Moving to Finland, more specifically Lapland was a really hard thing. In conversation, talking about packing up your life for a whole year to move to a different country with two of your pals seems daunting but fine. In reality it took a while to hit me that I was moving to Finland, a country I'd never been to before, a completely alien terrain.
My Erasmus journey had been quite stressful before I moved to Finland. I'd had a few teething problems with Erasmus. I'd never had an experience like this before, I'd been abroad on holidays and I'd lived in Coventry, away from home for just over a year when I applied to Erasmus. Living away had given me a lot but I'd also got used to being able to hop in my car and go home when I needed to go to work or when I fancied a change of scene. If I went on Erasmus that wouldn't be a thing, but I was so determined that this would create a whole new experience for me and it was something I could do for me and it would add something extra to my degree. After much thought and talking it through with my family, friends and some talks from tutors and past students I decided it was set. I was going to apply for Erasmus.
I'd originally applied to go to Karlstad, Sweden after a talk about it by students who had been there the previous year. After sending off my application there was a bit of a miscommunication about when we'd be accepted or what that would mean. I received an email along with four others saying we'd all been nominated. Due to this miscommunication we'd been led to believe this meant we'd been accepted. We were all ecstatic and excitedly starting telling our families and friends we'd be going on an adventure to Sweden for a year and set about finding out as much about the uni and the area as possible. During the Easter break whilst I was on placement I had a number of missed calls from Katie and Lucy that I didn't get until my lunch hour. I panicked wondering what could be wrong and after speaking to both of them and checking my emails I found that none of us were going to Karlstad and none of us could work out why but we had other options.
The three of us settled on Lapland as we had originally applied as a group and we wanted to continue as such. We sent off our applications and were accepted to study in June which set the wheels in motion. We had a lot to do. After frantically applying for accommodation and buying base layers, snow boots and down coats for the cold temperatures and booking flights we were set. We'd leave the UK on the 18th August, landing in Lapland that evening. This was it.
Arriving in Lapland was hard. We were met by our student tutors and showed our flats for the year. Katie and I would be living together and Lucy would be next door. The rooms were uninviting. Big and empty with a bed and a desk. The first night was scary, I was in Finland for a year, my accommodation was far away from town and university, I felt very lost. I hoped it could only get better. The first few days were daunting but exciting. On our second day we ventured into town to try and get some things for our apartments. We also wanted to get to know the place we'd be spending the year. We found a second hand shop and bought a few things before finding a lunch spot. The bus had been a bit pricey but we didn't know our way around well enough yet to be able to go there and back by ourselves. Plus the bus was far quicker than the three of us walking the half an hour to town when we didn't know where we were going. But we'd get used to it, onwards and upwards