Ahoj! It's me Joona. I have been now in Slovakia little over 8 weeks. Time has been flying past so fast and i have experienced so much. I have got so many new friends and everyone here is so friendly. It is really easy to talk with people and most of youngsters speak good English.
School has been fun and i have learned so much english and even Slovak. I have learned some French and it was my main goal before this exchange. My host parents don't speak really English but i can still communicate with them and they are really nice. Teachers are nice and it's great to talk with them because they always have so many questions about Finland and our culture.
We made presentation with Laura about Finland and we have already showed it for almost every class. We had little bit compicated in first two weeks because Laura had problems with her host family but luckily things have gone in better direction and everything is fine now.
I made trip to Bratislava and city was fantastic. I took lots of photos and i'm gonna show them to everyone when i get back to Finland. My favourite attraction was probably Bratislava castle. I think this exchange has been brilliant and i have got so many new memories and i hope that local people will remember us and maybe even share some memories with us.
Everyone here in GBZA is so good at school so i have got so much motivation to learn things and want to improve myself everyday and keep doing it back in Finland aswell. Slovakian culture is amazing and we witnessed Easter traditions and to be fair i was really confused and really don't understand why they are throwing water to girls but i think those are just things that others don't understand and i 100% respect their culture and try to conform myself in those traditions.
I have travelled around Slovakia and i have seen so many things. One of my favourite days was trip to one waterpark and after we went to eat in local farm restaraunt. We made trip with my friends and it was probably one of the best days of my life. I was aswell watching local football Zilina vs Trnava, but i expected that atmosphere would have been better.
My hobbies, i have went to a gym 3-5 times a week with my host sisters. It has been fun because in finland i didn't have that much time to go to gym that usually. Also i have played football with 2 different teams. But players weren't that good so i didn't want to go usually. One of the best memories i got from futsal game that i played with fake name in one of the local teams. We ended up losing 11-8, but i scored 3 goals and i had great time.
I just want to say that before this exchange i didn't have any clue what Slovakia could be like. Whole exchange opened my eyes and i have truly seen how beutifull this country and people from this country are. If i had change i would like to travel back and see my friends and enjoy summer with them. To be fair i have missed my finnish friends aswell. So thats why i still want to go back to Finland.
School system here is little bit different, but i think that it's almost as good as Finnish system. In English lessons people talk in English and they get experience how to talk to each other in English. In Finland we rarely do that and i think system in here is better for learning English. Unfortunatly our school didn't have canteen so i had to always have some snacks with me at school.
This was my experience about Slovakia and this exchange i would like to rate this exchange on scale 1-10.
People 10/10
School 9/10 (no canteen)
Traveling 10/10
Learning 9/10 ( i would liked to learn more french)
Family 10/10
overall 9.7/10 so almost perfect.
Joona Rönkä
Exchange student in Slovakia