Introduction to the past and me,

I created this journal for me to write in - about the adventures in the boot-country, Italy. Though, the idea of creating this journal started of four different things: 1) I didn't find all the practical and unpractical information I wanted easily (maybe someone will find this source useful someday), 2) offering my story to a finnish magazine or news paper, 3) letting my family and friends keep track of me and 4) remembering everything when I return back to Finland.

Just know that I appreciate and will write about everything. The good and the bad. I'm sure I will find both, though I of course hope everything will seem nothing but positive in the end.

My name is Milla. I'm 21-years-old (130586) and at the time of writing, I still live in Finland. If everything goes as planned, I will take off from Helsinki-Vantaa airport with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) 23rd of September 9:25 (GMT+2) and via Copenhagen find myself in Venice 13:30 (GMT+1).

I'm quite outgoing, but can be shy in certain situations. I have some really basic finnish habits, like sometimes becoming a hermit, but thanks to my karelian roots.. I usually get over those phases very quick. I love baking, writing, photographing and dancing. Family and friends are really important to me.

I study in Laurea University of Applied Sciences, for the third year (four year study plan) for a degree in media and culture. In Padova, I will study in Università degli Studi di Padova, Visual and Performing Arts faculty. I will not be an Erasmus student only because it was too late for the two universities to make an Erasmus contract. Instead, I will study single courses paying 110 euros for 30 credits of studying. As far as I know it's about 5 courses that I will attend in 10 months. (More info in italian, if you need a translator: this one is very useful, though it doesn't translate in the perfect way - but you get the idea.)

I've always loved to travel and thanks to my lovely family, I've got a great chance to it too. Before starting find out about exchange programs and possibilities, I had travelled around Europe a lot and had been in Italy for 2 weeks in the year 2002. We drove near Venice to Porto di Garibaldi across Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria.

I started finding out about exchange about a year ago, in the fall of 2006. My degree program has Erasmus contracts to Austria and Ireland. Those were my first choices at that time. I had hard time deciding whether to go for half a year or a whole one. In the end, the decision was quite easy. I had just broke-up with a long time boyfriend and didn't see much challenges in my homecountry. I needed something fresh and new. The main reason why I chose Italy in the end was because of my love for the country of rich culture and art history and because I had studied the language before. This was a great opportunity to learn the language well and for that I would need the whole year. In the future, it would be a great advantage for me in the working life.

The way wasn't easy. The country seems to love byrocrachcy and because I live far away, it takes a long time to get everything done. So far, I've fought to get to know when the courses begin and end, which courses I can attend to and what I have to do to get on them. Apparently, these things work very differently in Finland than in Italy. First of all, I was amazed to find out that I can apply for the courses just 2 days before they actually start and they don't really except me in, they just need a confirmation that I'm able to study there. Practically that means that they need to send them my school report from highschool translated into italian. (I needed to get official copies from the city administration and an apostille (together 13euros). Then I contacted the Embassy of Italy in Helsinki, where Satu Vaahtera told me to get them translated (translation and the stamps to confirm that it's been done by a confirmed translator, 45euros) and after that send them in, where they will write a confirmation telling about how the University of Applied Sciences work here. After that, I should have all the papers ready. At the moment, I'm waiting to know when all the courses are, so that I will have courses for both semesters, spring and autumn.

For all the information so far about the school, I have to thank Mara Nardin - and about general help, Walter Caharija. I really recommend to get an italian contact to help to figure out all the language twirls. Even if you know good italian, law kind of text is hard to read and understand.

That brings me to the next thing. What I'm most nervious about is that I have to study in italian. I have studied 6 courses of italian in highschool. Back then, I didn't really care for it. I wanted to learn it but I was lazy in the classes and doing the homework. I started again when I entered Laurea and attended to basic italian course. The problem is possibly, that in the courses they teach us grammar and vocabulary, which are very important. But often, they forget about the talking part. Starting to talk in a foreign language is very difficult, but the best way of learning it. I've learned that while spending a lot of time with exchange students here. Within the last two years my english has gone a lot better and I've also got a lot more cultural knowledge! Now I accomplished basic italian II in Open University of Helsinki, this spring. All my teachers, say that that's just enough to get started.. and even though I won't probably understand more than few words in the first lectures, it will get better quite soon. Let's see if they're right.

Along learning the language, I'm very excited to get into the culture. Someway, like a friend of mine said, I'm going there to see if I could find a better place for me to live.. or how much I will miss home.