Being an Ital­ian exchange stu­dent in Oulu

Gior­gia Tononi is a 17-year-old exchange stu­dent hail­ing from Italy. She has embarked on a cap­ti­vat­ing jour­ney to the land of a thou­sand lakes and a myr­i­ad of sea­sons. She arrived in Fin­land at the dawn of August and will spend the entire year in Oulu. She is excit­ed and look­ing for­ward to get­ting to know Finnish cul­ture and coun­try.

Although Fin­land was ranked as her last pref­er­ence among five exchange coun­tries, she is still very enthu­si­as­tic about her upcom­ing exchange year. Fin­land was includ­ed on the list because she believed it to be quite dif­fer­ent from oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries. By good luck, she end­ed up in the cap­i­tal of North­ern Fin­land where she can expe­ri­ence the best aspects of all the sea­sons.

Dur­ing Giorgia’s stay in Fin­land, she will be liv­ing in a host fam­i­ly that has a sis­ter of the same age. Both attend Laani­la High School. Through­out the year, Gior­gia will jour­ney through dif­fer­ent host fam­i­lies every three months, gain­ing unique insights into both Fin­land and Oulu’s way of life. How­ev­er, she will remain in the same school through­out year. Gior­gia feels warm­ly wel­comed in her cur­rent fam­i­ly.

In such a brief time, Gior­gia has already famil­iar­ized her­self with Oulu city. She has tak­en a long bike trip with her host fam­i­ly around Oulu, and she also joined a bas­ket­ball team. Cur­rent­ly, they are plan­ning to vis­it an Ital­ian restau­rant in Oulu down­town with her host fam­i­ly. Gior­gia is enjoy­ing her time in her new home­town, Oulu.

Gior­gia was sur­prised by the dif­fer­ence between the reserved Finnish peo­ple and the out­go­ing Ital­ians. She has also tak­en note of the marked dif­fer­ences between the Finnish and Ital­ian edu­ca­tion­al sys­tems. In Italy, they have a six-day-long school week, and the school day is from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Stu­dents remain the same class­room through­out the day and have only one break. They do not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to choose their own sub­jects and cours­es. Also, the school does not offer any lunch. Over­all, the Ital­ian school is much stricter than the Finnish one. Gior­gia prefers our sys­tem more. On the oth­er hand, she thinks that food is much bet­ter in Italy. Spinach soup at school lunch was not as tasty as Ital­ian piz­za and pas­ta.

As expect­ed, Gior­gia is eager­ly await­ing the win­ter. That is some­thing that makes Fin­land worth vis­it­ing, espe­cial­ly for ice skat­ing and ski­ing, which are on Giorgia’s to do ‑list. One of the ben­e­fits of liv­ing in Oulu is its excel­lent loca­tion, offer­ing a lot for every­one. It is near to the good ski­ing spots like Ruka, and we have one in Oulu as well called Rusko­tun­turi.

There are also ice-skat­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties every­where! On days when you do not feel like being out­side dur­ing a chilly win­ter day, you can always find a cozy cof­fee shop in down­town. Gior­gia has many unfor­get­table expe­ri­ences ahead in Fin­land, and hope­ful­ly, she will get a chance to see the north­ern lights.

Text: Iida Kylmälu­o­ma, Til­da-Mari Jur­mu, Anna Män­ty­vaara, Gior­gia Tononi
Pic­ture: Giorgia’s first day in Oulu with her host par­ents.