I’m sitting in my poorly-lit room in my empty apartment, having the same curry rice I have been cooking every day for the past one week. It’s minus 11 degrees on the Celsius outside, white snow has covered every inch of bare ground, and sunrise is still 14 hours away. It’s a Sunday night without any football on, a petty Sunday night between Christmas and the New Year’s Eve. It’s the beginning of my last week on a 4 month long exchange semester in Finland, and all of my friends and roommates have already left to join their families for the festivities. The air of gloom around me is too strong to ignore. It’s like Sachin Tendulkar retiring all over again. As I sit down to write about my exchange experience, all the priceless memories flashing before my eyes, I am only beginning to realize how immensely I am going to miss this place, the people I met here and the times we had.
The Times we had, Tallinn
Finland Who?
I clearly remember knowing next to nothing about Finland or the Nordic region before I decided to apply to Aalto for an exchange. Of course, I had heard of Nokia originating from here and the mesmerizing Aurora Borealis, but that’s as far as my knowledge about Finland went. My absolute apathy towards the act of reading would make sure it would stay that way until the time I got here. In hindsight, though, it feels like a good decision. I came here wanting and waiting to be surprised and thrilled. Finland, as warm and welcoming as it is, heartily obliged.
What I found out soon after landing was that Finland was the exact opposite of what India is. The people, the food, the lifestyle, the fashion, the culture, the values, the sports, the climate, the streets, the sky, the earth, the water, the air, were not just different, but the exact antithesis of their counterparts in India.
Be it not having flavor in their food or fans in their rooms or milk in their tea or people on their streets or water jets in their toilets or proper sunshine in their days or chaos in their everyday lives or grammatical mistakes in their English or random conversations with strangers on a train or cricket in their blood OR be it having pure water in their taps or girls in their engineering colleges or saunas in every house or three-fourths of their land in forests or what-us-Indians-would-call-“cute”-celebrations on their festivals or beer at, well, all times, this place and it’s people are nothing like India.
If that wasn’t enough, students from all over the world had come here, eager to have fun and share their experiences and stories and alcohol with the others. Loads of people with all their differences learning, bonding and most of all, having fun together. This one thing had a familiar feel. As I was getting to know these people and Finland, I was getting to know India better too. While I was busy admiring every moment I was spending here, I would stop every once in a while and admire India too. It was the exact kind of cross-cultural experience I was expecting to get out of this exchange. Of course, there was the travelling too.
The Honeymoon Month
The first month, September, was quite the honeymoon phase, as one of my professor here calls it, and having only 4 courses in my study plan made sure I’d have plenty of time for experiencing the Teekkari culture, meeting new people and making friends, going on weekend excursions, attending various guild events and parties literally every night, getting used to the sauna (and the jumping into the freezing cold sea part after the sauna), singing Finnish songs at the sitsit parties and adapting to the gradually severing weather, which was still pretty pleasant by Finnish standards. In a matter of few heartbeats, I had been totally colored in the Finnish White and Blue. As September was coming to a close, I took off on the long impending, ZNMD inspired Euro Trip with two of my friends from IITB who were on their respective exchange semesters in Europe.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
We began at Barcelona and followed suit by going to witness FC Barcelona (unfortunately rendered Messi-less three days before the match) do what they do best. We missed the best player in the world, but some of the best supporters in the world, their undying support in trying minutes of the game, the phenomenally electrifying atmosphere at the stadium, and Suarez’s incredible match-sealing goal made every cent we had spent count. We next went to Lisbon and skydived (told you it was ZNMD inspired), which was definitely the most amazing 50 odd seconds of my life so far. The air of familiarity like it was India on the busy streets of the Spain and Portugal had only begun to charm us when it was time to move on to the central part of Europe where we were joined by another friend from IITB. We’d all go on to visit some of the most beautiful cities across Europe in the coming days, but the stories from the best trip I’d had till date are best left for another day.
Kab tak ginein, hum dhadkanein, Dil jaise dhadke Dhadakne do (We even followed the dress code! Imran, Arjun, Kabir- from your left)
Having a full-fledged Euro Trip right in the middle of the semester has its consequences. It quite surely did in my case. When I returned to Finland in the middle of October, the days had grown notably shorter, the weather colder, I had missed a few lectures I had to cover up, and there were a few assignment deadlines I had to meet in real quick time. The academic scene at Aalto University is not very different from that at IITB. They have got world class professors teaching some really bright students. Some Master level courses I took had as few as tens of students while other basic courses had over 150 students. The classroom environment was amazing and the professors at Aalto, who are addressed by their first names in Finland, are unbelievably approachable, frank and accommodating. By the time I was done (or in some cases I wasn’t) with the catching up, I was already on a cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia with a few hundred other students. November had already begun when I set foot on this land of cathedrals and canals and Putin fanatics. What followed was 3 days of getting awed by the sheer beauty and grandeur of the railway stations, the cathedrals and the museums, treating ourselves with the most famous St. Petersburg food and a lot of partying. Some embarrassing and bizarre incidents would make this the best short-trip I’d had till date.
No Helsinki November
We are the Pirates of the Baltic Sea!
Still recovering from the enormous amounts of FUN I’d had in St. Petersburg, next weekend saw me aboard another cruise, this time to Stockholm and with over a thousand students from all over Finland and Estonia. More enormous amounts of FUN ensued. Stockholm, with its ancient architecture, the Nobel museum situated somewhere between the narrow streets and expensive coffee shops in its old town was definitely one of the more beautiful cities in Europe. By the time I returned to Helsinki, we were already deep into November and academics again took center stage as we struggled to cover up on lost time from our short trips. When I wasn’t (procrastinating) studying, I was busy giving myself a shot at my new hobby – cooking. This brought down my standards for what I considered tasty food considerably but it was always fun to try new dishes – and fail, but still, somehow, manage to feel proud. Cutting onions felt like one of the toughest jobs I’d ever done, but thankfully, I got better – I’d never valued Skype conversations with my mother so much before.
Skiing and Sledging down those slopes in Saariselka, Lapland
At the end of November came the trip I had been waiting for since the start of the semester – a trip to Lapland, Northern Finland, with three hundred other students from Aalto – my best chance for seeing the beautiful Aurora Borealis. This trip was special for me as I crossed the Arctic Circle, experienced snow and snowfall for the first time, skied, sledged, met the handsome huskies, the reindeers, and went Northern lights hunting in knee deep snow in minus 17 degrees Celsius, unfortunately in vain. With clouds showing no mercy and the chances of witnessing the beautiful Auroras looking bleak, I decided to join the trip to the Arctic Ocean in Norway with 50 other students. This was probably the best decision I took in the four months as what transpired at the Arctic Ocean was quite surreal. Swimming in the near freezing sea until I couldn’t move my limbs anymore, so far up North I’d never even imagined to venture was probably one of the moments I’d cherish forever. The fresh smell of the sea breeze, the freezing cold water, the warm Norwegian reception and the company of some of the happiest people in the world more than made up for missing the beautiful Northern Lights and made this trip into the best one I’d ever had.
At the only restaurant in Bugøynes, Norway, a town with a population of 200 people on the coast of the Arctic Ocean
When Winter Was Coming
After Lapland, it was December, time for the Final Exams and Farewell Parties. This month of extremely short days and unendurably cold weather, completely altered my views about the limits of cold and night-time I could push myself to bear. December was also the time when I stayed home alone for long hours. Being alone is one thing you never experience in the IIT hostels. Music became more important in this period and I learnt to communicate with myself better. I had never experienced this kind of peace in solitude. I realized how a lot had happened in my life, and I never got a chance to stop and think all these years. I started enjoying every bit of those late night diary entries, middle of the day introspection sessions and the solo jogs in the woods. Getting to know all these people, seeing more of the world, learning to live in the moment, being alone, staying away from my friends and family and my home had changed me. Interestingly, during this period, I had a couple of extremely engrossing and riveting discussions about India, Pakistan, cricket, Bollywood and about the world as we see it with one of my Pakistani roommates. Those were some of the most compelling and informative conversations I’ve ever had and the fact that I was having them with someone coming from our dearest neighboring land which we, quite amusingly, know nothing about made it even more special. All these experiences had taught me a lot about the world, about people, their lives and more importantly, about myself. I feel I’m returning much wiser, more mature, more compassionate and more aware than ever before.
On one of those failed Northern Lights Hunting Expeditions, Saariselka, Lapland
I’ll be back
A lot would have been different had I not come to Finland on this exchange. Of course, I missed my friends and my family. But this exchange proved to be very important for me on a personal level. I now have a broader perspective of the world and its ways, a greater understanding of myself, some friends halfway across the world, some phenomenal experiences, some fulfilled dreams already getting replaced by new, bigger dreams and a lot of fun stories that I can’t be thankful enough for. I have some unfinnished (oops!) business here that would keep me coming back to Finland and Europe – The Aurora Borealis, the ice igloos of Lapland and Iceland, the Norwegian Fjords, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, just to name a few. This was my unbridled romance with Finland, with Europe, and with the world, and it’s already set to last forever.
About the Author
Utkarsh Sharma, 4th Year Undergrad in EE, who enjoys playing football, watching cricket and pretending to be cool.
The Exchange Experience 