Welcome to Finland

So two days ago I arrived for my exchange semester in Finland. More accurately I should say I arrived for my three exchange periods, but more on that later.

So when I came here, I had absolutely no idea. I did no research beforehand, half intentionally, because I wanted to get surprised and half unintentionally, because I simply had no time for it.

Unfortunately I made a bit of a mistake when planning my arrival and the reception at the student home closes at 4pm (local time), but my plane arrived only at 4pm scheduled and was even 20 minutes late. So I had to book an AirBnB for the first night.

The first thing I was looking for, after arriving on the airport, was of course the train station.

That brings us to the first topic.

Public Transport

So I went down the train station at the airport of Helsinki and it was a big cavern, which is nicely illuminated. You can see some pics here: https://goo.gl/maps/RkzNoVzZGT62 or in my other blog post Traveling to Finland.

Unfortunately right as I arrived two of the three ticket machines were broken. So I missed the first train. However due to that I noticed already the first thing: Public transport in Helsinki comes regularly. When in Austria the suburban trains come every hour or every half hour (in Salzburg at least) at the airport of Helsinki a train leaves every 10 minutes in each direction. Yes in each direction. That was the second thing. Both directions are towards Helsinki. Basically the train lines form kind of a horseshoe and you can go in both directions and arrive in the city center.

I bought a single ticket to Helsinki for 5 euros. Of course having no plan about the fares I asked if this ticket was also valid in the bus, which indeed it was.

The next difference (to Austria at least) is that you have to show your ticket to the driver. For busses on the countryside of Austria you do this as well, but in the cities you don’t usually do that. In Finland you have to hold your ticket next to a validation machine which will check if it is still valid or not. The tickets have RFID chips and work pretty much the same way as skiing tickets.

So far so good. The problems started on the next day. After leaving the AirBnB and dragging my trolley 2km through snowy streets, I had to go from the student home to University and needed of course a new ticket. But where to get it?

Turns out in Helsinki ticket vending machines are not at every station. The ‘easiest’ way is to use the HSL app. Or so I was told at least. Because the app refused charging my number, which was likely because it is an Austrian phone number. The app accepted no other payment methods except credit card, which I do not own. So I had to find another option to buy tickets. Turns out there are 4 options in total:

• HSL App
• Ticket Vending Machine
• Buy at the driver
• R-Kiosk

The first one obviously being out of the question, I started looking at the other options. First I wanted to buy at the driver, but while the app would have charged me 2,20, the driver wanted 3,20. Problem was that I didn’t have it exact and the drivers don’t change. In general you should be discouraged to buy at the driver, that’s why the only ticket you can buy is a single ticket and it costs more than with all other options.

So now I had to find a vending machine or an R-Kiosk. Since it was my first day I still had zero orientation. Fortunately HSL offers a Sales Point Search at https://www.hsl.fi/en/tickets-and-fares/sales-points which is quite useful.

After I went to the R-Kiosk, I could finally get on the bus, show my ticket to the validating machine and see a big green ok sign.

While doing all this, I could proof my observation from the first day. There were so many busses, that I had not to wait at all. It is very comfortable that you can use public transport without knowing the schedule. You just go to the station and hop on the bus. Which will then arrive relatively fast at the place you want to go.

Going by bus in Austria usually means big detours and long driving times, this is not so bad in Finland. For example at my student home there go 2 bus lines. 70 and 71. 70 goes only on weekdays and only departs every 15 minutes or so. However it takes a shortcut via the highway which cuts the travel time in half compared to the line 71, which goes via a couple of side streets to cover also other areas. Together the overlap means that I can take a bus every 5 minutes. And in Finland you definitely prefer taking a 10 minute detour over waiting 5 minutes at the bus stop if you can 😂⛄.

Another important thing you have to keep in mind in Finland is that you have to wave the bus. Otherwise it won’t stop and just ignore you. I have not been able to find out if you also have to wave the tram, but at least in the night it is not a bad idea, if you don’t want to wait.

Housing

During my exchange I live at Unihome Pihlajamäki. It is a bit outside, however it has excellent public transport connectios. As mentioned the bus lines 70 and 71 depart nearby and just a 10 to 15 minute walk away is the Pukinmäki railway station from which you can get to the city center in about 20 minutes.

The room is a nice bedroom with a cooking corner for me alone. Like usual in Finland all the plumbing is visible. There is plenty of storage space and a nice view outside. However this comes at quite a high cost of 600€, which I was ready to take since I made some bad experience when living together with other people in a student dorm and I didn’t want to have to spend any energy on problems of that kind. I usually like to be able to work on my own and I am less of a party person and more of a workaholic :D, so I think the single room is quite a good fit for me.

Introduction Week at University

My first impression of University is very nice. I expected to have a long way by public transport, since I have to commute about twice the distance in Austria and it takes me about an hour. So I expected to have to travel at least half an hour, however since the bus connections are so good it is usually faster.

The University brought us in contact with a group of tutors who showed us everything we needed to know. However since I had to wait get the key to the apartment I was a bit late. Fortunately this was no problem at all.

After getting to know the tutors and the other exchange students we got a short introduction to the Kumpula Kampus where all the technical sciences, like physics, chemistry, computer science, geology, geography, meterology, etc., are located. The first thing I notices was of course the “Linus Torvalds Auditorium” :D.

After that we went to the center campus, where we had lunch and were also shown around in order to find our way.

Welcome Fair

For all the incoming students the university organized a “Welcome Fair”. The way it worked was that there were 10 or so stations where you could do all the necessary paperwork that is needed when starting as a student. This includes

• filling out the registration that you live in Helsinki with “Maistraatti”
• filling out the request forms for the public transport card
• getting the access to the computer systems of the university
• learning about some student organizations (like choirs, scouts and others)

after having completed everything basically all the paperwork needed for exchange students was done. In just half a day. This was very convenient.

After that we walked to the offices of HSL together where we could get our tickets for the remaining 5 months. For a travel ticket for 5 months I paid 135 Euros (including 10 Euros for the card). With this ticket I can travel in the center of Helsinki. I can also load money onto the card and then buy tickets for going further out, if needed. The card knows that I am a student so the student discount is automatically applied if I buy a ticket.

Due to the fact that many students were attending the welcome fair and wanted to get their tickets it took a bit of time, but there was a ticket system in place (the one where you pull a number), so you could at least somewhat use the mean time.

After that we went to a bar in the city center of Helsinki. In Finland it is very common for bars to have games to borrow and play. And so we got to know each other by playing games and drinking beer. Beer at this location was quite expensive with 5 to 6 euros, but of course this was because the bar was in the middle of the city center. Unfortunately one of our tutors had forgotten her ID and so she was not allowed to stay with us. Apparently the age restrictions in Helsinki are handled quite strictly and it is not even allowed to stay in the bar without ID. I also had to show my ID each time I wanted to buy a beer.

The following days we met our tutors a couple more times. University only started on January 14th and so 9th, 10th and 11th were the so called introduction week where we were shown around.

We also had a walk around the most important sights of the city like Tuomiokirkko, the city hall (Helsingin kaupungintalo) and the old marketplace (Kauppatori).

For the students there are also places to meet, like Klusteri. It is a place owned by the university, which can be reserved by students for doing events like partys, movie nights etc. I was quite impressed by the amount of self organisation the students have in Finland. For example at Klusteri there is a strict “No Shoes” rule. That means you have to take your shoes of outside. This works magic in keeping the whole place clean :D. I never thought it was gross to walk around in socks. Everybody tried to avoid spilling drinks and even if it happened people were quick in cleaning up. Even going to the bathroom just in socks was no problem at all.

Prices

Finland has a reputation for having high prices, however so far I am not too shocked about the prices. They are pretty much in the same range as prices in Austria. In the city center of Helsinki the prices are a bit higher, but if you know where to go you can also get off relatively cheap. Fruit and vegetables are probably a bit more expensive since most of it has to be brought in by plane, but other than that there is not too big of a difference.

Although most Finns complained that public transport is too expensive I think the prices are very moderate and even cheap compared to the rest of Europe. Especially if you compare the prices to the quality of public transport.

Food wise the prices in the supermarket are quite normal compared to Austria. The prices at UniCafe, the chain running most of the university restaurants and cafes are very cheap. As a student the lunch costs only 2,60€, but includes some side dish (usually potatoes, rice or pasta) a main course and as much salad as you want. For 90 cents more you also get a “lunch coffee” which is just regular filter coffee with some milk, but hey it’s coffee and that’s what you need when it’s always dark outside. As I was told by one of the tutors the thing about finnish coffee is that “It doesn’t taste great, but we drink lots of it and it get’s the job done.” and I totally agree with that :D. When bought alone the cheap coffee costs 1,20, which is I think a nice alternative to the more expensive coffees like Cappucino and so on.

Of course there are always negative as well as positive exceptions. One negative exception for example is the cafe “Well” in Kaisa-Talo at the center campus of the University of Helsinki. It is extremely expensive compared to other places.

All in all you can always get a good deal if you watch out where you buy your food.

Impressions

Of course I made some more photos during the first days in Finland. I don’t want to bury them on my hard drive, so I made a small selection for you to see here.