Lappenranta is a small town, with a total area of 1,7 million km², which is really close to the Russian border and has a population about 73 thousand people. Lappeenranta has a harbor which lies on the biggest lake in Finland - the Saimaa.

Sunday

After a long flight with FinnAir and a bus trip, we arrived at 2:30 am atthe school in Lappeenranta, we got picked up by our host families, who drove us to our new homes. Maybe some of us were a little bit afraid because of the foreign country and the strange families, but everyone has found a place where they are happy to stay for the week. 

Our first impression of Finland was another one than we have expected. As some of us heard that Finland will be really cold and even the lakes are still frozen, we took some gloves and scarfs with us, but the weather was really friendly to us and now its sunny outside with up to 20 degrees. If I´m honest, I imagined the landscape of Finland a little bit differently. Like more snow, darker and with less population. But till now it´s completely different. The sun is shining, there is no snow outside and between all the small forests there are wonderfull "Finnish" houses and more nature than we have in Germany. Till now we haven't seen any animals like bears, elks or something like that, as we imagined that there are some of them in Finland. :(

 

Monday

On Monday we met with all the other groups (Finnish, Austrian, French and German) in the library of the school to talk about our topic and divide the students in between the photo, video, creative, print and online group. After that we sat together in our teams and started to work on our topic, which is - "Social networks and the internet, privacy and cyber bullying: How to stay connected to the world while keeping your digital 'digital clothes' on. 

In this week we want to show how the online world can affect our real life and maybe sometimes can destroy it. How the safe place behind the screen of our smartphones, laptops, etc. makes us stronger and involable to do something, which we never would do in real life. The bad sides of the always available connection to people we know and some we don´t know. And also the good sides the connection between people can have. 

At 12.00am we went to the school's cafeteria and had something to lunch. The choice was definitively better than in other schools and there was always something for vegan and vegetarian people. 

After lunch we had a funny trip around Lappeenranta. There was an application called 'ActionTrack', which gave us some tasks to do. After we finished the tasks we've got points on them and the group with the most points has won. It was funny because we have seen some really interesting and special things and places in Lappeenranta and the trip with the small groups of five to eight students was really fun. After we finished our tasks we went back to school and then home, where we had dinner.

In the evening we went back to the city and met with some guys of the Erasmus Group and headed to the beach of Lappeenranta which lies on the lakeside of Saimaa, which is also the biggest lake in Finland. We had so much fun together end enjoyed the evening in Lappeenranta. It was 9.00 pm as we left it was still bright outside like it's afternoon in Germany. We also had arranged that we will come back the next day. 

Tuesday

Day two is, like Thursday, a "work day", cause we now get the time we need to get further in our tasks, as we travel to Helsinki tomorrow and Friday is already the day of the presentation. 

It gives me a feeling like the day before Christmas when I watch the different groups and also the entire working room. Everyone is running around, doing something for their groups. The photo group is the biggest one which is directly in front of me, so I can see how they are taking photos of different scenes, gesticulate, talk loudly to each other, asking the teachers, which also seem like they have fun with the students.

The creative group looks a little bit confused, but if I'm serious that group is the most difficult one, because they have first to find a good idea and work it up which is a little bit tough to do in two days, if not everyone likes to work hard on it. But it seems they have already found a good idea. 

The students from the video group are in the basement of the school and recording an amateur movie which maybe will get a Oscar nomination. They have already put all the furniture on the place where they need it and, motivated from the last Erasmus film in Rennes, they want to make a better one, which will bring the meaning behind it on point. 

The print reporters are also doing their tasks, going around, reporting about students on the school. Some of them were also on the harbor of Lappeenranta and asking the people what they think about it, how their experience are and what they think about internet privacy. 

Also our group is working hard on our points. Some making a photo gallery, some writing articles and some are writing a blog about the week.

And while this all happening we have also time to plan our freetime for this afternoon on WhatsApp. While working with the internet on this topic, we can see the  good and bad impacts of social networks on us. 

After the lunchbreak at 13.00 pm we also had time to enjoy the sun and have some small talk with the other people on the school yard. 

The students gain more and more information about the topic and how people do not really want to hear something about it. Everyone knows what happens with our privacy on the internet. Concerns like Facebook, Google, etc. do not really care about what the law says. They are only focused on the money. Personal data are highly wanted by big firms, so they buy our data from social media concerns like Facebook or Google, to personalize for example the adds for every individual user. And thats a really lucrative business for them, which they don't want to push away. So we don't only think about the negative sides which comes from other people, also the negative sides social medias have. For example the print group has interviewed some people on the street, better said, tried to interview some people because they not really want to hear something about it, even if they now the negative sides. 

In our freetime after the school we meet in a coffee with some other of the groupe and talked about what we will do in the evening. After some of them have leaved us for lunch we also went to lunch and meet the other ones at Halkosaari. We had a lot of fun there. Some of us had a bbq, we took photos of the wonderful view. It's really cool to have so many amazing places around. You can't imagine how beautiful the nature looks like when you care about it and don't exploit it. The Finnish country is one of only a few untouched place in this world with a total area of around 340,000 km² and a population of 5,5 milion people. You can sit on the beach and see how the sun goes slowly down around 9.0 pm. 

 

Wednesday

Today was our tour to Helsinki. We traveled by bus, which picked us up in front of the school. It took us about three hours to travel there, it would might have taken that much if you travel by car. After we had arrived there, we got a sightseeing tour, where they showed us some famous buildings and places in Helsinki and also government buildings. We heard that the Prime Minister of Estonia was also there, so we have seen some finish Policemen which is not so really common in Finland that they are walking around like in Germany, the tour guide told us. We also got told that Finland is one of the most safest countries in the world. This is really cool because, everyone here is like living in a big family and wouldn't hurt each other. 

The tour was a little bit annoyoing because Helsinki is a wonderful place and I really wanted to take some nice photos which was not really possible, because we were sitting in the bus. But thank God we had some freetime there and were able to walk around and take some beautiful photos. 

So, first we were on the market and bought some souvenirs and afterwards we took a ride on the Ferris wheel, which was adorable, beacuse we had a nice view over Helsinki and Ferris wheels are really cool. It was really nice to see everything from above. 

We also went to the Uspenski Cathedral. It was huge and gorgeous. It's facinating to see buildings like that one, because it was built in 1862 to 1868, without any facilities. It just took six years which is is really short for a huge building like that. Also the inside was so amazing. There were many paintings on the wall, and what fascinated me most is the fact that they were so high above the floor. 

As long trips make people hungry, we went to a part of the city not too far away where we got something to eat. Sadly, we had to leave Helsinki earlier, because the bus ride takes so long. The bus ride was the worst of the whole trip, because you just have to sit and couldn't do anything than speaking to each other, eating, listening to music, etc. 

At around 9pm, our host families picked us up in front of the school and we went home. I was so tired and exhausted  from the trip that I went to bed earlier that day. 

Thursday

Last day of work. Most of the groups have already finished their tasks and planned how to present it on Friday. Sometimes it was a little bit boring, mostly for me, because I have to write this blog and can only write it, when something happens. 

After school we went to the shopping center "isokristina" and met some other people there. Then we went to a tattoo shop, because one girl of our group wanted to have a special souvenir of Finland. She wanted something that lasts longer than a few years. So she decided to get a snowflake tattoo, which is symbolising Finland for her.

Then we had a special evening in the school with all the people from the poject and the host students. We went to the theatre where we watched a Finnish play. It was funny, I think, sometimes I laughed because they acted really funny but because it was in Finnish I didn't really understand all of it.

Afterwards we went back to school, which was also really cool, because it was like 8.00pm but it wasn't dark outside. There was a dinner for us in the school cafeteria. It was really cosy, because we were sitting all together, eating, listening to music and talking to each other. We had a really good time. Finnish people are quite open towards other people and not afraid of talking to them. 

On the way back home we had a stop at the largest bridge in Lappeenranta. The view was amazing. I also took some photos of the big paper factory, which is on the other side of the bridge. 

Friday

Last day of school. We had to complete our tasks and get prepared for the presentations. Some people were really in a rush, one group even accidentally lost their presenations and had to recover the file first. However, there were also some who hadn't got anything to do, because they had already finished everything.

If I did a quick review of the week, I would say that everything was great. I'm pretty sure everyone in this project will agree with me on this point. It was really fun to work in groups with students from different countries. The host families were all so kind to us and also the host students have done everything to make our stay comfortable. It was a really nice experience to be here.

 

Coming up ...