Greetings from Kaunas

One of our special courses in FES is a geography course no. 15 in which we deal with travelling. The course also includes a trip to somewhere nearby, this time to Kaunas, Lithuania. I think it was a good choice because no one had been there before (expect for the teacher and her husband), and it was an amazingly cheap place to visit! At least I was quite excited already before the trip because of the shoes I was going to buy there… 

 So, now I’m going to tell you via pictures about what we saw and experienced in Kaunas. But first I would like to tell you about our experiences and feelings when arriving to Kaunas. Well, after surviving the flight by Ryanair we stumbled upon the language barrier and also the angry behaviour of some Lithuanians. After this I noticed that we Finns are actually really friendly in spite of our different fame. 

The sights we visited: some monuments, the Ninth gate (a former concentration camp), the Devil museum (the only one in the world!), the zoological museum, Resurrection and another church and two shopping malls, Akropolis and Mega (Mega only briefly). 

  

             Kaunas city, the main shopping street called “Laisves aleja” and our hotel called “Kaunas city hotel”. 

  

                                     The longest (1,6km) pedestrian street in Eastern Europe!

 

                               The old town of Kaunas reminded me quite a lot of that in Tallinn. 

 

        There was a huge, about a 10-meter-high aquarium at the Mega shopping mall! You could also see  

                                                       little sharks there, it was quite amazing!

 .                “Our hotel room”, we were joking. But in reality, it was so shocking to see how cruel people 

               have been to each other –and still are. This was in the Ninth gate (a former concentration camp).

       And when the evening came, we were playing young and wild souls in the streets of the Kaunas city! Unfortunately we couldn’t ease our “homesickness” by watching the World Championship ice hockey, because they didn’t let the interested ones watch it in the restaurants.. It seemed the Lithuanians preferred watching fashion shows or Elvis…  and on the other hand, aren’t the pubs usually the places where you watch sports?

                                 Views from the bridge of love in Kaunas in the evening. Gorgeous!

               We were entertained by  young street dancers in the streets of Kaunas! This little boy in the picture  

                                                 wanted to join the dance, too ;)

                                 There we were, on the roof of the Resurrection church, at the vantage point! 

                                        …and saw the best and the largest views of the whole of Kaunas. 

      We also met a sweet old Russian man who had been in Siberia for a really long time, about 40 years! He just kept talking to us even though we could only understand a few words in Russian. He also showed us his great skis made of bear or some other animal skin. And absolutely wanted a picture of him with his great skis! 

                                          The best students, as our guide said in the very beginning!:)

Great and large shopping malls, small and sweet boutiques, delicious ice cream, lots of amber and shoes, and even more beautiful views and new tastes and experiences! Emphasis on the word “ice cream”.

So, overall we had a really successful trip in Kaunas, the mood was great and at least I had really fun and an exciting time! And this is the saldo of the 4 days: cheeks aching from smiling, feet aching from walking, lighter wallets but heavier baggage and memory full of unforgettable memories (and shoes and ice cream…)! 

…but finally Finland with its thousands of lakes was calling us again. But, I really would like to get back to Kaunas, who will come with me? 

Written by Janette Välimäki, 2B

 

The first of May

The first day of May is a very traditional and famous festival in Finland. It was invented in the Middle Ages, and it’s a national festival for workers. Nowadays it’s also the day of Finnish work. 

The first of May has long traditions also in our school. It’s the day of funny clothes and water war! (Even though we celebrated it a bit too early since the actual 1st of May is a day off.) As many years before, many people had dressed funnily. We had Angry birds, cowboys, animals, almost anything walking in the school’s hall ways. We had donuts after lunch, and that gave us the energy we needed for the war.

                                      Angry birds, the first prize winners in the costume competition.

                                                      Some teachers wore unusual clothing, too.

The war itself was the funniest water war I had ever played. Of course some of the students didn’t take part, but it didn’t matter that much. First those who had the best outfits got their prizes. It really helped them in the war, they got water guns. Then the war began. We split out into teams, 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B were fighting against each other. Every team had a newspaper sheet, and the opposite team had to break it. The first sheet which was broken was that of 2A. They started to help their friends 2B. The next one out was 1B, which then went to help 1A, of course. The game ended to the victory of 2B, but 1A wasn’t much worse.  The main point in the war was to have fun and get wet. That we sure did!

Written by Eeva Linnainmaa 1B

Psychology a little closer

In FES we have many applied courses. One of them is psychology course 7, which is done in cooperation with the Open University of the University of Jyväskylä. In practice this means that we are registered into their website and we do exercises there. This time we chose an assignment including three parts in which we deal with mental health and its problems.  We chose one mental disorder that we are examining more closely. The assignments include exams via the Internet, special reading material (even in English!) and some views of our own. 

This course is known to be a little harder than the other courses in psychology. At the beginning of the course we could choose what kind of assignment of the three we wanted to do.  We don’t have actual lessons; we only meet briefly occasionally.  This means that we have quite a lot of independent work, which we have really seen during this course… Luckily we have more time than just one period. 

This course isn’t compulsory for those who are going to take psychology in the matriculation examinations but it gives you better chances to do your best.  We do get more and closer information, don’t we?;) 

This course is also special because we will get a real diploma from the Open University of the University of Jyväskylä as we send our assignments there and they grade them there.  In addition, this course costs a little bit because of those exams and other materials and escpecially because of the diploma. 

This course can give you so much if you really invest in it – which may be hard when having all the other school work to do at the same time, though.


Written by Janette Välimäki 2B