Primary school visit

School visit

Due to I study education in Switzerland, I was very happy to finally visit a school. I was curious about the system and the way how children are being taught. Finland gets everytime very good results in the PISA studies, so I think that something has to be very special.

We met on 13^th of February in front of the Luostarivuori School in Turku. The responsible teacher was extremely nice and welcomed us warmly. After a short visit through the campus we found ourselves in a classroom where English was taught.

As soon as we entered the room from the fifth graders the kids stood up and greeted us with a “good morning”. They totally spoke together like a choir. I was surprised because I am not used to that in Switzerland.

The lesson seemed very structured. First the kids had the opportunity to ask us some questions in English about ourselves and then the lesson started. They repeated some words after the teacher, worked in pairs and wrote some sentences down. The children were very focussed on their work, it was very impressive. After 45 minutes we left the classroom to observe another lesson.

That lesson was quite different. It was an international class in 8^th degree. Surprisingly also these students stood up to greet the teacher. Due to many ill students the teacher had to improvise, because for her original plan she needed all students. The students got the task to play a little sketch about over politeness or rudeness. That’s what they were working for the last view weeks, as the teacher said so.

Of course, some of the students got some strange topics, which were related with sex. But I think that is normal in this age, I mean they are about 15 years old, what else is more interesting than the “forbidden” sex theme?!

Both of the teachers offered us to teach some lessons. Of course we agreed right away. We now have the task to tell something about Switzerland, the culture, the food, the landscape etc. I am looking forward to it!

To come back to the original question, what is the difference between the Finish and the Swiss school system? – I couldn’t find severe differences. In Finland the kids start in the third degree with English and in the 5^th with Swedish. We have the same, the kids in our school have to start with learning English as well in the 3th degree and with French in the fifth.

Of course, after these two visits I can not tell about many things because I have rarely seen some lessons. It is just too bad that we don’t study education here =(.

valentines date

Valentines Day

Valentines day- I don’t know who Valentin was, but I don’t like him. Maybe I don’t like him because I have no one to share this amazing over romantic day. Whatever, I woke up in the morning and went to the gym. My only real love. The gym doesn’t complain about my gained weight, about my bad moods or my bad habits.

After sweating like hell I decided to buy some ingredients for baking a super sweet valentines day cake for all the broken hearts. While I walked to the grocery store I passed a second hand shop. I don’t know why I went in, but I found a perfect pullover to wear on my date tonight. Yeah, you read right, I was going on a date.

As soon as I got home my German floormate asked me if I would like to go out for a walk because he needed someone to talk. I badly needed to study, but instead I agreed. So we walked for nearly two hours. After coming back home I just had 20 min left to get ready.

I put on some make up and mascara. Before I went to the kitchen to get the ok of my floormates I changed into my new pullover. The response of the others made me blush.

So whatever, it was time to go. I met my friend in front of the Chinese restaurant. Yes, I am sorry, it was just a “date” to celebrate our new friendship. =)

Never mind, the food was delicious! We had spring rolls, sweet sour chicken with rice and fried bananas. The amazing exquisite food just cost 13 Euros each. What a bargain!

After we felt like pregnant, we left the restaurant to bake a valentines cake for all the other guys and girls from my floor.

Well, I didn’t spend the lovely love day with a handsome nice guy, but with very nice friends. To be honest, what is more than good friends?!

dinner on sundays

National dinner

12 people are living on my floor, which means, that we have many different nationalities. Or at least we should. Here for a short overview:

3 Dutch guys: Ruben, Marcel, Jan

2 Italian: Sara and Pietro

1 Sweden: Matilda

1 French: Adrien

1 German: Felix

1 Spanish: Isabel

1 Finish: ?

1 Indian: ?

I don’t know the names of the Finish guy and the Indian girl because I barely see them. Never the less, we decided to have a national dinner every Sunday, which means that every person cooks for the other 9 (the Finish guy and the Indian girl didn’t participate). We already had delicious Italian pizza and Swedish meatballs (unfortunately I don’t eat beef and pork =( ).

And after our dinner we do the dishes, the cook of course doesn’t have to help. As soon as the kitchen is cleaned up, we play cards until everybody is tired.

Next Sunday it will be my turn to cook. I’ll try to cook “älplermacroni”. What it is and how it tasted, will be explained in my next post.

cinnamon rolls

Baking time

Saturday- its baking night, what else?

My floormates and I decided not to go out because we already went out to many times that week. Instead we determined to bake traditional Finish cinnamon rolls. While 80-ties music was played on my laptop we mixed the ingredients with fancy movements. During the baking time in the oven we started a karaoke session and had a lot of fun! We ended up with nearly 40 cinnamon rolls- delicious! I translated the recipe in English, because they were exquisite.

Cinnamon rolls

You need: 50g barm, 5dl milk 2 eggs 2dl sugar 2 teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon kaardemumma  about 16dl of wheat flour 150-200g butter For the filling: 100g butter 1dl sugar 2 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Warm the milk, so it’s as warm as your hands are. Melt the Hefe to the milk.

2. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, kaardemumma and few dls of flour.

3. Keep adding few dls of flour, until the dough is quite sticky. Add the melted butter.

4. Add flour until the dough gets of from your hands. It’s important to kind of like roughly mix the dough for a little while.

5. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes, or until it has doubbled it size.

6. Put the dough on the table and roll it till its big, wide and thin

7. You can either mix the melted butter, sugar and cinnamon and pour it on top of the dough, or you can but the melted butter first and then sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon

8. Roll the dough and cut it into pieces. Let the little rolls rest for 10-15 minutes

9. Put rolls into oven (225 degrees, second level from the bottom) and let them be there for 10-15 minutes, or until they are beautifully browned

Buss system

Public transport

In Switzerland the most common public transport is by train. Even in a small village is a train station. Of course we also have buses, but they are not as often in use as the trains. When I first came here I was surprised that in Turku or should I say in nearly whole Finland are buses more common.

I think the bus system in Switzerland is easier to use than the system in Turku, but that’s maybe just because I am used to it. Whatever, when I first used the bus I couldn’t figure out where I had to leave to bus, because nowhere in the bus was written where we were and what the name of the next bus stop was. 

So I was sitting in the bus, and at some point I just got out and found myself in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to my offline map app, I was able to find my way back to my apartment. Now that I know how my bus stop looks like, I am up to get off at the right place. 

But when I want to go to a new place, I am still struggling with the system. I usually use the Fölli web page to figure out which bus I have to take and where to get off. I figured out, that the bus stops have numbers, so whenever I can, I try to count how many stops I have to pass till it’s mine.

And the craziest thing is that you have to wave for the bus. That’s very uncommon. In Switzerland the bus stops at every station where people stand.