From First Snow­fall to Finnish Sauna: Khadi­ja’s Adven­tures in Oulu

Khadi­ja Akter, a 29-year-old from Bangladesh, shares her jour­ney of adapt­ing to life in Oulu, Fin­land. Over the past six months, Khadi­ja has been explor­ing her new home, appre­ci­at­ing the serene envi­ron­ment and beau­ti­ful nature. Through net­work­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous events, Khadi­ja has been build­ing a new life and career in Oulu.

“I first heard about Oulu when my hus­band received his offer let­ter. He was accept­ed into the Busi­ness Ana­lyt­ics pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu with a schol­ar­ship, which led us to move here. Now, after five and a half months, I’ve been explor­ing and adapt­ing to life in Fin­land.

When I arrived, Oulu was even more beau­ti­ful than I expect­ed. The peace­ful envi­ron­ment and stun­ning nature made it feel like a per­fect place to live.

On my first day, I vis­it­ed the famous police stat­ue (Toripol­li­isi) and admired the Oulu­jo­ki Riv­er flow­ing beside the city cen­ter.

Unique Experiences

Oulu is calm, well-orga­nized, and not too crowd­ed. Even in the city cen­ter, the atmos­phere is qui­et and com­fort­able com­pared to big­ger cities.

The biggest sur­prise for me was how ear­ly shops close, as in my home coun­try, stores stay open much lat­er.
Anoth­er inter­est­ing dif­fer­ence was see­ing peo­ple walk and com­mute com­fort­ably in freez­ing tem­per­a­tures, even dur­ing heavy snow­fall.

The slow­er pace of life, clean sur­round­ings, and easy access to nature make Oulu a peace­ful place to live. The long win­ters and ear­ly sun­sets are quite dif­fer­ent from what I was used to, but they add to the unique expe­ri­ence.

Adapt­ing to a New Life

Liv­ing in Oulu has taught me a lot. The peace­ful envi­ron­ment has helped me focus on per­son­al growth, and the chal­lenges of adjust­ing to a new coun­try have made me more resilient.

I have learned the impor­tance of punc­tu­al­i­ty, orga­ni­za­tion, and wak­ing up ear­ly, which have made my dai­ly life more pro­duc­tive. This jour­ney has also giv­en me the chance to explore new career paths and improve my lan­guage skills.

Oulu has giv­en me many unfor­get­table experiences. Nal­likari Beach is one of my favorite spots, with beau­ti­ful sun­sets in autumn and the thrill of walk­ing on a frozen sea in win­ter. I also had a true Finnish expe­ri­ence at Koivu­ran­nan Saunalaut­ta, enjoy­ing the sauna while admir­ing the frozen Oulu­jo­ki Riv­er.

In autumn, I loved vis­it­ing Tuira Park for its peace­ful atmos­phere. I also joined board game events at the Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu and attend­ed the cof­fee club at Vil­la Vic­tor, where I made great inter­na­tion­al friends.

I enjoy dis­cov­er­ing new cafés, cap­tur­ing moments for my con­tent, and explor­ing the city’s charm in every sea­son.

Learn­ing Finnish

Study­ing Finnish has been both chal­leng­ing and reward­ing. I have real­ized that learn­ing the lan­guage is essen­tial for dai­ly life, job oppor­tu­ni­ties, and inte­grat­ing into Finnish soci­ety.

I am cur­rent­ly study­ing Finnish at Arff­man, which has helped me build a foun­da­tion, and I prac­tice when­ev­er I can.
While many peo­ple speak Eng­lish, know­ing Finnish opens up more oppor­tu­ni­ties both social­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

Build­ing a New Life

The peo­ple in Oulu are polite and wel­com­ing, though they can be a bit reserved at first. The city feels safe, orga­nized, and deeply con­nect­ed to nature, mak­ing it an enjoy­able place to live.

Fin­land also has great sup­port sys­tems for new­com­ers, includ­ing lan­guage cours­es, net­work­ing events, and employ­ment ser­vices.

Since mov­ing here, I have tak­en steps to build my career by fol­low­ing dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation, com­plet­ing restau­rant indus­try train­ing, and gain­ing local work expe­ri­ence.

Adapt­ing to Finnish work cul­ture took time, but learn­ing Finnish, net­work­ing, and being proac­tive in job hunt­ing have helped me move for­ward.

Mag­i­cal Moments

One of my best mem­o­ries in Oulu was expe­ri­enc­ing my first snow­fall. Com­ing from a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent cli­mate, I had nev­er seen snow before – it was a mag­i­cal moment!

Since then, I have embraced win­ter by mak­ing snow­men, sled­ding, ski­ing, and try­ing the tra­di­tion­al Finnish sauna, which was unfor­get­table.

Mov­ing to Oulu comes with chal­lenges, but adapt­ing makes the jour­ney eas­i­er. Win­ter can be tough, so dress­ing warm­ly and enjoy­ing activ­i­ties like sled­ding, ski­ing, and sauna helps.

Learn­ing Finnish, even at a basic lev­el, makes dai­ly life and job hunt­ing eas­i­er. Net­work­ing, attend­ing events, and under­stand­ing Finnish work cul­ture – where inde­pen­dence, punc­tu­al­i­ty, and hon­esty are val­ued – are key to set­tling in.

Oulu is a peace­ful city with clean air, beau­ti­ful nature, and a wel­com­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Stay­ing patient, open-mind­ed, and proac­tive will help make Oulu feel like home.”

Khadi­ja on Insta­gram.