Blog 18.12 - Gathering thougths

Blog 18.12.19 - Gathering thoughts

Appelflappen are great. I'm going to miss those.

In this post, I will attempt to gather some final thoughts about the exchange. What I've thought of it in general, interesting things that happened but didn't get covered in the blog, and other stuff like that. So let us get to it then, shall we?

Work, work, work, work, work, work

Care package. 

The guys even managed to spell my name right.

The last week of the exchange was spent on work placement at Hema. The tasks and daily routine stayed roughly the same as the days before. What left an impression however, was the workplace culture and wonderful coworkers. Everyone was extremely helpful and friendly. Our boss Dimitri (not actually named Sergei) and the others even gave me a nice bunch of gifts as thanks. Absolutely lovely, I ended up having quite the wonderful time working there. This wasn't something I expected after the first two days. 

I'm gonna miss the place.

Cycling is fun

It has probably come up before on the blog, but being able to cycle everywhere has been a delight. Hoorn is roughly 6 km away from Berkhout, and I've cycled that distance twice almost every single day. Not only does it work as a wonderful way to wake oneself up, it's probably done wonders for my physical health. The road between the two towns is lovely as well. 
The bikes provided for us through Horizon haven't been the best, but they've got the job done just fine. Good stuff all around, even if driving in and near the city is still terrifying. 

I'm going to miss this.

Do you believe in stormy weather?

Holland is a good example of the proverb:
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Or in this case, electricity out of wind.

Netherlands is a temperate place. This has been an odd December, considering the temperature has never gone below 5°C. (I don't think?) This means you can cycle all year around!

There are some downsides though. Netherlands is primarily flatlands. Like, actually really flat. With nothing to obstruct it in the countryside, wind is the archenemy of the would-be cyclist. Wind can reach absurd speeds, up to 80 km/h if my weather app is to be believed. Trying to cycle upwind is a poor choice in these extreme cases. Not gonna happen. Couple stupid fast wind with rain, and you've got a wonderful way to spend the evening, if you fancy picking a fight with Mother Nature herself.

A fun thing to do while cycling in the direction of the wind is to take your feet off the pedals and let it carry you. You'd be surprised how far you can get without touching those pedals.

Not sure if I'll miss this.

Food is cheap. Everything else is not.

This is something I've noticed during the weeks spent in Holland. Food is very affordable, both at the restaurants I've visited and at the supermarket. This might have something to do with taxes or something, I don't really know. 

What makes this interesting is that some general day-to-day items like shampoo and whatnot end up being almost twice as expensive as they would be in Finland. Either way, I've spent perhaps a bit more money than I would've liked. Haha. Ha. Oh dear.

I'll miss the cheap pizza at Domino's.

Next time, it'll be a holiday.

I would definetly like to visit Netherlands again. It's been a lovely trip, but I'm left feeling a bit guilty about perhaps not making the most of it. I've still yet to visit Enkhuizen and it feels like I haven't even scratched the sufrace of Amsterdam. Getting accustomed to a daily routine is an easy trap for me to fall into, and I regret it a bit. Not enough that it would ruin the trip for me, just enough to motivate me to come back again, perhaps.

Travelling abroad like this has really opened up my horizons quite a bit. Now that I've already done it once, planning a visit to another country doesn't seem like the impossible task like it once did. I'll make sure that this doesn't end up being my last trip abroad. It has been a lot of fun, even if I started feeling a bit homesick by the third week.

I'm going to miss all of this, but I will make sure this time will not be the last.

Yours truly, photogenic as ever.

- Sentimental crybaby, Tuomo

Recap of our second week in Holland

Just to clarify I'm writing this blog a bit late than I would have liked. I'll address the reason in the next blog.

Our second week at Hoorn had it's ups and downs. At the start of the week we took the school bus to nearby department store where they had a wide range of different products (hardware, furnishing products etc) I don't have a recollection of the time that we spent there but let me tell you...IT WAS A LOOONG TIME. I did not enjoy one bit of that trip expect the company of our fellow classmates. Those guys and gals really are awesome.

Second week was quite a boring and mentally exhausting for me. (because of the boredomness)
I got a fever and a cold at the same time so I was out of the game for an entire week. While I was sick,  I got a little bit depressed. It was the combination of homesickness and laying in bed accomplishing nothing. I realise now that I'm that kind of a person that gets his drive from being on the go go all the time. When I stop even for a day or two I loose my 'spark' and its extremely hard to get my s**t together sort of speak. I'm trying my best to not fall a part, luckily we're leaving in a couple of days so it wont last long anymore.

Oh and yes, we went to Amsterdam. The city reminded me of Helsinki, without the red light district of course. ;) 8/10 if I had to rate it.

Blog 15.12.19 - Amsterdam's Horror Vacui and the purpose of art

Blog 15.12.19 - Amsterdam's Horror Vacui and the purpose of art

Horror Vacui - In visual art, Horror Vacui or "Fear of Emptiness" is the filling of an entire surface of an artwork with detail. 

The early tourist gets the birds.

This is how I would describe Amsterdam and its streets and stores. All space is brimming with detail. There is no empty space, only clutter.

In case it wasn't obvious, I went on another trip to Amsterdam this Sunday, which is a much more lovely city in the morning, by the way.
The main purpose of the trip was to visit the Rijksmuseum. It's located roughly half an hour away from Amsterdam Centraal. Makes for a nice walk through the city. Oh boy, is it full of stuff. Took me about four hours to comb through the place, and even then I don't think I saw everything. 

The most interesting exhibition was the currently ongoing Rembrandt - Velázquez: Dutch & Spanish Masters. Classical art from the countries of Netherlands and Spain was displayed in side-by-side comparison, both pieces of each set exploring similiar themes, but through a different cultural lens. This setup gave interesting insight to the individual paintings as well, very engaging. My personal favorite couple of paintings explored the ravages of time and the birth of something new. Interesting how both artists used the exact same visual of freshly baked bread to contrast their very different depictions of age and frailty. Fun stuff!

I spent a very long time staring at this one.

I have also discovered an apparent love for romanticism in art. My favorite individual pieces were almost all depictions of nature in the romantic style. Exaggerations of natural beauty and human architecture look very appealing to me. Perhaps because of the high fantasy-vibe I get from it. Disregarding reality in favor of a more "perfect" version of it is something I tend to look for in media, I've noticed. No wonder romanticism appeals to me so much.

From what little I know though, what appeals to me specifically is only a small part of the greater whole of romanticism. I'm very interested to learn more. 

The trip to Rijksmuseum was very inspiring to an aspiring artist, even if my own work has little in common with the pieces displayed. The primary purpose of art (to me, at least) is the expression of emotions and feelings that are difficult or impossible to express otherwise. The trip was very enlightening. 20€ well spent.

All of this exploration was hampered by the fact that I felt like... Expletive. The sickness of my fellow traveler may have caught me as well. A colossal headache makes for a poor reading buddy. Fiddlesticks.

My boy, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
It's gonna be his birthday soon.

- An absolute, complete and total effin' NERD, Tuomo

Blog 12.12.19 - Admiring Amsterdam's Amazing Alleways

Blog 12.12.19 - Admiring Amsterdam's Amazing Alleways

I started writing this on Thursday evening and fell asleep before I was finished. The text would be really annoying to rewrite in past tense so I won't. Haha.

Today is Thursday the 12th of December, in the year of our Lord MMXIX. On this fateful day, I took my first steps on the hallowed soil of the Mecca of Mayhem, Den of Debauchery, the Temple of Torpor and Travesty... It's Amsterdam, I'm talking about Amsterdam.

We spent this evening waddling our way through Amsterdam Centraal, with no particular goals in mind and oh my was it an adventure and a half. It was a bit too late for me to visit Rijksmuseum, which unfortunately closes its doors at 5pm, but all the other stores were open for business as usual. There were plenty of places to see and alleways to explore and so we did.

Local pottery

Amsterdam's center is a tourist trap, simply put. It's packed to the brim with stores that sell tourist trash, same things across the entire city. Also weed. Devil's lettuce. A little green.

"Coffee Shops" are absolutely everywhere. There's only one in Hoorn, but Amsterdam seems to have these greeneries at least 80 per square kilometer. With the constant smell of the world's number one bud burning around every corner, one might get a contact high just from walking around the city. Reminds me of my apartment building back home.

The profitability of drug tourism is very evident even outside of the myriad of coffee shops. Edibles and pot memoribilia make up a large portion of the regular tourist junk for sale. We even saw "cannabis energy drinks"... What a country, huh.

Sharp contrast

All of these arguably trashy places of business stand in sharp contrast to the old stone buildings that house them. One one hand, Amsterdam is a beautiful city with picturesque canals and wonderful old architecture, on the other it's a trashy drug den with casinos and brothels dotting the streets. This contrast is quite interesting to behold in person, pictures have a hard time doing it justice.

So anyway, here's a pircture that doesn't do it justice.

Another trip comin' up this weekend. It's Rijksmuseum time.

- Unimpressively dry tourist, Tuomo

Blog 10.12 - A bumbling tourist who doesn't quite understand how to act like a proper tourist

Blog 10.12 - A bumbling tourist who doesn't quite understand how to act like a proper tourist

An old church in Hoorn. Looks very imposing.

Hallo allemaal. It turns out that I'm horrible at being a tourist. Every day, I struggle with finding things to do in my free time. This is not a problem I expected would come up. I could just cycle back to our accommodations, sit around and waste the day away, just like I could at home. That doesn't sound like a good time, does it?

What then, should I be doing instead? We've had a few excursions with the class, Bataviastad last week, West Fries Museum just today and De Boet Garden centre tomorrow. But after all of that is done, I'm left clueless. I'd love to go on day trips to places like Enkhousen or Amsterdam, after school or work (especially work) it feels too late to leave town... So I'm stuck here. I've had a few walks around Hoorn, (which is a wonderful town, don't get me wrong) but I suspect it might get old after a while. And it's probably not the best use of my time here.

And now we get to the crux of the issue. With my limited time here, I feel like I'm obligated to constantly be doing something, anything at all... And I always seem to find reasons not to do that thing right now, or more commonly, I have no idea what to do. Then I start feeling guilty about not doing much. Repeat the same process next day. This is an issue.

What have I been doing then?

A comfy little hole in the wall.

Last blog I was promising myself a trip to Amsteram! As it turns out, my lack of endurance and the weather had other ideas. On Saturday, both I and Gustav were too exshausted from the past week's activities to head out anywhere, let alone the biggest city in the country. Come Sunday, there was a veritable deluge of rain along with winds up to 80km/h(!), so we elected not to visit Amsterdam that day either... Probably should have visited anyway, in retrospect. We shouldn't let the weather dictate all of our activities, who knows if we'll even get another calm and sunny day before the 21st.

We did go out around the town on Sunday, we ate at a burger place appropriately called "Burgers". It was a delightful little place, I love the "hole in the wall" kind of establishments that dot the streets of Hoorn. The town was pretty quiet so late in the evening, but no less gorgeous. Lots of christmas lights and things. Very picturesque. I wish I'd taken a photo.

The stores of Hoorn, or something.

Nerds for a nerd...
This will never stop being funny to me.

I have been doing a bit of walking around town on my time off, visiting stores and whatnot. I found a bookstore with quite the sizable selection of English literature, as well as a cafeteria. All in the same room, very interesting.

On the same street, I also happened across a small store packed to the brim with sweets! They even had a section for American imports, so naturally I got two boxes of Nerds.

Today, in lieu of anything better to do, I went on another walk. I picked up a christmas present from the aforementioned bookstore for my little sister, I found a 20th anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets! These came out a couple of years ago I think, one could probably still find one searching for it online, but it's fun to discover this kind of rare stuff on store shelves. Sure it's not the Philosopher's Stone or anything, but she already has all the books in finnish anyway. I'm already a proud owner of the whole set of books in PROPER QUEEN'S ENGLISH, but if I wasn't I would've bought the thing for myself.

On a professional level, I found the customer service experience at the bookstore... Different. I wouldn't say it was bad, every country has its own customs and customers expect different things. I assume one would have to approach a salesperson for them to offer their assistance, because i felt largely ignored while shopping. The chap on the till was delightful though, very proficient in small talk, the Dutch are. Something to learn from, I think.

Kerkerbuurt after dark.
I find the silly names very appealing.

The day was topped of by me burning the roof of my mouth with some classic American fast food not available back home. Domino's pizza game is strong. If I'm not experiencing Dutch culture, I should at least experience something I can't in Finland, however mundane it might be.
...I bet next I'll find out they've got a Domino's back in Helsinki or something.

- Insufferable Potterhead & existentialist, Tuomo

Hello. To start off I would like to introduce myself. I'm Gustav Perttilä and I'm a 19-year old student from Finland. Last year I decided that I would like to go study abroad. I soon realised that there was a solution to my desire. It was called Erasmus project.

My trip to Holland started a week ago 1.12.2019. I'm here for the next 2weeks, 3 in total.
I would like to share with you what we have been doing here for the past week.

We arrived on Sunday to Hoorn, Amsterdam at 10 am. After that our representative teacher picked us up from the train station and then we were off. Sunday was mainly committed to unpacking our luggage and for some relaxation.

On Monday, our teacher drove us to the Horizon School in which we were going to study. We met the whole staff of Horizon college and also our classmates. Everybody were great and extremely welcoming. The school day started at 9.30 and ended at around 12ish. So it was a super fast school day but nevertheless a great one. After school I went straight to the local gym and bought a membership for 27€. Later that night I had a really good training session.

Tuesday was a pretty typical school day, nothing ordinary. We had a couple of lessons (english, history). After school I went to workout and afterwards to a local supermarket to get my groceries. I spent the night editing my YouTube videos. I'm making a series called "Unelmista Totta" translated "Dreams becoming reality". If you're interested you can check them out from my channel gstav.o.

On Wednesday we went to a school trip. We visited a shoppingcenter or you could even call it a shopping village. There were all of the big name brands (Nike, Puma, Gucci etc) and everything was on sale. I personally didn't buy anything but I still had a great time. We left from the school at 9.00 am and came back to the school at 15.00 pm. After that I I stayed at the school campus and used the free wifi to edit my videos until 18.00 pm when the school closed.

Thursday and Friday was dedicated to our work experiment and we spent the days at the local department store which was called HEMA. Our boss Sergei is a really fair guy. The other staff has welcomed us also and everybody gets along quite easily. Our work hours are too long in my opinion (6hrs) because the purpose for us to work there is to actually learn new things and get something out of it. We are not learning anything more if we would work for 2hours than instead of 6hours. Our job is to swoop the floors and stack the shelves. We are not learning anything from that. Especially when everything is written in dutch. I think the work experience was not tought thru and now our time in here is going to waste. There is so much more that we could do rather than that. Not quite happy about it.

On the weekend we were planning to visit Amsterdam but the weather turned around on us and we decided not to go. Exited for the upcoming week and for everything it has instore for us.

Blog 06.12.19 - Popped, Locked, Stopped

Blog 06.12.19 - Popped, Locked, Stopped

Good evening.

I have just had a very Dutch experience. They apparently have bike cops. Who stop you and check your bike. And my bike, apparently, was not up to code because the lights are a bit too dim. Time to take the bike to the shop, I think. I'd rather not get fined or arrested, even? Dear lord, I hope they don't do that. 

So that was an experience I had, while cycling home from work this friday... Also it was raining. And I had to cycle roughly 6 km upwind. If it wasn't so absolutely hilarious, I might be a bit mad.

The weather that wasn't.

Anyway, let's chat about the work placement!

Smile, be nice to customers, get horrible back pains because of your horrible posture. These things ring true, no matter what country you happen to be working in.

As I've mentioned, our work placement is taking place at Hema in the city of Hoorn. Our first days were thursday and friday. If I recall correctly, we'll be returning there friday next week, and monday-thursday on the week after that.

Due to the inherent language difficulties present when working a primarily customer service position in a different country, our assignments consisted primarily of shelving goods and cleaning up. I don't really mind, because I got to do some light customer servicing on the side as well. Obviously, I could only help customers who were open to conversing in english, and even then the help I could offer was limited. But that's the way it is in any new job. You learn by doing, so that's what I did. By friday, I managed to help a couple customers out without assistance from the more senior staff, which was very satisfying.

As a chain of stores, Hema appears to be very tightly organized, all the different goods have a precisely determined spot on the shelves, which can be looked up with a handy PDA. The goods are organized first by section, then by shelf, and finally horizontal position on the shelf. Very convenient!

That's it, didn't have the time or the energy to do much else. Work is exhausting.

Weekend should be an Amsterdam adventure, if nothing goes wrong. Fingers crossed!

- Friendly neighborhood egomaniac, Tuomo

Blog 04.12.19 - Everything is CHAOS and I kind of love it.

Blog 04.12.19 - Everything is CHAOS and I kind of love it.

The following blog was written and intended to be published on Thursday 4th of December, but had to delayed due to Wi-fi related foibles

The past few days have been a rollercoaster of emotions and exhaustion.

I'm not used to this high an amount of uncertainties in my daily life, and I'm supposed to find energy for the work placement on Thursday and Friday as well! Not to mention the weekends, of course I have to do something on the weekends, I'm in Holland for crying out loud!

I can't recount all the things that have happened on the past two days, so here are some scattered thoughts about my experiences.

Attended a bunch of classes, YEAAAAAH!

On tuesday we attended a few classes, all of which were very interesting experiences. The english class led by Mr. Turnhout specifically was a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to discuss a variety of topics with everyone, which was absolutely delightful. I haven't been able to speak this much english in a long while.

Went on an adventure across the sea! (Actually it was a lake that used to be part of the sea.)

On wednesday we went on an excursion to Bataviastad with two (I think?) other classes. Bataviastad is a collection of various fashion outlet stores, where all sorts of brands are sold at "cheap" prices. Though the difference between a pair of jeans costing 150,99€ or 79,99€ doesn't mean much to me. I'd rather get a pair for 30€ at most. Anything above that I feel is above my paygrade, thank you very much!

Bataviastad turned out to be an interesting place to visit, however expensive. Observing Dutch customer service, their presentation of products and, of course, their famous window displays was an educational experience. The displays definetly had a lot of effort put into them.

The most interesting part of the trip however, was the trips to and from. An hour long bus trip with no internet? Heavens no, whatever shall I do to pass the time!? Have conversations with the people around me, I suppose. I actually ended up enjoying the journey more than the destination. I had lovely and insightful conversations with the teachers and one of the students on the road, it was absolutely lovely. Even if we had to yell to eachother most of the time. These students, a rowdy bunch they are. A bit exhausting for a reserved introvert like myself.

Sunrise and sunset are still gob-smackin' gorgeous, what else is new?

Every trip to and from school has been absolutely fantastic. We travel with the bicycles graciously provided for us by the school and despite my poor state of physical fitness, I've throughly enjoyed riding around the place. The farmland that Berkhout consists of still looks absolutely stunning, my time of departure and arrival always seems to coincide with sunrise or sunset. A happy coincidence, no?

Ongoing battle againstm local traffic, part II.

The traffic culture in Holland still absolutely terrifies me. Sure, you've got bike lanes, which might make you feel safe. But then sometimes you don't, and you're expected to ride on the same road cars travel on. This makes me very nervous. Very. Not to mention, even the sacred bike lanes aren't safe, because some motorized vehichles such as scooters make liberal use of them as well. I have seen way too many nearly-accidents to count on both of my hands, myself included in a couple as well. Well, at the very least all the pedestrians should be feeling nice and safe, I hope.

Work placement on Thursday and Friday... Oh no.

Me and Gustav will be taking part in work placement at an establishment called Hema, over in Hoorn. It's sort of like Tokmanni, if that makes sense? It's a very general store that sell a variety of goods. On Wednesday we met Dimitri, who is sort of the person in charge around there. We got our keys and uniforms and are supposed to head there tomorrow on Thursday at roughly 9am. Dimitri assured us that they'll have plenty of things for us to do around the shop, even if we can't necessarily serve customers in the way we are used to. The language barrier will probably be the biggest issue during the work placement. I'll try not to get too stressed about it.

Self critique on my linguistic performance.

Speaking is difficult. Even when speaking finnish, I tend to throw words out of my mouth at stupidly high speeds and the problem is still present when speaking english. I will need to learn to slow down, without sounding condescending of course. This will be especially important during the work placement. I will potentially have to be able to help and direct customers who may be lacking in their understanding of english. Speaking rapid fast, even if it's technically correct, will not be helpful when the other party is not proficient in the language and just wants to know where we keep our selection of trousers.

This ended up being a two-pager, sorry about all the text. I have a lot things on my mind, especially when physically and mentally exhausted. 

- Your local rapscallion and ne'er-do-well, Tuomo

Blog 02.12.19 - Mundane Culture Shock

Hello, hello, my name is Tuomo Immonen and I am a 3rd year Business Administration student at Hyria Vocational College in Hyvinkää. 

From 02.12 to 20.12 I will be attending Horizon College in Hoorn, Netherlands as an exchange student. I'm accompanied by one other student by the name of Gustav, here on the same business as I.

I and Gustav arrived in Netherlands yesterday morning, so we've had some time to establish ourselves, so to speak. Our accomodations at Topparken Westerkogge in Berkhout seem nice enough, if a bit lacking in some amenities. Nothing you can't buy from a local store though. 

You can find a store or two a few kilometers away in either direction, which one could describe as either inconvenient or the opposite, depending on attitude. 

Berkhout is a very flat place, nothing but the horizon to look at.
I see where the college might have gotten it's name.

Today was our first day at Horizon College proper, this is where the fun starts. After some briefing from the teachers responsible for the exchange, we met two of the students from the college named Duke (spelled like Duke Nukem, I assume) and Shawn. Bright young lads, they are. 

Later during the day, we were introduced to the rest of the class that should be working with us in the coming weeks through some "speed dating". Really, it was just some nice friendly conversation between us and the students.

Lunch.

One of our lovely teachers, Okke showed us around the place a bit and presented us with our bikes. He also gave us a bit of a tour around the town of Hoorn. Perhaps it went on for a bit too long, because he had to leave us in a hurry to teach his afternoon class, bless his soul.

Hoorn seems like a wonderful town and I can't wait to explore it further.

Did I learn anything these last two days?

I'm still trying to get my bearings, which will take some time. Naturally, most of the language you'll find around Holland is dutch, of which i know as much of as personal fitness and healthy eating. So none. 

Getting around the town(s), school and shopping is a bit of a challenge still, but it'll get better over time, I would hope. On the bright side, I still haven't found a local I couldn't converse in english with. The easiest way to learn something is to ask another, after all.

Learning the ropes of how Holland functions will take it's time, but so far it has been fairly familiar if a bit strange in some areas. I've had something of a mundane culture shock with how pedestrian and vehicle traffic is organized, with bike lanes and other things of that nature. I'm still a bit hesitant to take my bike around town, what with all the sharp turns, narrow sidewalks and sharing the road with cars and other vehicles. Okke assured me that it's all safe and stuff, considering that the cars don't go past 30 km/h in town, but the idea of getting slammed by a semi still doesn't sound very appealing.

I am a bit nervous about being able to perform well in the studies I'm attending. We are supposed to keep a log of our daily activities regarding school, similiar to this one, however we're also meant to do some "desk research" about various different topics such as: "What are best practices?" No idea what that entails, even after I asked Mick, our other teacher. I'm sure it'll be fine.

That's it for today and yesterday, for the most part. We have quite a bit of time to roam around as we choose, so let's make the most of it.

Also, the tap water tastes really weird and the Wifi is a nightmare.

- Tuomo