Comenius Finland

I'm Tom, from the Mechatronika Secodary School. I had the great opportunity to go to Finland in January, which journey wouldn’t have happened without the Comenius programme, and of course the hard work from my teachers’ part, especially Adriana, who is kind of the heart of the story in Hungary. At first, we were a bit worried about the freezing cold, since it is one of the most obvious facts about the countries of the north. Our journey to Finland was exemplary, the first plane took off to Helsinki in time, as well as the other plane did from Helsinki to Kokkola. When we arrived, Tiina, a teacher from the Finnish partner-school and Mr. Hannu Sulkakoski, the Headmaster himself, were waiting for us.

It was nice to feel that we left our problems behind in Hungary, although, those days have their nice parts too. The Finnish teachers took us to the town named Pietarsaari in Finnish, Jakobstad in Swedish. It would be obvious to call a Finnish town on its Finnish name, and from my part, I still call it Pietarsaari, since it’s in Finland, but in this town, half of the community is Finnish and the other half is Swedish, so it’s not that obvious anymore. Back to the point, our hosts were there, when our car stopped. It was nice to see them again. Later that night, we went to the cinema, which I enjoyed so much, because the film was English with Finnish subtitle. I would appreciate the same in Hungary. It’s a great way to practice the language.

Each country prepared detailed presentations about the students’ participation in school and community. It was interesting to see that it doesn’t matter where you are from, teenagers do more or less the same things.

 In Finland, we had the opportunity to try ice-swimming. At first I was questioning it, if it’s a great idea for me to do, but after all, I tried it, and it was a wonderful experience, and feeling of course.

 We visited a place where they collect the trash, and they do the recycling, too. Finland has a very smart way to do the recycling. Of course, they have the modern technology, to make it easier, but other countries could „steal” some great and cheap ideas.

We went to see, how exactly ice-fishing works, and also visited Nanoq Museum, which enlarged our knowledge about northern culture. All these programmes were memorable, and we won’t forget the parties organized by the Finnish students either. Here I would like to thank Ella and her family for being so nice to me. It was a wonderful week, experience, I am glad I could participate. Keep going, Comenius!

Tamás Mészáros