rach320

This is one of my first times posting, so any information any of you can provide me with is helpful!

I am a senior in high school and have just been offered a near-free, 4-week trip to Finland during this July as part of an organization's youth exchange program. However, I know nothing about the country--NOTHING. Culture, language, sights, climate, tourism...? Since I'm going away to college this fall, is it worth going for a month in the summer, whereas otherwise I'll probably go to London and Paris with my parents for 2 weeks (we've never been to Europe together).

Basically I'm asking if Finland is a worthwhile place to spend a month in comparison to the standard family England/France trip spanning 2 weeks.

Any help would be appreciated!

Gardyloo

Of course you should go. Start studying now. Of course you don't know Finnish. Outside of Finland, few do, not even other Scandinavians, because Finnish has different linguistic roots. But don't worry - English is very widely spoken.

The Baltic region in July is fabulous - long, long days, islands in the sea, forests and lakes beyond numbering (also a lot of bugs so go prepared), Russian booming in on the radio, chances for fascinating excursions - to Lapland, or St Petersburg, or across the Baltic to Riga... it will give you a real insight into a part of Europe only now starting to make its presence felt in the sense of tourism and the economy. Plus, a big plus, the Finns are fun-loving pretty cool people - proud of their country and rightly so.

Do your homework and tell your folks to get you a tee-shirt at the Tower.

Doh

I would say definitely go for it, partly because I think Scandinavia (inlcuding Finland) would be a great place to visit, and partly because I think a four-week exchange program is a very special opportunity to get a better understanding of what it's like to live in another country and (IMO) that's worth a lot more than the chance to do a standard 2 week trip with your family.

Chances are you will have a lot more opportunities in the future to visit London and Paris than you will to have a 4-week exchange program, and the experience would probably be good preparation for going off to college.

Anyway, here's a link to the Finland tourist board. My guess is you'd have the chance to travel around Finland a little, if not elsewhere in Scandinavia/Europe. http://www.finland-tourism.com/intro.html

either way, have fun!

JonJon

The first time I went to Europe was with a choir group of kids roughly my own age for 8 weeks on a concert tour..unforgettable! As would your exchange program be...GO FOR IT...you can go to London and Paris anytime (they'll still be there) but to go to a country as an exchange program...you will never regret it. Have a great time.

ira

Hi raach,

Absolutely, go to Finland.

You will be able to take a family trip to Europe at another time.

In Finnish, NO is "ei", Yes is "jaa"

asha

I can't give you advice on Finland in particular, as I have never been there, but from my own experience,
participating in an exchange is an incredible opportunity that you should seriously consider! In between my junior and senior year in high school I went on a 2 week exchange in Japan and it was a truly unforgettable experience. Since graduating from high school last year, I have been working in Switzerland and staying with a host family, which has been another incredible experience, opening my eyes to a completely different culture/way of life. While I'm sure going to London and Paris with your family would be very nice, it won't give you the same idea of what it is like to live in a foreign country and discover a new culture like a 4 week exchange program in Finland will. So I say for sure, go for it, you will have the time of your life!

SuzieC

The change to live in Finland is quite an extraordinary offer!
Any chance your family will be going the first two weeks in August? You could meet them there? That way, you have it all!

SiobhanP

GO! I did the same exact thing by myself on an exchange program when I was eighteen and I never regretted it. I went on the AFS program and they try to place you somewere different from your background...I wanted France, Germany or UK and the Irish gal got Finland.

There is a Finnish lady on this site who could give a more up to date perspective. The countryside is beautiful, you are beside Sweden and Russia and could go to St Petersberg for a visit which would be once in a lifetime. There are lots of activities in the summertime as the sun sets for 2-3 hours at night in July. I learned a lot about people that summer and even ended up speaking some Finnish as well.

Language - Finnish, original language distantly related to Hungarian I am told

Climate - Cool weather, I wore sweaters some days

Helsinki has many beauriful sights in the city. There are lots of festivals around the country in the summer for music etc.

Culture - More reserved than other Scandanivians in my opinion. I think the young people are more open and less shy than when I was there.

When I found out I was going my dad gave me an old National Geographioc featuring Finland (Before the internet!)it helped having something to read about it. Check out the tourism sites etc. I would go!

bob_brown

That is quite a question you ask. Having been to all 3 places, I don't know how to answer it without much more information.

In taking best case scenario against best case scenario, then my vote comes down to saying: Go to London and Paris.
But there are a few dozen assumptions I am making without real facts to go on. So that type of supposition is risky.

If the trip to Finland is one where you will live with a family and have frequent association with other students near your age, with planned activities that introduce to the culture and the economy, it might be worth the time.

I will say this much in a judgment call: Unless the visit to Finland has clearly defined purposes and there are planned activities to fill up the 4 weeks with something other than talking and partying, I would not do it.

On the other hand, if you could travel to Sweden and perhaps one or more of the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania, or Latvia), visit Helsinki and other cities in Finland, and see the northern part of Finland (Lapland), it might be worth it.

The landscape of central and northern Finland is like nothing I had ever seen before. But mile after mile and day after day of fir trees may not be your idea of a tour. I lost interest after about 4 hours of driving from Jyvaskyla to Sulkava.

As a bad case scenario, if you are going to be stuck in a room someplace with little contact with Finnish people who speak English, or parked all 4 weeks in a little village 50 - 75 miles from Helsinki watching reruns of Seinfeld, then I would say forget it right now, and go to London and Paris.

You will find that most younger people in Finland speak some English, but the older generation does not speak English as a general rule. To give you an example, my wife and I went to Finland to visit a friend and colleague who is a faculty member at the University of Jyvaskyla. As part of the visit, she took us to meet her parents who are my age - 70. After we greeted each other and smiled, there was not much we could say to each other except through their daughter, who is fully bilingual. (Ph. D, dissertation in English.) We just about worked her to the limit playing the middle person in 3-way conversations with her mother. The father and I had zero in common, so trying to talk to him through our friend was fruitless.

Now, lets take the other side of the coin. You are comparing a trip to Finland with a trip to two of the most important cities in the world. Culturally, politically, historically, and artistically, London and Paris are 2 of the top 10 destinations in the world. (I would even rank them in the top 5.)

A week in either place will go like a whirlwind if you are prepared to take full advantage of your visit. I am not sure that ANY amount of a visit to Finland, no matter how well planned, can rival a well executed visit to London and Paris.

I have been to Paris 4 times total and there are still places to visit on my list of high priority objectives in the greater Paris area.

London I have visited also, but it has been a while. That problem will be solved this summer when I return for the umpteenth time. It, too, has many places of interest to visit and I find it fascinating, if expensive.

There are so many facets to your question that I have no straight forward answer without much more information about the Finland visit.

I can tell you this much: I don't think there is much in all of Finland that can compete with the historical, cultural, and artistic aspects of Paris and London. You would therefore have to have a real opportunity to become enmeshed in the social and cultural life of a distinctly different culture, AND be able to travel to neighboring nations for a planned visit.

In saying that I may rile a few hundered thousand Finns. If so, I apologize.

Bottom line: unless the Finland visit is well planned and promises to be well executed with a high level of variety and travel with a lot of social interaction, I would not hesitate: Paris and London!

bob_brown

I posted my reply without the benefit of the others. I was interrupted while finishing what I wrote and the other responses were posted just before mine.

What bothers me in the other posts is that is no detailed comparison or tradeoff type of analysis of the 2 opportunities. I cannot see dismissing a trip to London and Paris out of hand just because something semi exotic is also on the table for discussion.

Having participated in Experiment In International Living (EIL) and having lived in Europe for a year, I can tell you right now that the visit to Finland might not be the trip to paradise that others envisage.

That is why I say you need to get a lot of detail about the Finland trip.

From the big impact point of view, London and Paris potentially far outrank a trip to Finland, particularly if all you are going to do is stay in one place.

Before you decide, I do strongly suggest that you do your best to get a detailed itinerary of what you will be doing and where you will be going.
Where will you sleep? Where will you eat? Whom will you visit? What will you visit? How will you travel? Where will you travel outside of Finland? What activities will fill your days and nights? What will your expenses be?
Who is putting on this caper and who is responsible?

Without good answers to those questions
no answer to your question is anything more than guesswork and an expression of prejudices or preconceived opinions.

I am not trying to say don't go, but I am saying compare and contrast the opportunities. I think the others are forgetting that you have not been to London and Paris either, and that they are megafun destinations withn more variety and more opportunity that are well documented in countless tour guides.

And, in closing, let me point out what happened to me on my EIL month in Hamburg. The family I was to live with met me on a Sunday at the train station in Hamburg, Germay.
We had a big tour of the park Planten und Blomen. Then we had a dinner party. Monday morning I woke up to find ALL of them had gone to work about 7 am and they did not return until 6 PM or later every day, including Saturday. That was my week, stuck in a distant suburb of Hamburg with no knowledge of how to take the bus and subway into town. I soon figured it out, but you can imagine how lost I felt being in the house all day alone.

Then, when I started planning my own activities that often took me away at night, they got upset with me. It was all right for me to be left alone all day, but when I did something on my own at night, that was not ok.

My point is this: investigate that offer. Look this gift horse squarely in the mouth. And don't let the halo effect of going to some exotic place like Finland sway your judgment. Talk to as many people as you can find who might have had a similar experience.

In my book, as contrasted to the starry eyed "go for it" theme of the above suggestions, a trip to Finland would have to have a heck of a lot packed into it before it could outclass a trip to Paris and London.

easytraveler

Finland:

language: belongs to the Finno-Ugric (Hungarian) branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (which includes Turkic, Mongolian, and Korean on the Altaic side).

In addition to ira's "yes" and "no" I would add "thank you" "kiitos", which is a good word to learn for two reasons: one that it's thank you and the other that it shows you there are long and short vowels in Finnish.

Unless you are very good at languages, you will find Finnish particularly difficult to learn, as you will have very few words to relate to in addition to the problems of mastering the long and short vowel distinction. Some of the Ural-Altaic languages also have long and short consonants. Don't know if Finnish is one of these languages.

Thus, Bob brown is correct in identifying a possible area of hardship for you: communications with others in a very difficult and very different foreign language.

Country: yes, lots and lots of fir trees. And more fir trees.

Helsinki is beautiful, but you will be out in the country.

People: yes, more reserved than most, but very beautiful people. Also very brave people, read their history.

Weather: pretty cold for me, as I live in California. Air is very fresh, tho.

Sauna: Such a joy! You don't have to care very much about communications or the multiplicity of fir trees once you get into a sauna!

Hope this gives you some ideas about Finland to help you make up your mind. If you have been to London and Paris before, then Finland would be a brand new adventure. If London and Paris would be a first trip for you, then I'd agree with bob brown and say that you will probably enjoy the two weeks with your family more.

janeg

Listen very closely to Bob Brown. Read every line- and think about what if this was the case or that. Maybe you need more info about exactly what the Finland trip would entail. Since you are ready to go off to college, the London-Paris trip may be a once in a lifetime relationship trip with them. Do you enjoy their company? Maybe I am a sentimental old fool, but I vote for Mom & Dad.

bob_brown

Coming back with another slant on this whole thing, let me suggest that if you do opt for Finland, you should have a bailout clause in your contract.

I should have gotten out of that EIL arrangement I described above on the second day when I learned that out of my 4 weeks I would have exactly 6 full days of contact with the host family. Everything else was after 6 pm and before 7 am at a brief breakfast.

The problem was that I did not know how to abandon ship. I should have. So if you go, have a way out. Just in case.

I was over there to do research at the Institute for World Trade in Kiel and rather than sitting in a Hamburg suburb, I should have gotten on with my dissetation research. But by being stubborn I learned little and lost time.

You do not quite have that situation at the moment, but my point is this:
Have a way to maximize a winner and have a way to abandon a sure loser.

You are not there to make some international promoter look good. And you need to ask this question as well:
What is in it for them if I go?

Which is another way of saying, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
(I once got roped in on a deal at a Bierstube in Salzburg. The sign said in effect, free lunch with beer. Well, I bought the beer and got the free lunch. I learned about an hour later that the beer was 2.5 times more than the price charged at the pub down the street, and I could have bought a better lunch with the difference in cost.)

If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is not true.

That is why I say, look this gift horse squarely in the mouth and count the teeth.

Doh

OK Bob, since you've had 3 somewhat negative posts, I'm going to chime in again.

I agree that none of us (perhaps including the OP) really has enough info., and I agree that a bad exchange experience (as you had) is worse than a good family trip.

I'd even say a family trip is likely to be easier than an exchange program, although it also has a lot less potential to pay off in all the different ways an exchange can (personal growth, friends, interests, etc.).

So I think you raise some good points to think about. However, I don't think it's at all "starry-eyed" to say that any half-decent exchange program (including one where "all you do is sit around and talk&quot gives you a cross-cultural experience that is absolutely invaluable.

London and Paris will be there, and the OP can have almost the same experience now, next year or in five years, but the chance to live in a foreign country for four weeks (esp. in a homestay) is pretty rare, and IMO it would have to be a pretty bad set-up not to outweigh a 2 week family trip.

P.S. There are a lot of groups that support exchanges because they believe in their benefit both to the individuals, and to the larger societies involved. Again, it's not a bad idea to understand everything and have a worst case plan, but comparing exchange programs to a restaurant's meal pricing seems a little odd to me.

ira

For a Finnish-English dictionary, got to

http://www.yourdictionary.com/langua...c.html#finnish

Gardyloo

I sort of deconstructed the OPs first message and got and/or assumed the following:

1. The organizing group is one with which s/he has some familiarity, and has obviously supplied some information on the nature of the exchange. Hopefully that would address the issue of location, language compatibility, activities, all that. "Exchange" implies something that involves visits in two directions.

2. S/he is going off to university in the autumn, so learning how to live in unfamiliar surroundings as a temporary resident, instead of tourist, might be a transferrable skill that the exchange would help develop.

3. It's for a month. It's not being sent to a gulag.

4. It's July. It will not be cold; on the contrary when I was in Finland in July it was hot as hell, assisted by the sun damn near never going down, and muggy too. Lots of lakes and - BTW - as many birch as conifers - to help the old humidity index. It will be chilly out on the Baltic or in some lake, but in the south at least, not especially frigid. Paris and London, especially, may well be colder. They will certainly be more crowded.

5. S/he has parents who will assist with asking the tough questions and evaluating the alternatives.

And one question for the OP is, does it need to be either-or? If the trip to Finland is "near-free," how about meeting up with the family if they go to London or Paris? You can get from Finland to London for €40 plus tax. Not a deal breaker.

JonJon

What's this..you haven't LEFT yet?????
Believe me, if you had said you could go to TUSCANY there would be such a hailstorm of "do it right nows" that your head would be spinning.
And not to name any names, but this person KNOWS who they are.....they spend a lot of their time, apparently, in the SAME PLACE time after time....do NOT let this opportunity go to waste!

rach320

Wow...I had no idea so many people would chime in on this! Thanks to everyone so far for all your opinions. As we speak I am trying to gather more information on the itinerary and specifics, but here is what I know so far about particulars:

1. The organization sponsoring this is the Lions Club international. The exchange is reciprocal, ie every district that sends somebody will receive somebody in turn.

2. Accomodations, as I understand it, will be with a family at a Lions Club Int'l camp--so all the hosting families will live together at this camp, ie all the Lions Club exchangees (from all countries) will be living together with Finnish families but at the same location. I am unclear about which camp and its location yet.

3. The two trips (Finland and England/France) aren't necessarily mutually exclusive--a good point I had been kind of scared to bring up to my parents since this would mean my being gone from the States virtually my entire summer. I get out of high school mid/late June, and if I go to the Southeast for college (I'm still undecided) orientations usually begin August 15. If the exchange doesn't start until July 1---you do the math. As an entering college student I would really need at least a week to go dorm shopping and gather everything. So until I know which college I'm going to and the exact dates of the exchange I won't know about the feasability of doing both.

4. I have done an exchange before, although a very short one. Last April I went with my school for a 2-week homestay in France, outside of Paris. We each had our own family, but the kids we stayed with all went to the same school (we're now going to host our hosts here in the States next month). So I have seen Paris, albeit the very abbreviated version (think 2 days, not even overnights). And also I do understand and appreciate the value of a cultural exchange--I had no idea that even 45 minutes away from Paris life would be so different and ideas could deviate so far away from what I thought was the "western norm." I've also spent extended time away from home; I did a 4-week academic program last summer, so the "college experience" away from home isn't exactly a novel idea to me.

5. I will supply any and all new information as soon as I get it!

Thanks again for all the help...

Patrick

If I were in your shoes it would take me about half a second to decide -- GO!!! It's an opportunity that won't repeat itself.
My greatest (well, perhaps my only major) regret in my life was turning down a year in the Netherlands as an exchange student my senior year in high school. All my friends whined about it. I was student council president, yearbook editor, and class officer -- how could I miss my senior year at home? So I stayed. Forty years later I still regret that missed opportunity.

And Gardyloo has a great suggestion. Is there any way to include that stay with your parents too??

BrimhamRocks

rach320, I must say that you sound like a dynamic and open-minded young person. I'm glad you have already had some wonderful experiences traveling. Good for you!! From the additional information you've provided, my choice, if I were in your shoes, would be to go to Finland.

Whatever you choose, I hope you have a great summer before you head off to college. I'll be interested to see what you decide, and if you would, come back and tell us how your travels went, ok?