From Florida, to home

Before coming home (Saturday 21st), I went to Florida for a week. It was nice to see sun for a change. My flight left Orlando around 6pm on Friday and was in Helsinki around 2pm Saturday, so I was pretty jet lagged for a while. I tried to fix it by not napping or going to sleep before evening after arriving in Finland. I ended up staying awake for over 30 hours, and sleeping about 14 hours straight afterwards. After that I was going to sleep at reasonably normal times (0-1am), but ended up waking up around 3-5am (11pm-1am Eastern time) and unable to fall back asleep for another couple hours. Anyway, being back home has been otherwise fun, I've eaten proper food, seen friends and family and overall enjoyed Christmas. And been to sauna nearly every day.

Florida

I flew from St. John's to Tampa. I got myself a rental car, because I planned on visiting places around the peninsula, and had a lot of luggage with me. Route I drove is illustrated below.

My (approximate) route while in Florida: Tampa - Miami - Sunrise (Panthers arena) - Miami - Everglades national park - Miami - Kennedy space center - Tampa - Orlando. Roughly 1200 miles / 1900 km.

I drove a car only once in St. John's, so getting used to American traffic took a while. In short, rules seem to be a bit more flexible. A few observations:

• Turning right on red light is great. "That is America's only contribution to western civilization", Jeremy Clarkson once said. Would like this in Europe as well.
• Stop signs seem to work like yield signs. There are stop signs everywhere, so no wonder people don't stop at them. E.g. all equal crossroads are marked with "Stop, all way" -signs. On the other hand, marking equal crossroads makes them easier to notice compared to Finnish way of not marking them at all, which requires driver to make sure nobody has yield- or stop-signs.
• Lane behavior on highways is weird. People overtake other people left and right, which was something you had to get used to. Also, there always seems to be someone who drives slower on the left lane: in Finland you'd wait until they get out of the way before passing, in Florida you'd just overtake from the right if possible.
• Traffic jams in Finland aren't that bad after all. Having lived only in smaller cities and visiting "big" cities such as Helsinki by car very rarely might give me a better picture of Finnish traffic than it actually is, but the difference is still extremely noticeable. Miami was especially bad, when I had to drive through the city during afternoon rush hours: a 30km stretch took me about 1.5h, and the last 10km took an hour by itself. According to some study, Miami was 73rd worst city in the world in terms of traffic, whereas Helsinki was only 178th. (http://inrix.com/scorecard/)
• Roads are straight. There were some stretches, where the road was completely straight without a single corner for like 30km. No wonder American cars are (or were) known not handling very well, since all you need to do is drive straight.
• Cars are very different in America. Trucks have long noses, pick-ups, SUVs and American car brands are very common and cars are bigger in general. People lifting their pick-ups made driving in the night painful, because the lights are on your eye-level and they're not aimed low enough.

In general driving there wasn't too bad once you got used to it. The amount of cars is just huge, so you really have to be aware of other traffic. Florida otherwise was great: 20-30°C every day but one, lots of places to visit, and really a much needed change of scenery from that of St. John's or Finland (cold, wet and dark). I'll include more about the trip in the form of pictures and captions below.

Thoughts about the exchange

First of all, I'm really glad I decided to go to Canada. I met some really awesome people there, and I will definitely miss them. The courses weren't particularly interesting, but they're not the point of going on exchange (at least for me). I got to do all kinds of fun stuff while there, some of which you'd see in Finland, some that you wouldn't.

Making the decision to go to Canada wasn't easy. I knew nobody there, I didn't know anything about St. John's or MUN, and going there actually postponed my graduation. Nevertheless, I decided to go, and I'm happy that I did. My reasoning was basically, that if I didn't go, I'd feel that I've missed out. You won't get another chance later in life to go abroad, where you'd have so little responsibilities and have such an easy time meeting new people. I sort of did the same thing with military: the first time I was there, I broke my elbow 2 months in and was sent back home. I could've probably avoided going back there based on my studies and previous injuries, but I kind of wanted to go back and I did two years later for similar reasons: I'd regret it if I didn't go, and it's a once in a lifetime experience.

First days in St. John's were both exciting and a bit overwhelming: lots of new people, having to rely on your second language, new(ish) culture and surroundings... But after a while, I (almost) felt like home, and could've definitely seen myself spending a longer time there. People were very friendly and welcoming, making the transition easier. I spent time with both Canadians and other exchange students (mostly from Europe), which sort of meant having two different friend groups. The major difference was that Canadians actually had to study, meaning that they had less time for leisure activities. Also, the exchange students did more touristy stuff, while Canadians did more Canadian stuff. It was good to know both types of people, since you could relate more to other exchange students, but also get to known to "locals" and Canadian way of life.

So what I'm trying to say is, that if you have a chance to live abroad (especially while studying) it's definitely worth it. At least here (Finland) you get used to a really specific type of people (Finnish), and it's refreshing and eye-opening to meet and spend time with different people. It also gives you a new perspective on the differences or good and bad of both countries, and helps you appreciate how nice things are back home. Studying abroad also helps you realize whether or not you could see yourself living in a different country in the future. For me living in Canada was a positive experience and I could see myself living abroad later on in my life, given that I would have an interesting job and otherwise a good living situation there. But at the same time, I really have no pressing reasons to leave Finland either.

This was the last blog post I'll be writing about the exchange, since I've been home a couple weeks now. Thank you for reading this far! Or if you didn't, TL;DR: had fun, student exchange is a great experience.

-Aapo

My ride for a week.

Gasoline was pretty cheap. In Finland 30€ gets you 20 liters, in Florida you'd get like 55 liters (~0.55 €/l) for that money.

Tampa downtown.

There was an outdoor ice rink in Tampa, while the temperature was like 20°C. Was tempted to go skating around first time skaters.

Sunset in downtown Tampa.

Downtown Miami. I was (again) kind of lazy taking pictures, so this is the best one I had.

Holocaust memorial (City of Miami Beach).

South Miami Beach.

A weird tree (Botanical garden, Miami Beach).

Another weird tree (Botanical garden).

See you later, alligator. There was only about 2 m and a knee-high fence between me and this guy. No sudden movements. (Everglades National Park)

After while, crocodile. (Everglades)

Anhinga. For some reason, this bird was just chilling, standing around and spreading its wings. (Everglades)

In Finland, there are warning signs about moose and reindeer. In Florida, panthers.

Generally speaking, the Everglades National Park was mostly a huge swamp.

Ring-tailed lemurs. (Florida Aquarium, Tampa)

I found Nemo. (Florida Aquarium)

Sand shark. (Florida Aquarium)

Stingray. (Florida Aquarium)

Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

Atlantis space shuttle. (KSC)

Atlantis shuttle was re-used several times, and it was mostly used to transport parts to e.g. international space station. (KSC)

Gemini 9A, the first capsule used for extravehicular activity (spacewalk) by Americans. (KSC)

Hubble telescope.

Liquid fuel engine (uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen). (KSC)

External liquid fuel tank (orange) and re-usable solid fuel rockets (white), used to launch space shuttles to space. Man on the right side for size reference. (KSC)

Rocket park. (KSC)

Mars Rover. (KSC)

Space exploration vehicle. (KSC)

They never have my name on these :( (KSC)

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Washington Capitals. By far the best NHL game I saw live in terms of skill level. (Amalie Arena, Tampa)

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Dallas Stars. Went to OT. (Amalie Arena, Tampa)

Florida Panthers vs. Ottawa Senators. Lower level ticket in the middle of the ice cost $34, in Toronto this would've probably been like $400. (BB & T Arena, Sunrise)

Finally back home.

I've missed sauna.