First day in Thunder Bay

Dear internet,

I have finally arrived to my destination. The trip began on monday at 14:20 UTC +2 at Helsini-Vantaa airport. My first destination was the Keflavik airport in Reykjavik, Iceland. The check-in line at the airport was enormous but luckily I had done the self-service internet-check-in the previous day, and I didn't have to wait at all but instead checked my baggage in immediately. The connection from Reykjavik left almost immediately, and the flight towards Canada could begin.

Iceland Air operates with brand new Boeing Jumbojets, which are quite modern and comfortable. The flight took a bit less than three hours, and during that time I watched through three movies, one of them which was the infamous The Interview, in which American journalists assassinate the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. The movie was hilarious, and I suggest you take a look at it! I also met a Swedish exchange-student during the flight, who is going to study for the winter in Toronto. We exchanged contact information, and in case I decide to visit Toronto at some point, I have a contact over there as well. 

After landing at the Toronto Pearson International airport I checked myself in for the connecting flight to Thunder Bay, my final destination. So far everything had been very smooth and easy. However, when I was checking the airport screens my connection, I noticed that the flight had been delayed by almost three hours. Luckily I had packed a few books and magazines into my carry-on baggage and even though the wait was over six hours, it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I also managed to squeeze in about an hour of sleep at the airport. I also exchanged some money at the airport. One Canadian Dollar (CAD, $) equals around 0,6 euros.

Even the screen says that my flight is retarded.

Canadian dollar bills. They are really huge and barely fit my wallet! The coins available are 1 c (penny), 5 c (nickel), 10 c (dime), 25 c (quarter), 1 $ (loonie) and 2 $ (toonie)

At around 01:00 AM UTC -5 (the time difference between Finland and Canada is 7 hours) the journey on a Westjet Encore -operated Bombardier Q-series (an older rotor-plane) could begin. I arrived at the Thunder Bay airport at around 03:00 AM and called the LU (Lakehead University) international adviser, who then picked me up and took me to my dormitories. At 4 AM, after around 22 hours of traveling, I finally went to sleep.

My room. Small, but comfy!

Kitchen and living room of the dormitory. The dorm is shared by four people.

The dormitory itself is located just a couple of hundred of meters away from the university, and it has all the necessary appliances and the rooms are quite modern. There are two bathrooms, one of which has a bathtub and a storage room for cleaning equipment etc. The fridge is big enough and there's a huge freezer next to it as well. All of my roommates are away at the moment, and the university area is almost empty because of the holidays. The first school event is the campus tour on next Saturday, January 3rd.

The next morning I woke up at around 09:30, took a shower and headed towards downtown. The sun was already up (the day is quite a bit longer here than in Finland!) and the temperature was about -20c. The walk to the downtown area takes around 20 minutes and most of the shops are located at the same street called Memorial Ave. I first shopped for groceries at the Real Canadian Superstore (what a great name, huh?) and then went to the Future Shop (an equivalent to the Finnish Gigantti-chain) to buy an electricity converter and a WiFi-station for my dorm. All my batteries were dead at this point, so unfortunately I couldn't take too many pictures at this time. In retrospective it would have been smarter to already buy at least the converter back in Finland, although the prices here are a bit cheaper. On the trip I also had a meal at A&W, a local fast-food chain serving burgers, fries, onion rings etc. The meal was affordable and good. I especially loved the A&W's root beer that the salesperson recommended for me. After the meal I also had a coffee at Starbucks and found out that my name is probably quite hard to pronounce, as my cup said Deamu :)

Talking about pricing, the price-level in Canada is generally a bit cheaper than in Finland, depending on the products. Food is definetly cheaper, and especially stuff like soft drinks are dirt-cheap. A 12-pack of soda cans costs around 3,5 $, which is less than 2,5 euros. The picture below shows the groceries and other stuff I bought on my first trip, and the total sum was about 30 $, which is a bit over 20 euros.

The yellow no-name products are the cheapest ones available, and they are the Canadian equivalent to brands in Finland such as ES, Pirkka and Rainbow. The A&W's Root Beer shown in the picture quickly became my favorite soft drink.

A Reese's peanut butter cup. These things are awesome!

The selection at grocery stores is really good, and you can find for example ready-cut salads at very cheap prices. The 400 gram packages shown in the picture cost about 1,5 $ and there are lots of alternative sizes and types of mixes available. Canadians seem to like their food easy, and the range of ready-cooked products is huge. One curious thing about Canadian shops is that even though the prices are of course displayed at the shelves, a harmonized sales tax, HST, is added at the counter. I'ts quite difficult at first to try to make out the price of the product; I automatically convert every price to euros in my brain by taking about one thirds of it off, and then I have to remember to add the 13% tax as well. The amount of HST may also be different in other provinces. I really have no idea why a system like this is used instead of a VAT system like in most other economies.

The main university building. As you see, there's not a lot of snow, which is uncommon at this time of the year.

So far Canada has been awesome. The city is really homely and the people are very kind and open. I was almost shocked when a regular grocery store clerk casually asked me how my day was, and after she heard I will be studying at the university, she started telling me about her daughter who is also a student. In Finland you generally survive an encounter with a salesperson with one word, kiitos (thank you) and because I'm used to this, all the small-talk seemed really weird at first, but when you think of it, its really great. This is how things should be! I also noticed that people don't walk around that much around here, and most roads don't even have a sidewalk! People use buses and cars to drive around, and during my shopping trip I only saw like four pedestrians and one cyclist!

This concludes my post for this time. I will have new one for you tomorrow where I'll be going through all I've done in 2014, and what to expect from 2015. As always, thanks for reading! If you want to ask me anything you can leave a message for me at my Facebook!

Yours sincerely,

Teemu

Don't stop me now,

I'm having such a good time

I'm having a ball!

It's time

Dear Internet,

The "D-Day" for my great journey is finally upon us. In just a couple of hours I will already be sitting in a Boeing Jumbojet and on my way towards Canada. This post will be my last from Finland in a while. Here's just a few photos for you:

My hobo/deadbeat/homeless-person-inspired travel look! Fashionable, eh?

Carry-on back-bag. Lil' Ezio's gonna see the world too!

"Packing is so much fun" - No one ever

Yesterday I traveled to Vantaa by train (which was about 30 minutes late, thanks Obama!) to stay at my friend's place overnight, and he agreed to take me to the airport as well, sparing me from an expensive cab-ride. Thanks Miika! At the moment I am loading my laptop full of movies and series to keep myself occupied during the 15 or-so hours trip that's ahead of me.

The next post will be published in a couple of days, straight from Canada!

Yours sincerely,

Teemu

It's time we begin,

Isn't it?

Stay a while and listen!

Well hello there, reader! It seems that you have stumbled upon my blog. I suppose it would be appropriate to introduce myself and what this blog is about.

Please, stay a while and listen.

My name is Teemu and I am a twenty-two-year-old student from Oulu, northern Finland. My blog, titled The Great Escape: A Canadian Adventure will be a series of stories, tales and photographs describing my everyday life in Thunder Bay, Canada and my exchange period in Lakehead University. I will be staying in Canada from the end of 2014 to at least the end of April in 2015, when the final exams are held.

The application process for the exchange program began in early 2014. For some time I had been trying to decide between different options of universities and countries. My initial plan was to travel as far away as possible; sure, Europe has its fair share of interesting countries with high-level universities and numerous places of interest, but I have plans to travel through Europe at some point of my life anyway, and it could wait. So I began my search for countries and that are more remote and which I would not likely travel to otherwise; South Korea, Japan, USA and Canada, to mention a few. A couple of my classmates were already applying for the South Korean university, and as I didn't want to compete, I decided that Canada would be my first choice.

As every exchange student knows, the amount of bureaucracy and paperwork can be quite intimidating; just when you thought you'd filled out the last necessary form, you'd get ten more and most of the time you have to get your paperwork signed and scanned as well. While filling out the seemingly endless stream of paperwork and forms can get very annoying, I understand that it's necessary and I appreciate how helpful the staff of both my home university (Oulu University of Applied Sciences, School of Business and Information Management) and Lakehead University in Canada were in helping me with the preparations.

Traveling to Canada itself is quite easy. As a Finnish citizen no Visa is needed if your stay is less than 6 months and the only documents necessary are the original letter of acceptance from the university and of course a valid passport. The prices of flight tickets from Helsinki to Thunder Bay vary from around 350 € to over a thousand euros. I managed to purchase my tickets well in advance, and my ticket prices were quite cheap. The journey can take from 13 to 20-30 hours depending on the flight schedule, and while it can be tiresome, it's nothing nobody could handle. However, be wary of flights that touch down on U.S soil; if you don't have a ticket back home at the time you are boarding the plane, you will not be taken on the flight. Even if you have a connecting flight to Canada or any other country straight away, the U.S immigration laws dictate that you can't board the plane. Thanks Obama. Fortunately Iceland Air offers flights from Helsinki through Reykjavik to Toronto.

I have to apologize for the dullness of my first post. The future posts will include more interesting tales and of course photos. I actually bought the new Nokia Lumia 1020 phone, which is famous of it's "monster camera" to better document my adventure with hundreds of photographs! My initial plan is to write a new post at least once a week and keep them quite brief to make it easier for you to read.

As you can see, two full-grown men fit under the towel! Also, totally not gay. 

I managed to include at least a few pictures in this post! The first one is a photo of me and my friend Joni in our last Saturday's pre-christmas/housewarming/going-away party. My friends gave me an awesome, custom-made Tom of Finland towel, that is one of it's kind! So cool! I will surely miss my friends and family during my trip, but I am also certain that the next four months will probably be the best four months of my life! The photo below is pretty much my expectations about the trip. As you can see, I am quite skilled with Paint (Photoshop is for pussies!)

No comment.

I will arrive in Canada next Tuesday 30.12 at around midnight, and I will try to update my blog as soon as possible. You will probably hear more from me by new year's eve at the latest!

Thank you for reading and enjoy your holidays!

ps. You can also follow me on Instagram @teemuhaat, or check http://instagram.com/teemuhaat/!

Man the oars!

Out to the seas!

Bid farewell and say goodbye!

Because gentlemen, we are heading home!

Turisas - The Great Escape