Finding accommodation

I have followed discussion about finding accommodation in the city of your host university. Each year few hundred exchange students start studies in Kuopio and Joensuu but student housing company is not always able to offer accommodation for all the foreign students. Finding flat for one semester or two semesters from the private market is complicated in Finland. Even after one month stay some students are still looking for accommodation in Joensuu.

When I went to exchange I decided not to stay in student dormitory. I took a risk and went to my both exchange destinations without knowing where I will be able to live. In both cases I was able to find myself permanent accommodation from the private market within 24 hours.

Dormitory for women in Turkey

One big student dormitory for women in Ankara

My Bosnian friend Amer wrote about his fairly positive experience in dormitory of men in Turkey. I talked also to Bosnian women about their experience in dormitory of women and their experience was not as positive as Amer's experience.

Turkish women were not open to foreign women who were staying in the same dormitory. For example Turkish tried to get foreigners expelled by claiming that their foreign roommates were having lesbian orgies in the dormitory. In that particular dormitory 50 % of women wore a scarf. I was told that they did not take shower regularly and when they removed their long coat the smell was very bad. I did not really hear positive about the dormitory for women.

How are you bro?

Turkish people like to call each other bro or sis. They ask "how are you bro" or say "ok, bro". In Turkish it would be "nasılsın abi" or "tamam kardeşim". Even when you meet for the first time you are called right away bro. Calling you like a family member is one way for Turkish to show their friendliness.

Female supporters

Supporters of Kalpa

One boy in the middle of girls 

On Friday evening I went to see European Trophy ice hockey match Kalpa - Jyp. Naturally home team has the most fanatic supporters in one section and usually in the standing places if available. I have seen live sport event in Sweden, Spain and Turkey and always the loud supporter section have been full of young men. Surprisingly in Finland the supporters were mostly young women and girls. I wonder if other ice hockey team's supporters are also mostly females.

Studies in Turkey recognized

Few weeks ago I visited offices of University of Eastern Finland and handed out academic transcripts from Gazi university. Now I have been granted 19 ECTS from Turkish language studies and 20 ECTS from business studies. I completed 4 courses in business studies: Management Science 1, Production and Operations management 1, Production and Operations management 2 and Management Information Systems. Still I have to show that I have advanced worth 8 ECTS in my master thesis during my stay in Turkey and after that I can get CE-degree

Similarities between Finnish and Turkish language

The famous fish lake in Urfa

Turkish has 60 million native speakers and it has some similarities with Finnish. According to Wikipedia similarities are that words do not have gender, you add to a word different endings and there is a rule how particular vowels fit to a word. There are also Turkish words what are written and said exactly in a same way in Finnish but have totally different meaning. Here few examples: nakit in Finnish sausages; in Turkish cash, sana in Finnish word; in Turkish to you,  rahat in Finnish money; in Turkish comfortable and sanat in Finnish words; in Turkish art.

Birthday of my blog

Little planet

Today is birthday of my blog. I have been writing now three years. Since April 2010 I have been following statistics about visitors in my blog and here I am going to share some statistics. I have had 3400 unique visitors in total. There have been visitors from 91 different countries so it have been a good choice to write in English. Top ten list how people have found to my blog are different variations of my blog's name Parmvoo, Ankara snow and hairy women.

Paper work

Yesterday I handed out academic transcripts from my exchange year to my university so now I am waiting how many credits will be accredited. I reached B1 level in Turkish language so I have possibility to get CE-degree. I was glad to see that especially one guy in the language center was really excited about my exchange year experience.

Ramadan

At the moment there is Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) in Turkey. That means fasting for one month. One friend of mine who was still in Turkey explained me how fasting have effected to life in Turkey. People are more tense because of hunger, non smoking and hot weather. At eight in the evening all restaurants are prepared to serve dinner for people. Everybody is not following the Ramadan so during the day you can see people eating but less than normally. Especially following Ramadan for people living in Finland will be very difficult because there is very few hours without sun in Finland in the summer time.

Turkish breakfast

Breakfast table

While travelling in Turkey I had to eat breakfast outside of home and then the only option in the morning is to eat typical Turkish breakfast. Typical Turkish breakfast consists, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, two different kind of cheese, boiled eggs, white bread, bread  with meat or cheese stuffing, simit, different kind marmalades and tea.