Today I took a look at my blog for the first time in a while, and I was shocked. The last blog post was in October! Has it really been that long? It got me thinking about my life here in Finland. I haven't really had anything I felt like writing about lately. In the same way I haven't really been very active about anything else either. I haven't hosted any couchsurfers since October either. I'm not really going out, just hanging around at home, and if I've been meeting friends, it's mostly been when I've invited them over to my place. I have been hibernating! Like a bear, just sleeping (and eating).
Today I had an awakening. Maybe it was because last week I was hosting a couchsurfer again. Maybe it's because the days are starting to get longer. Maybe it's because I've finally started planning next summer's trip. Either way, I'm starting to have more energy!
Today I was surfing the internet for some travel blogs (yet again). I am planning on writing a post about travel blogs that I like, by the way. Anyways, I found this cool thing on visitfinland. There's this thing called Finland Blogsposure where there's five bloggers who are going to write about Finland, being stationed at different places. This one girl from Canada is coming to Tampere and Helsinki, so I tweeted her, and I'll probably meet up with her when she comes. I'm pretty excited! Apparently I'm coming out of my hibernation! One of the other bloggers is called Michael Hudson, and he has a really cool blog called Go, See, Write, which I liked a lot. He is a quite experienced traveller and I'm really looking forward to seeing what he and the other bloggers has to say about our beautiful country of Finland.
Traveling being my most favourite thing in the world (as if it was unclear so far), I always feel like I have to have some travel plans, a goal to walk towards. For quite a while now my best friend has been talking about going to live in Australia. Last year she finally started to make her dream come true, and in the fall she applied to an exchange program. Naturally me being a travel buff, I was excited and sad at the same time. Sad that I wouldn't see her for a while, but excited, because I would have a good reason to go to Australia. So after some ups and downs (quite a few downs) last Saturday my dear friend boarded the plane to Brisbane. And I am going to visit her in July. I know, it's winter there then, but Brisbane will still be warm. Today I was looking at flights, but they are still quite expensive. Let's hope they get a bit cheaper. I can't wait. Finally Australia!
What are your travel plans for this year?
Showing posts with label couchsurfing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label couchsurfing. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Language hunger and interaction barriers
"A language barrier exists." This is what you read on CouchSurfing if you are browsing a profile, where the person in question has no languages in common with what you have given out on your profile, or they have stated that their language knowledge of some specific language is only at beginner level. Many times people tend to underestimate their language knowledge and even though somebody doesn't speak another language that well, it is very much possible to interact with each other. For instance last summer, when I was traveling in the Balkans. I did a rafting tour in Herzegovina and both the family that were also on the same tour with us AND the guides (well, at least they pretended) didn't really speak English. Nevertheless we managed fairly well, and had a great time! Body language and signs are very similar, at least withing Europe.
Sometimes it can be scary or even dangerous not to know the language of the country you go to. I was in Hungary a few weeks ago and in Budapest I had an accident. Some amazing person had called me an ambulance and on the way to the hospital I woke up - in the ambulance. The ambulance crew didn't speak English at all, which was very scary, because I had now idea what had happened and where I was. Luckily the ER doctor spoke English and the CouchSurfer, who I was supposed to stay with, came to the hospital and did the interpreting. What a lifesaver!
I was brought up bilingually. I was born and raised in Sweden, which naturally gave me the Swedish language, and my mother is from Finland, so we spoke Finnish at home. So basically I got two languages practically for free. I think growing up with two languages has given me the ability to aquire other language more easily. There are many studies about bilingualism and many of them show that being bilingual helps your brain in many ways, for example in multitasking. Well, at the moment in addition to my native knowledge of Finnish and Swedish, I also speak fluent German and English. But understanding a language isn't just about knowing what the words mean. It is just as much about knowing about and understanding the culture. That can not be aquired unless you actually live in a country for an amount of time. Native knowledge of a language cannot be aquired in class.
My hunger for languages is endless. Everytime I travel to a country, where I don't speak the language, I get the need to learn that language. I want to know more about a culture, and there is no better way to do that than learning the language, and vice versa. I am also very fast at getting the hang of the structure and basics of a language. Last summer and this summer I've spent altogether about two weeks in Italy, and already in that short time I was able to aquire a knowledge that made it possible for me to interact on a basic level with native Italians. Well, at least if they speak fairly slow... A few months or a year in Italy, and I'd be speaking the language pretty well. But this happens in every country I go to. I try to learn some basic things, and once I get back home, I have this endless hunger to learn more.
Last summer I was CouchSurfing in Hungary and I stayed with this lovely couple in a small city called Eger. In their home they had notes all over the furniture, where you could read the name of the piece of furniture in question in many different languages. I thought this was a genious idea! For what better way is there to learn new words than seeing them on regular basis. In this way you learn them almost automatically. At the moment I am trying to learn some more Italian, and I've done the thing with notes in my home as well. Thanks for the idea to P and J!
Knowing the language of the country you're visiting, makes you so much richer. Everyone is always saying that in Paris the people are so rude, unfriendly and don't want to speak English at all. This is not how I experienced it, even though I barely speak any French and had to speak English. But maybe the French noticed how hard I tried to speak French and not English, that they actually liked me. I thought Paris was a very friendly and nice place!
During my travels and studies I have learned a bit of many languages. Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Serbian and Croatian, Greek, Arabic, Japanese... The list will surely keep growing, but I hope that some of these beginner level languages will develop into a deeper level of knowledge, because that will help understanding the culture as well, and what's more important? At least if you find yourself in an ambulance with no means of understanding what is being said to you.
 |
| Hitko Rafing in Konjic, Bosnia & Herzegovina. |
I was brought up bilingually. I was born and raised in Sweden, which naturally gave me the Swedish language, and my mother is from Finland, so we spoke Finnish at home. So basically I got two languages practically for free. I think growing up with two languages has given me the ability to aquire other language more easily. There are many studies about bilingualism and many of them show that being bilingual helps your brain in many ways, for example in multitasking. Well, at the moment in addition to my native knowledge of Finnish and Swedish, I also speak fluent German and English. But understanding a language isn't just about knowing what the words mean. It is just as much about knowing about and understanding the culture. That can not be aquired unless you actually live in a country for an amount of time. Native knowledge of a language cannot be aquired in class.
My hunger for languages is endless. Everytime I travel to a country, where I don't speak the language, I get the need to learn that language. I want to know more about a culture, and there is no better way to do that than learning the language, and vice versa. I am also very fast at getting the hang of the structure and basics of a language. Last summer and this summer I've spent altogether about two weeks in Italy, and already in that short time I was able to aquire a knowledge that made it possible for me to interact on a basic level with native Italians. Well, at least if they speak fairly slow... A few months or a year in Italy, and I'd be speaking the language pretty well. But this happens in every country I go to. I try to learn some basic things, and once I get back home, I have this endless hunger to learn more.
Last summer I was CouchSurfing in Hungary and I stayed with this lovely couple in a small city called Eger. In their home they had notes all over the furniture, where you could read the name of the piece of furniture in question in many different languages. I thought this was a genious idea! For what better way is there to learn new words than seeing them on regular basis. In this way you learn them almost automatically. At the moment I am trying to learn some more Italian, and I've done the thing with notes in my home as well. Thanks for the idea to P and J!
 |
| Charming Eger in Hungary. |
During my travels and studies I have learned a bit of many languages. Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Serbian and Croatian, Greek, Arabic, Japanese... The list will surely keep growing, but I hope that some of these beginner level languages will develop into a deeper level of knowledge, because that will help understanding the culture as well, and what's more important? At least if you find yourself in an ambulance with no means of understanding what is being said to you.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Discover the world, discover yourself!
Traveling.
I can't begin to explain how much this means to me. It surely is the best thing on this earth. I couldn't bare without being able to plan my next trip. Almost daily I am browsing RyanAir.com and other airline home pages and thinking about what to do and where to go next. Last fall I got a new job, which keeps my occupied full time. This means more money, but also less time. The eternal dilemma, that is. So after my trip to Jordan in November I didn't really have the opportunity to travel for a long time. Which was very depressing seeing that I spent almost 5 months traveling last year, to 21 countries in total. And these were all for pleasure, not for business.
My favourite two things about traveling are people and food. A boring or less interesting place can be fantastic if you have great people around. If you ask me what my favourite place of traveling has been so far, I would give my answer according to the people I met in that particular place. Of course it is very hard to say which places I loved the most. I mean, you can't really compare places, since they are so different. But I guess if I'd have to choose... At the moment would say that so far of all my travels I've enjoyed Jordan, Sicily and Bosnia & Herzegovina the most.
So far all my travels have been with friends or alone somewhere where I had friends. My current journey, which is ongoing at the moment (I'm writing from Hungary), has been different from all my travels so far. Initially I was supposed to travel with a friend, but at the end she weren't able to go. So I decided to go alone.
Do you want to know about the love of my life? Something that changed my life? It's called CouchSurfing. For those of you who don't know it, it's a website where you can search for people anywhere in the world. On their profile pages the couchsurfers either offer to host you or just to hang out. So when you're traveling somewhere you can search the place for cs:ers and send them a request to host or meet you. It's genius! I mean hostels are fun and you meet people there too, but they are usually travellers as well, and just as unaware about the place as you might be. Couchsurfing gives you the opportunity to get to know local people and really get to know the city and it's best places.
So this year for my travels I decided to do what I love the most: meet people. People I've hosted, people who hosted me and some new cs:ers. I wanted to visit Hungary again, where I had a fantastic time last year and also I wanted to go somewhere new. In April I hosted a Sicilian guy, and I thought that would be the ideal place. I've heard great things about Sicily and seen amazing pictures. So Sicily and Hungary. What else? I started looking up the cheapest ways to get there and back. Here we come to another of my loves. RyanAir. People say a lot of bad things about RyanAir. Like that they're cheating people with all the extra fees and that the prizes aren't initially as cheap as they promise. To these people I'd like to say: think a second on what you get. The flights are short, so it's okay to sit in a small seat for a few hours. You are not required to buy all the things they offer. You don't even have to minimize that much to be able to travel light with only hand luggage. And if you travel a lot you save lots of money by getting the RyanAir prepaid credit card, because you don't have to pay the additional card fee. I mean think about it. You can get off really cheap, so don't complain about it. If you're not happy about the services you can always choose another airline and pay tons of money. It's your choice. Anyways, after searching for a few days I found some good connections. I would fly to Trapani, then to Milan, Budapest, Stockholm and finally back to Helsinki. And all this for a crazy cheap price. I onyl paid 155 euros for all five flights together. And I have no problem traveling with only hand luggage, even though it's 2,5 weeks... In the summer you don't need that much clothes and stuff anyway. Besides it's the traveling that counts, not the things you carry around with you..
In Sicily I stayed with a couchsurfer, well actually more like a friend nowadays, in San Alessio, which is a small village close to Taormina. After two days I continued to Palermo, where I met with a local cs:er and two russian couchsurfers, crazy girls! We had a fantastic time exploring the city and the surroundings for a couple of days. From Trapani I flew to Milan, where I stayed with another couchsurfer, whom I hosted in the end of April. Yesterday I came to Budapest, where I met with a cs:er I met last year. Finally in the evening came to Eger, where I surfed last year as well. My journey continues to Budapest and maybe also to Miskolc to meet some cs:ers from last year. The final destination is Stockholm, where my pattern breaks and I'm meeting a good friend, who I don't know through cs. Nevertheless.
Basically what I'm saying is that there is nothing better than traveling. Some time back I saw a quote somewhere which went like "travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer". This is so true. Traveling helps you learn more about other cultures and even about yourself. Every time you learn something new, also from bad experiences, which I have been lucky enough to mostly avoid. You become more tolerant towards new things and you learn to appreciate small things. You realize what things are important to you and hopefully you grow as a person. Especially when couchsurfing you learn to adapt to other cultures and to not just think about yourself. At the best couchsurfing brings you new great friends that you keep in touch with forever. At least I hope that some of the friendships I've acquired are going to last.
So I can just encourage everyone to travel and get to know new cultures. It truly makes you richer.
I can't begin to explain how much this means to me. It surely is the best thing on this earth. I couldn't bare without being able to plan my next trip. Almost daily I am browsing RyanAir.com and other airline home pages and thinking about what to do and where to go next. Last fall I got a new job, which keeps my occupied full time. This means more money, but also less time. The eternal dilemma, that is. So after my trip to Jordan in November I didn't really have the opportunity to travel for a long time. Which was very depressing seeing that I spent almost 5 months traveling last year, to 21 countries in total. And these were all for pleasure, not for business.
My favourite two things about traveling are people and food. A boring or less interesting place can be fantastic if you have great people around. If you ask me what my favourite place of traveling has been so far, I would give my answer according to the people I met in that particular place. Of course it is very hard to say which places I loved the most. I mean, you can't really compare places, since they are so different. But I guess if I'd have to choose... At the moment would say that so far of all my travels I've enjoyed Jordan, Sicily and Bosnia & Herzegovina the most.
So far all my travels have been with friends or alone somewhere where I had friends. My current journey, which is ongoing at the moment (I'm writing from Hungary), has been different from all my travels so far. Initially I was supposed to travel with a friend, but at the end she weren't able to go. So I decided to go alone.
Do you want to know about the love of my life? Something that changed my life? It's called CouchSurfing. For those of you who don't know it, it's a website where you can search for people anywhere in the world. On their profile pages the couchsurfers either offer to host you or just to hang out. So when you're traveling somewhere you can search the place for cs:ers and send them a request to host or meet you. It's genius! I mean hostels are fun and you meet people there too, but they are usually travellers as well, and just as unaware about the place as you might be. Couchsurfing gives you the opportunity to get to know local people and really get to know the city and it's best places.
So this year for my travels I decided to do what I love the most: meet people. People I've hosted, people who hosted me and some new cs:ers. I wanted to visit Hungary again, where I had a fantastic time last year and also I wanted to go somewhere new. In April I hosted a Sicilian guy, and I thought that would be the ideal place. I've heard great things about Sicily and seen amazing pictures. So Sicily and Hungary. What else? I started looking up the cheapest ways to get there and back. Here we come to another of my loves. RyanAir. People say a lot of bad things about RyanAir. Like that they're cheating people with all the extra fees and that the prizes aren't initially as cheap as they promise. To these people I'd like to say: think a second on what you get. The flights are short, so it's okay to sit in a small seat for a few hours. You are not required to buy all the things they offer. You don't even have to minimize that much to be able to travel light with only hand luggage. And if you travel a lot you save lots of money by getting the RyanAir prepaid credit card, because you don't have to pay the additional card fee. I mean think about it. You can get off really cheap, so don't complain about it. If you're not happy about the services you can always choose another airline and pay tons of money. It's your choice. Anyways, after searching for a few days I found some good connections. I would fly to Trapani, then to Milan, Budapest, Stockholm and finally back to Helsinki. And all this for a crazy cheap price. I onyl paid 155 euros for all five flights together. And I have no problem traveling with only hand luggage, even though it's 2,5 weeks... In the summer you don't need that much clothes and stuff anyway. Besides it's the traveling that counts, not the things you carry around with you..
In Sicily I stayed with a couchsurfer, well actually more like a friend nowadays, in San Alessio, which is a small village close to Taormina. After two days I continued to Palermo, where I met with a local cs:er and two russian couchsurfers, crazy girls! We had a fantastic time exploring the city and the surroundings for a couple of days. From Trapani I flew to Milan, where I stayed with another couchsurfer, whom I hosted in the end of April. Yesterday I came to Budapest, where I met with a cs:er I met last year. Finally in the evening came to Eger, where I surfed last year as well. My journey continues to Budapest and maybe also to Miskolc to meet some cs:ers from last year. The final destination is Stockholm, where my pattern breaks and I'm meeting a good friend, who I don't know through cs. Nevertheless.
Basically what I'm saying is that there is nothing better than traveling. Some time back I saw a quote somewhere which went like "travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer". This is so true. Traveling helps you learn more about other cultures and even about yourself. Every time you learn something new, also from bad experiences, which I have been lucky enough to mostly avoid. You become more tolerant towards new things and you learn to appreciate small things. You realize what things are important to you and hopefully you grow as a person. Especially when couchsurfing you learn to adapt to other cultures and to not just think about yourself. At the best couchsurfing brings you new great friends that you keep in touch with forever. At least I hope that some of the friendships I've acquired are going to last.
So I can just encourage everyone to travel and get to know new cultures. It truly makes you richer.
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