From Sici­ly to Oulu: How four Ital­ian stu­dents dis­cov­ered Finland’s beau­ty and cul­ture

Four adven­tur­ous Eras­mus+ exchange stu­dents, Gabriele Romanci­ni, Gae­tano Car­ol­lo, Mat­tia Li Pira, and Ric­car­do Coluc­ci, bid farewell to the scorch­ing +30°C heat of Paler­mo, Sici­ly, and embarked on an excit­ing one-month jour­ney to Oulu, Fin­land from Octo­ber 1 to Novem­ber 1, 2023.

Despite the stark con­trast in cli­mates, these young men saw Oulu’s autumn weath­er as an exhil­a­rat­ing chal­lenge and promised to make the most of their month-long exchange, even brav­ing Finnish tra­di­tions like saunas and ice-cold win­ter swim­ming.

“We were ready to embrace the chal­lenge and cher­ish every moment here,” Gabriele exclaims with a smile.

Their mis­sion was clear: expe­ri­ence Finland’s unique blend of two sea­sons in one month. This includ­ed wit­ness­ing the vibrant col­ors of Finnish autumn and immers­ing them­selves in the snowy won­ders of win­ter. The boys were lucky, they got to build snow­men, go win­ter swim­ming and ice skat­ing on nat­ur­al ice and even admire the north­ern lights

The Ital­ian stu­dents were enrolled at Laani­la High School and Sven­s­ka Pri­vatskolan i Uleåborg. As part of the exchange pro­gram, they were stay­ing with local Oulu fam­i­lies.

In return, these Finnish fam­i­lies’ own teenagers will embark on a rec­i­p­ro­cal jour­ney to Sici­ly next spring, study­ing at the local Insti­tu­to Supe­ri­ore Majo­rana in Paler­mo for a month. This cul­tur­al exchange pro­vides a deep­er under­stand­ing of each other’s lifestyles and tra­di­tions.

In addi­tion to their aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits, the Ital­ian exchange stu­dents wast­ed no time in explor­ing Oulu’s nat­ur­al beau­ty, includ­ing a vis­it to Koitelinkos­ki, Iso-Syöte and Lapland’s bor­der area of Yli­tornio where they enjoyed going to sauna and indulged in camp­fire-cooked sausages. They also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it San­ta Claus and Ark­tikum in Rovanie­mi, 365 Snow Expe­ri­ence in Kemi, as well as Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty and Nokia where they gained insights into Oulu’s flag­ship edu­ca­tion, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives.

”The warm meals pro­vid­ed by the school are delight­ful.”

Impres­sions of Finnish high schools were over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive for these Ital­ian stu­dents. They were pleas­ant­ly sur­prised by the well-equipped class­rooms, dig­i­tal books, lap­tops, and most of all the relax­ation rooms and the free school lunch­es the schools pro­vid­ed for their stu­dents.

“The warm meals pro­vid­ed by the school are delight­ful, although some of the tra­di­tion­al Finnish dish­es, such as, for instance, rye bread may look and taste a bit dif­fer­ent,” Mat­tia chuck­led.

The Ital­ians admir­ing the north­ern lights at Mataren­gi, Yli­tornio, in Swe­den. Maya Iso­maa

Ric­car­do revealed they all had to get used to the silent and reserved nature of the Finnish peo­ple as the social inter­ac­tion seems to have dif­fer­ent terms in their home coun­try.

The Ital­ians also admired the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of Fin­land, where they saw how Finns use green and renew­able ener­gy sources, such as elec­tric cars, solar pan­els, and wind tur­bines. Gae­tano espe­cial­ly liked the recy­cling sys­tem, which pays peo­ple for return­ing cans and bot­tles, and which they don’t have in Italy yet.

They are thank­ful for the chance to learn about anoth­er cul­ture and make new bud­dies. The boys urge oth­er stu­dents to join sim­i­lar projects. They remark it is a cool way to boost one’s Eng­lish skills and widen one’s per­spec­tive.

Gabriele, Gae­tano, Mat­tia, Ric­car­do, and their Ital­ian teach­ers extend heart­felt thanks to their host fam­i­lies and their local part­ner schools for their warm wel­come and hos­pi­tal­i­ty. The exchange broke down cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers and fos­tered last­ing friend­ships. Italy and Fin­land, in many ways, stand as oppo­sites.

The tran­quil­i­ty, spa­cious­ness, and cold­ness of Finland’s envi­ron­ment left the stu­dents in awe. It was this charm­ing con­trast that cap­ti­vat­ed them and made their exchange expe­ri­ence even more mem­o­rable.

As they nav­i­gat­ed this unique cul­tur­al exchange, Gabriele, Gae­tano, Mat­tia, and Ric­car­do were liv­ing tes­ta­ments to the pow­er of Eras­mus+ in broad­en­ing hori­zons and cre­at­ing last­ing con­nec­tions between young peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cor­ners of Europe.

Main pic­ture: The young Ital­ians had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do a one-day job-shad­ow­ing at Nokia’s office in Rusko in Octo­ber. In the pic­ture Ric­car­do, Gae­tano, Gabriele, and Mat­tia togeth­er with their Ital­ian teacher Giusep­pa Veri­ni Fer­ran­ti.

Text: Tiina Fredriks­son