Expectations vs reality

Expectations vs reality

At that time, I picked Turku as a destination to study I didn’t notice that here are no mountains. I imagine my exchange semester like this:

I can go skiing and snowboarding every day or at least do cross country ski. I have also heart that it’s possible to do ice skating on the frozen river. When I arrived here I saw no mountains and there was also no snow! People told me that it’s an exception that they do not have any snow this winter and the temperatures are so high (it’s was still cold but not under 0 degrees). 

I also made a trip to Lapland of course as all the exchange students do here. I wanted to see the Northern Lights. I didn’t know as well that it is so hard to catch them. There are not visible every day and the sky has to be clear to see it. In addition, you can’t see them when there is too much light for example from a city or street lights. When there is a clear night you have to know that the temperatures are increasing a lot as well. So I was searching for the Northern Lights by walking during the night for more than two hours and the temperature was minus 25 degrees. It wasn’t that easy to see them as it seems.