And so it begins…

Learning Diaries,

Monday, March 20th. The day is finally here. We have been waiting for this for what feels like forever.
Our flight to Dublin left at 7:50 am, which by the way meant waking up at 5 am for me and around 3 am for Sofia. We arrived to Dublin at 9:05 local time (11:05 in Finland) and we were meant to take busses which left 40 minutes. So… getting out of the plane and going through passport check took 20 minutes. At that point we had the other 20 minutes left but we had no luggage and both of us were starving. I hope someone would’ve taken a video of us running around the airport to get our luggage and buy sandwiches, that had to look hilarious. I mean, our luggage were as big as us and well, it was a mess. Anyway, we got our luggage and food and there was 5 minutes left to find the right busses. And so we started running again, just to find out that our busses would leave on the other side of a parking garage. And running through there was not as easy as yelling “excuse meeee!” and “Sorryyy!” to people standing at one place. In the end we made it; Sofia got to Ballinasloe and I got to Tuam.

Now it’s almost half (past) four and I’m exhausted but happy. In my opinion the weather is warm and it’s sunny at times, I mean it is Ireland so raining is a part of the deal… and the work place and co-workers seem really nice. I think we are almost finished for today and I can finally get some rest. I’ll upload some photos I took on my way to Galway once I have the energy to transfer them from my phone to computer etc.

That’s it for today, I’m off to bed. 🙂

Juulia

First week in Budapest

Learning Diaries,

My first week in Budapest is over and  I’m already in love with the city!

I spent this week in school named Magyar Gyula. In Magyar Gyula you can study landscaping, gardening and floristry. School seemed nice and good place to learn even though they speak English very little. In the schoolyard they have a lot of greenhouses, small ones and few bigger ones.  So I did there some houseplant plantings and decorated wine bottles and gift boxes. I also did one bouquet and table decoration.
In here the style decorate giftboxes and bottles is quite different than in Finland. In
gift boxes and bottles they don’t use living material at all. Students don’t have much flowers for use in school, for example there were only one type of green; strelitzia leaves.

     

Wednesday was national holiday so I spent the day exploring the city. Lovely small cafes, restaurants, shops and bars is in every street corner! Public transport is great way to go from place to place here. Monthly pass for tram, metro and busses costs 9400HUF which is about 30€.

Tomorrow is my first day at Imori Virág-Enteriör flower shop where I’ll be working next three weeks. I heard that the shop is one of the best in Budapest! 

Sunshine and rain

Learning Diaries,

Sunny work days

My second week in Denmark has gone so fast that I didn’t even notice it was already Sunday. At work I have had many things to do and I like to work at Violen so days go quickly there. This week I have cleaned flowers, made boquets, cleaned store, planted and l made some wreath bases from salal leaves. The technique was different from what I have done at school, but I got hang of it pretty quickly. At school we have pinned leaves to straw base but in Violen I used iron wire and rolled it around base so that leaves would stay put.

But rainy weekends

At weekend I didn’t really do much. On saturday it was sunny and I walked around Beder. On Sunday I went for a long walk and destination was moesgaard museum. The distance to museum didn’t feel long because I had time and I wanted to explore surroundings (which you can’t do from bus so well). It rained when I walked back from museum even though my phones weather forecast predicted otherwise. Maybe weather is very changing here or I should get a new weather app.

Moesgaard museum

Hotel Reina Cristina, Cadiz, Spain

Learning Diaries,

More of my journey to Ronda.

Maybe the greatest thing in Ronda was Puente Nuevo, an old bridge over a little river, 150 meters down makes  an incredible sight! Look yourself and notice that the foto can´t show it as you can see it there yourself. I recommend this place to everybody who visits this area of Spain. I also found there a nice restaurant where I could admire the fantastic landscape!

Best friends!

Hotel Reina Cristina, Cadiz, Spain

Learning Diaries,

Today was my first day off and I made a train journey to Ronda.

First little history: In the 1890`s, a railway was built by the Algeciras Railway Company Ltd between Algeciras and Ronda. It was masterminded by British engineer John Morrison and his friend Alexander Henderson. The line connected with the main network to Madrid and acted as a gateway to the rest of Europe. The train journey was very interesting. It tooks you through stunning scenery and historic sites to Ronda. The route runs on a single track down the Guadiaro valley and passes the beautiful Genal valley too, a place where there is limited road access, pretty villages and quaint railway stations that cannot be seen from the road.

There  was really  a lot to see in Ronda. I had a map with me and there were nearly 30 tourist attraction to see in this small town. I had good luck, i found CRISTOVAL and his horse PAVAROTI. They gave me a lift around the town, he told me what places we saw and give me time to take fotos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ronda is, indeed, one of those places which stands alone. I know of nothing to which it can be compared” Lady Tenison (1850)

 

After that I spent some more time in Palacio de Congresos,  beautiful paintings are from there..

Casa Palacio  museo Lara was also very interesting place. There were many halls and rooms with different themes: Hall of clocks, Weapon Hall, Sala Romantica and The Inquisition Exposition! Here some fotos of them.  

Week 5 in Ibiza

Learning Diaries,

At monday we was going in local school and students showed us their school and some powerpoint show about ibiza. In school we had some snacks. At work we went so change lamp in restaraunt wich was nearby that famous rock Es Vedra. And yesterday and today we made TV sockets at supermarket. This weekend i will just lay under sun.

Sixth week in Ústí nad Labem

Learning Diaries,

During our sixth week in Usti. I worked at quality deparment at KONE. Heikki continued to work in the maintanence. At quality deparment i was checking incoming packets for any damage and/or deformation. Also i took part in a installation test of elevator parts. During our freetime we spent time with other Erasmus students and our friends from here.

Sight of Usri from a nearby hill

Here is one of the czech foods we made with our friend.

Ibiza, weeks 1-4.

Learning Diaries,

So.. One month has gone by and i really like it here, the weather is always good and the people are very kind. The first two weeks were kind of slow, because i needed some time to adjust to this new lifestyle, i didnt really do anything except eat, sleep and go to work.

Im working at a company called Medori electricidad, all of the guys there are great, they dont really speak english that much except the boss and this one german guy,  Arved that i have been working with. So far i have done pretty basic stuff, like pulling cables and making cable routes, addin a few plug lines and switches. Like for example, last week we had to put a new main line to someones house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also there was a case where we had to go to this wood wholesale place where they had a huge woodcutting machine giving a amlfuction code and wouldnt let the machine run, so we had to fix it by calling the german manufacturer for information about the machine.

There was also a pretty large fire in here, it  was some kind of a “forest” or a field under natural protection, there was a lot of people filming it, heres a few photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on our free time we have visited a lot of beaches and coffee shops, we also went to Ibiza town to check out some shops for some souveniers and to check out the harbor in there, theres also the “old town” which is absolutely beautiful with its old buildings and Dalt Vila today we went to visit the local school which was a lot like our school in some ways, the students there were a few years older than me but i already made friends. They gave us a small tour of the campus area and made us some traditional spanish snacks. they all seemed wonderful, they were polite and very social. We talked a lot about the island and finland and places to visit if they ever come to finland etc, etc.

the “old town”

I like all the people in here very much because they are the exact opposite of a “traditional finnish person”. I dont think i have met anybody so far who wouldnt talk to me, even when i go to the store i always get to talk a lot with the guy who owns the shop, or for example when i went to order coffee from a coffee shop and of course i was trying to order it in spanish and i said it somehow wrong, then the coffee guy spent like legit 7 minutes teaching me how to order it correctly in spanish and explaining how i said it slightly wrong, it was hilarious. Its a shame im starting to get used to the coffee here, at first it was so sweet and creamy and yuck and if you ordered the coffee black, it came in a half a shot glass and tasted like death. Its gonna take me a long time to get used to the taste of finnish coffee again.

I really like it in here, i hope the next 4 weeks will be just as enjoyable as these past wekks have been