really enjoyed it! I saw new places and met new people, I got to talk to my old-time friend face-to-face again, so what more to wish for??

I can fly!

No, I can’t, not even with the airplane. This was the first time I actually flew ALONE, first time I had to change the planes and first time I went with the business class. And unfortunately also first time when my plane was late - yes, the first plane couldn’t take off due to dense fog and I almost didn’t make it to the other one from Amsterdam. In the end I literally ran into the second plane, but my luggage was left behind. Hmm, what a luck, right? So I ended up in Helsinki, horribly tired, stressed out and without luggage and with that "this is gonna be a catastrophe" feeling.  Luckily there was already my friend waiting for me and I cannot even describe how happy I was to see her! I also got to meet her amazing boyfriend and I spent a few days with those lovely people. We talked the last year of our lives all over, we shared the happy and not very happy moments, we gossiped, we swore, we made fun of the ones who deserve it… Just like anybody else who would be with their friend after very long, busy and indeed ennobling year. I also saw Kerava, a small town close to Helsinki and I visited the capital as well. One thing I need to say about my trip to Helsinki – the city is still the same! I would swear I was even meeting the same people! But that’s what makes you feel like being at home…

After a few pleasant days I had to leave and continue my trip, this time to Tampere, the city I love, the city of my heart. I spent a day with my ex-support person and I really enjoyed it. I spoke Finnish again (I mean I made some strange noises which could be considered Finnish language in some moments :) ) and I did the typical Finnish activities again – rowing on a lake, running away from rain, sauna, eating fresh strawberries and very typical activity for my year  – talking to that amazing person who used to “support me” during my exchange year. I enjoyed it so much and I really felt like being welcomed. 

Rock, strawberries and a lemon pie

The next day I spent in Tampere walking around known but also unknown (yes, I found some places I hadn’t seen before!) places, I also stopped by in the city library (yay, my card is still valid) and in shops I used to go to very often. It was no surprise Tampere didn’t really change. Of course there was a few new shops and restaurants on the main street, but nothing super new or surprising. Sometimes I felt like walking home from school, like I should go to the bus stop and take the bus to Nokia, like I should take out my biology book and read… It was all the same, but sometimes I saw some things in a different way. Maybe because now I could compare with Czech with still fresh memories (for example now I agree that Finns have salty butter which I never noticed before), maybe because I wasn’t exchange student with all the rules and limits anymore, maybe because I was one year older – who knows; just the feeling was sometimes different.

Before leaving to my host-family I saw a few concerts in Tammerfest festival and it was kinda cool – seeing those young Finnish musicians I would otherwise never ever heard about, while sitting outside, enjoying the few minutes of sun before the rain started again (the weather was indeed Finnish unlike during my exchange year). And then my ex-host-dad picked me up and I went to the place I called home for almost 10 months. And again, it felt just like if I only came back from school, just like normal day. Even the dog and cat welcomed me (I was quite surprised by cat’s super friendly reaction) and I enjoyed really nice evening with my host family. The next day I happened to do another typical Finnish summer activity – my host-sister took me to picking of strawberries. That means eating tons of strawberries (until you also feel like a big red strawberry) while running away every time it starts to rain. 

It was fun, but soon I had to continue my way – back to Tampere to my 2-weeks-host-family which hosted me while my real one was away. I really love this family and luckily I stayed in touch with the host-mum and could visit them. There, finally, I felt like really at home, like in family. Beside their little boy, there was also summer exchange student from the USA and so I fitted in so naturally, I just felt like one of the family’s kids, yay! And my “strawberries day” was wittily finished with pancakes with strawberries and strawberry juice. Honestly, I thought I would never eat this fruit again!!

The next days I spent mostly hanging out with that exchange student, playing cards with him and the host-brother and also translating – “tell him that …” (in Finnish) or “tell him that…”(in English). Translating from one non-native language to another is really not my cup of tea, but what wouldn’t I do for those sweethearts?? I felt like an exchange student again – we even went to Rax pizza-buffet and we tried to make a truly American food – lemon pie. And of course it took ages and wasn’t too successful, but that’s how it should be when you are an exchange student, right?? :) I was also introduced to another exchange student and I must say we did have blast!

The Lapland calling

But even the nice time in this wonderful family came to its end, after talking a lot (also talking quite a lot in Finnish - it surprised me how nicely and naturaly it sometimes went!) and enjoying the nice warm feeling, I continued to my ex-boyfriend’s place. Again, another place where I used to spend a lot of time and where I met many new people, again nothing really changed there. Of course, what changed was the kind of relationship between me and my ex, although I must say not in the “normal” way (= from dating to me trying to kill the idiot I used to date) and therefore the time I spent there felt quite natural and nice. :)
During that time I also did a little bit of shopping - I bought 8 Finnish books, one of them I was searching for for ages! It's one of my most favorite books called The Maid Silja (Nuorena nukkunut)  by Frans Eemil Sillanpää and I can tell you that when I finally found the book in second-hand book store, when I saw the  title and when I placed my hands on this very old looking book and when I checked the year of publication and it was 1933… I was the happiest person in Finland.

Bun soon I had to leave from Tampere because my way up north was about to begin. But let’s talk about that week some other time….

Life goes on after exchange…oh, really??

Well, here I go again! Maybe I shouldn’t write here anymore when my exchange year is already over (half a year), but isn’t that the best reason for a new article?

Actually the main impulse for writing this article about life of an ex-exchange student was an article I read the other day - www.multilingualliving.com/2010/05/28/returning-home-after-living-abroad/. I can tell you that I almost screamed „THATS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL“after every paragraph of it! :) Although I was of course happy not to be the only one who feels like that, it also scared me a little bit – it seems the author is still missing something wherever she goes. And I so hoped this feeling would eventually disappear…

But starting from the beginning (or should I say the end?) - the first days of my ex-exchanging  were pure HELL. It all started off with leaving of my dear host family, hiding my tearful eyes and trying to understand what was happening around. Which, by the way, was totally pointless because there wasn’t any nice or logic explanation of what was happening, just the facts: I was done. Leaving. It was the end of being cool (and foreigner) and the beginning of the inner fights between the old and new me. Even if I came back, it would never be the same again. That’s just it. Cope with it.

Czech Mafia forever! <3

Quite depressive, isn’t it? Luckily we got the chance to take one more deep breath before going to our home countries – YES camp. YES alias Young European Seminar is a camp organized by European YFUs in Germany for all exchangers from European countries who spent their year in another European country. That means a lot of (around 400) young people who try to enjoy their last days of that unusual experience as much as they can. So yes, we did partied a lot. Beside this there was the official program which was always somehow relative to the theme of whole YES 2011 – A world without borders – a European dream? For people like me, who don’t like simulations of parliaments and being moved from one place to another according to a schedule, could this official part be quite annoying, but most of the activities turned out to be much more fun than I thought. The one activity that always comes to my mind when thinking about YES, is a simulation of emigration with all the things like bribes, blackmailing, peddling, forging and annoyed officers. It was a lot of fun, but sometimes quite horrible to find out how desperate the situation can be (my role was a bullied gay who is trying to escape from his home country which is not safe for him anymore) and how impossible it is to get a new, better life.

After that came (at least for me) the most stressing part– coming home. We (6 ex-exchangers) went to Prague by train and it gave us chance to see again a part of the country where we were born. My thoughts after crossing the borders were something like: “OMG, did we always have suuuuuch high mountains? Blah, those buildings are so old and disgusting! Back at home – that guy has socks in his sandals, how typical! Hm, can I really smell the sweat?” And that’s when my culture shock started – the biggest and the only one from whole exchange year - the shock from my own culture.

Then all things happened really quickly. Suddenly the train stopped, I could recognize the Prague’s main railway station (not a thing you would like to see as first from Prague for sure), I saw my parents and did the last hopeless try to delay the end of me as an exchange student – with tears in my eyes I refused to get out of the train. Silly, but what can a man do? Then I saw my friend and family, I didn’t recognize my younger sister because she changed so much since I left. Everything felt strange, but normal in the same time. I had problems speaking Czech and I was told to have a funny accent. My dog barked at me and seemed to be angry – I don’t really know if it was because I left him at home for whole year or because I came back so he wouldn’t have my bed just for himself anymore. Then first food at home – fruit dumplings. First night in my bed. First morning and waking up without having a clue where and why I was. :) First time going to shop – my head hurt really badly just after 5 minutes. It wasn’t because of the prices which I kept getting terrified of (1 czech crown = cca 30 euros -> for a person who is used to euros are numbers like 120 (Kc) for razors a big shock), but because of those people who spoke Czech. After one year when I heard Czech just from people who talked to me was this tsunami of Czech language all around killing me. My ears tried to catch every word of every chat happening around me and my head just didn’t take it anymore. So my advice is: DON’T GO SHOPPING AFTER COMING BACK HOME!

Then I left for a camp where I go regularly every year. I see those people usually just once a year so it was surprisingly normal and natural to be there with them. But soon I found out that my culture shock is not over at all – I kept sleeping whole nights and days (before that I usually slept 5 hours per night), I felt totally exhausted and every morning when I woke up I felt like after a week of intense partying and just fell asleep again. My head was ringing all the time, I lost my appetite and I was very annoyed by behavior of my family members (after all, I changed a lot and I lived in totally different family for one year!). The rest of my summer holidays I spent with my family at different places and by studying for my passing exams.

In the end of the summer I went to YFU seminar and met other YFU’s ex-exchangers and those few amazing people who decided to spend their exchange year in the Czech Republic. I had great time there, finally I felt like being among people who really understand what I was going through. It’s really funny how close and well-known those people feel even though you haven’t met them many times. On the other hand, it was quite strange to be “on the other side” – to be a volunteer (or in that time almost – volunteer).

After the start of school most of the things fell back to the same old stereotype. But still, it felt so different! Still I felt that I was missing at least a half of me, a half of my life, a half of my heart.  I was thinking about Finland all the time and I really couldn’t get used to living in my family again. All I wished for was to go somewhere far away, to be there alone or with my friends from Finland, to be  with tolerant and open-minded people who don’t mind foreigners and foreigner cultures or even love them, just like me. That has been the main problem after coming back for me as my parents are not like that at all and still I cannot cope with that. Finally the main point – I changed. And I changed a lot. Some of my more tolerant friends tried really hard to get on with the new me (and were mostly successful) and forget the old one, but most of the people around me didn’t really feel the need to realize who I am now. But who cares about such people, right. ;)

A lot of things happened during that half a year and, after a few fouls, faults and disappointments, I finally found out what can replace at least some of the things I was missing - FOREIGNERS. Many of them! Girls or boys, my age or older, students or workers, party people or serious ones, people from over the ocean or people from Europe… Anybody brought me back those amazing feelings I had when I was foreigner.  I love that time I spend with them and I can never get enough of it!

Though, life hasn’t been fair lately and I lost my very dear friend who was enjoying his great life abroad. It touched my heart and made me realize how simply somebody can just disappear from our lives. I still think of him and keep my fingers crossed for him so he gets back to his beautiful life again. One thing I learnt from that – friends are something that cannot be replaced. Whole my life I had a feeling that it’s so easy to find friends everywhere so why to care about them so much. But it wasn’t till this moment that I realized, how special each of them is and how a big hole can be left after them when they cannot be around anymore.