Category Archives: Finland

Welcome to Tallinn

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Situated on the coast of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn is simply loveable, a jewel of the Baltic state. This medieval city is a capital of Estonia. The city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is easy to visit this atypical city, distances are short, and you can discover much in just a weekend or even a day. One of the oldest fortresses of Europe surrounds the city and reflects its past. You will see for yourselves how charming and beautiful Tallinn can be with its merchant’s house, cobbled streets, colored facades and red tile roofs.

If you are lucky like us to visit Tallinn during Christmas time, you could see the beautiful Christmas market, and degusted an excellent mulled wine.

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Inari reindeers farm

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During a trip in Inari (in finnish lapland), we visited a reindeer farm in a sámi family. The second generation of the family offers several activities. When we arrived, we have fed reinders, we had the possibility to touch them and the grandmother gave us a lot of information about them. After that we satisfied the examinater of ability to drive a reindeer sledge. With the licence, we are allowed to move, with due care and attention, in the wilds of Lapland. This licence is valid for 5 years.

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Then, we were able to try sports activities and for example the assault of a fault reindeer. The grandmother offered us a coffee in a typical hut. She had explain us how suomi people live whether it is finnish suomi, norway suomi or sweden suomi. Moreover we learnt what are their rites, their professional activities, their language and their clothes. On other woman, sang us famous songs around a fire.

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At the end, it was possible to buy souvenirs on the shop where made of traditional sámi materials reindeerantler, sheep wool and northern wood adjusted to modern use (create cup).

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Heman IT

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Herman IT is a Finnish company who offers services in technology area: Data Center Services, IT Services and Software Solutions. Couple weeks ago we had had the opportunity to meet Erko a member of the Herman IT board management. During this exchange we reflect on the strategy that Herman IT has developed till his creation. The evolution of this strategy making process was our main discussion subject. To understand the challenges of HIT a brief overview of their past actions and history is necessary:

In 2000 Ebsolut Oy was established and implemented a “day-to-day” strategy based on adaptive elements such as sense making and sense giving.

In 2008 Ebsolut Oy was acquired by KPO and this result in a change of the CEO. The strategy has been developed in this period and was highlighted by a bigger employee involvement in the company strategy. This new employees concern was installed by the bias of formal practices such as board meetings or employees’ reviews.

In 2015 the company merged with Herman IT and this resulted in many changes inside it. The instalment of numerous new practices such as rewards, dialogization, self-actualization were some of those examples. The communication was also in all points increased, employees sense giving toward leaders was raised.  The leaders had, for their part, a clear strategy which gave them the charge to energize, envision and revision the company life.

In 2016, within the post-merger phase, Herman IT has more challenges to overcome. Especially the threat of a possible “Clash of Cultures” within the newly formed company can be problematic for HIT future success. Thereby the company’s leaders and the middle-management have a crucial role to develop a strategy to overcome this threat

This meeting allowed me to understand the difficulties to build a company and manage the employees.

 

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Erasmus family

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During this semester abroad, you are going to stay with a great family: the Erasmus relatives !Screenshot_2016-08-28-05-09-16

Directly after your arrival in your host country for the semester, you are going to meet wonderful people, who are, like you, experiencing this adventure !

To integrate you directly into the family, I recommend you go out and participate in the events as often as possible, this is how you will have the most fun and create a link, and at the same time, improve Your English!

In Oulu, there are so many Spanishs, they are part of my group of friends and it is by far the funniest and most friendly !

 

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Also, Erasmus life helps you to know yourself, take a step back and think about your life and what do you want to do further. It is a real awareness and I recommend to anyone to make this experience, which allows to improve on all points.

IMG-20160917-WA0007When a crazy week end is over (so every week end), just sit down, sauna and relax !

 

Do not waste your time geeking on the computer, the adventure is far too short, then go out and profit fully with your roommates, your friends and all your new family !

 

Arthur Leblais

Direction Stockholm

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On 13 and 14 november, ESN organised a famous event with name “Pirates of Baltic sea”. That doesn’t tell you Nothing, but the principe is to gather more than 1000 Erasmus students who come from Finland or the countries of Eastern of Europe to make the crossing on a ferry. Several activities were organized during the journey which lasted from 17:30 to 8:30. And in the early morning, we arrived in Stockholm (Capital of Sweden).

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Snow in Stockholm

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The city consist fourteen islands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fantastic because there was snow everywhere on the city, and some people skied or sledged in the park. The city has very nice buildings but what I found the cutest was the old centre with pretty colorful buildings. We also visit the Stockholm Cathedral and we assisted at the changing of te guard.

 

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Pretty colorful buildings

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The old centre

Husky safari

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Last week, I went to Lapland with ESN. It is a wonderful experience, and I think it is one of the best times of my life. There, the days are short and snow covers the ground but do not worried you have enough time to do many activities. My favorite experience was the visit of the husky farm. Dogs are of rare beauty, with their blue eyes and their fur. We did have the opportunity to see some puppies, I wanted to adopt them! It was a truly experience, and I had a chance to be a musher. In pairs we rode a sled drawn by a dog team. It had no words to express my happiness.

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Enjoy your holidays

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There is an advantage with the University of Oulu… we have holidays in October.  For me, the period A ends on the middle of octobre and period B begins the 1st november. So, it gave me time to visit the north of Norway.
We booked a car for 5 days and we driven during all the night to go to Nordkapp at 900 kms. After 12 hours, we arrived at the time of daybreak. In nordkapp there is a center with a variety of facilities like the Nordkapp panoramafilm whose presenting the Nordkapp region in four seasons, historical exhibitions, St.Johannes Chapel, the Cave of Light (explain the appearance of the Northern Lights), souvenir shop, the world northermost post office, restaurant and cafes. But you have to pay for the entrance. The steep mountain cliff rises 307 meters above the Arctic Ocean, and marks the end point of the European continent.
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The second steps was Alta. Alta is the largest city in the county of Finnmark and is famous to be the city of Northern Lights. In this city we visited the Northern lights Cathedral built in 2012-2013 and during the night we show lot of northern lights on the road.
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Then, we went to Tromso located at 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and is the largest city in Northern Norway. During one day, we appreciate discover the charm of the city center with the typical Norwegian architecture. We enjoy it to visit the Perspektivet Museum, and the Artic Cathedral. At the end of the afternoon we took the cable car.  It’s Tromso’s most popular tourist destination. This cable car runs from Solliveien in Tromsdalen up to the mountain ledge Storsteinen (421 meters above sea level). From the viewing platform at the upper station, you can enjoy spectacular panoramic views of Tromsø and the surrounding islands, mountains and fjords. It was a wonderful landscape!
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For the 4th day, we drove to Svolvaer (Lofoten Islands). It’s in this small city where we hike during 5 hours to admire the Fjords from the top of the mountain. It was necessary to wear shoes adapted because the trails were very slippery and sometimes not very suitable (so dangerous!). We knew that the sun was setting at around 5pm, we had to be careful to go back down before the night comes.
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Last steps was Reine, at 125 kms from Svolvaer.  The breathtaking village of Reine is located on the island of Moskenesøya on northern Norway’s Lofoten archipelago. The village has earned a reputation as “the most beautiful place in the world.” On the middle of fjords, there is a a quite village with red and white fishermen’s huts at the edge of the shoreline. A picture of this village appears on the front page of all the tourist brochures of Norway. Reine is our favorite destination on the Lofoten Islands. It’s possible to hiking there and many of the best hikes on the Lofoten Islands begin in Reine.

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At the end, we made more than 3500 kms.

Welcome to Helsinki !

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Helsinki, the beautiful capital of Finland, is a vibrant and bustling metropolis! The city is surrounded by the many parks, forest and island. The atmosphere is both relaxed and stimulating. Helsinki is a functioning city, and can easily be seen on foot. Its architecture, cultural offering, many shops, bar and restaurant make the city more attractive.

Sibelius Monument, Suomenlinna, Helsinki Cathedral, temppeliaukio Church and Uspenski Cathedral are not to be missed if you visit in Helsinki.

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Fazer company

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Today, i’m going to introduce you one of the largest agri-food companies in Finland: Fazer group.

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                            This chocolate is so good !

Created by Karl Fazer in 1891, it was originally located in downtown Helsinki. Today it employs over 10,000 people in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic States, the United Kingdom and Russia.

The most noticable product of Fazer is the “Fazer blue milk chocolate”. In supermarkets, you can see tons of chocolate, everywhere. In fact, Finnish people love chocolate, they are the 6th largest chocolate eaters in the world, they eat 7.2 kg of chocolate per head per year ! (In comparaison, in France we are at 6.7 kg)

Furthermore, Fazer owns more than 65% of chocolate market share in Finland!

Its production is now divided into four sections:

  • Fazer Amica, a chain of restaurants as I said in my previous post;
  • A chain of bakeries;
  • Candyking, a chain of candy stores and other sweets;
  • Fazer Café, a chain of cafes, whose main establishment is in Helsinki.Fazer cafe

 

Well, eat chocolate, it’s good for you !

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Arthur Leblais

When winter is coming

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We all know that it gets cold in Finland in the winter. The temperateness varies considerably between the southern coastal regions and the extreme north.

Since October in Oulu, the cold had settled down. At this period I wore my gloves and my big scarf. But since the beginning of November the snow appeared and covered the streets and trees. It makes actullement very cold. Thus we go every morning to the university with -11 degrees. It is not easy everyday because there are snow on our saddles so our buttocks are wet. And something else, our hair and eyelashes freeze outside. But it’s very invigorative, especially when the sun is present and it reflects on the snow.

The most annoying point on this change, it’s the passage at the time of winter. Now, the night come between 15:30 and 16:00. Knowing that the sun gets up between 8:30 and 9:00, we see very few the sun. And that is going to go only by worsening till the middle of December (where it’s plans only 3 hours of sunshine per day).

 

But it’s not a reason to stay indoors, so just make the most of the fresh white season and enjoy it !!

 

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Snow in the forests of Oulu

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Very cold temperatures and sunset at 15:30