Erasmus Oulu - Finland | Bernd Verhofstadt and Tom Mampaey

I’m almost graduated!!

The final presentation in Belgium is behind us. Here are some pictures. On the following link you can find the presention. Presentation Belgium I had an awesome time the last three years at the Artesis Plantijn University of Antwerp. The ERASMUS period that I had in Finland was a wonderful experience! A lot of snow…

Guess who’s back as a surprise!

After spending my last weeks in Oulu I secretly headed back to Belgium. Only a few people knew I already landed the 30th of May, instead of the 6th of June! All this was of course part of surprising my unsuspecting girlfriend. I told her I had to sleep a bit longer because of the days without…

Ultimate Frisbee(r) !

In my first weeks in Oulu I found this awesome Ultimate Frisbee club: Disquitos! After my first training I was already convinced that I was going to do this much more often. I ended up doing it more than once a week sometimes. The teammates were very nice and I have learned a lot from them (not…

Final presentation!

On the 21st of May we had our final presentation. We really worked very hard, starting from scratch to put some intelligence in the device that you use the most in your kitchen! In this way we made the ‘Smart Fridge’ possible! Hard work paid off and our presentation was a BLAST! Our projectmanagers were more…

Countdown has started!

Only one week left for our Final presentation in Finland! We are working hard to ‘finnish’ our project!

Shooting some assault rifles, yeah!

On a random peaceful day out tutor, Tomi, called me with the question if we would like to shoot some real assault rifles at the Finnish Army-base. Well, I don’t have to tell you that we had to think about it. We just had to gave some passport numbers and we were ready to go!…

GRAND RUSSIA TRIP!

здравствуйте ! (zdrávstvujte) This trip was absolutely amazing! I don’t know where to start! Unforgettable! The Erasmus Student Network (ESN) organised this trip to give us the opportunity to go to RUSSIA in a safe, easy, instructive but mostly AWESOME way! The planning was so full with amazing things that I can’t even articulate every -thing/day! Prepare yourself for…

Things I have been doing

You’re right, it has been a while again, and I really did A LOT! I’m already getting the feeling that time is shortening and I’m using/living every minute of it! Some things I did/that happened since my last post: Project work: ‘The Smart Fridge’ It speaks for itself (dunglish? 😀 ) that I’m working hard on my project…

Hockey Playoffs 2015

De hockey ploeg van Oulu, Kärpät, speelt momenteel mee in de Playoffs 2015. Oulu speelt momenteel de finale tegen Tampere. Wat is een Playoff? Zijn verschillende ploegen die 7 wedstrijden tegen elkaar spelen (best of seven) nu speelt Oulu 7 wedstrijden tegen Tampere. Bekijk hier alle uitslagen. Enkele leuke sfeerfilmpjes van de Playoffs! Oulun Kärpät…

Fins Diner met Tutor Tomi

We spreken regelmatig af met onze tutor in de sauna. In de sauna houden de Finnen de belangrijkste conversaties. Tomi had ons een leuk idee voorgesteld, hij wou iets fins klaarmaken voor vijf ERASMUS studenten. Hij wilde zijn kookkunsten graag tonen die hij van zijn familie heeft geleerd. Op de rendier boerderij van zijn ouders…

Pirates of the Baltic Sea 2015 with ESN Oulu

In maart zijn we met ESN Oulu naar Stockholm geweest. Een leuke ervaring! Hier het verhaal. s’ Ochtends zijn we vertrokken vanuit Oulu naar Helsinki met de bus. Ongeveer 8uur… Vervolgens hebben we daar de boot genomen naar Stockholm. De route die we hebben afgelegd ziet er als volgt uit Enkele sfeerfoto’s van de boot…

Tom Waes ziet noorderlicht en wordt emotioneel

Het noorderlicht staat bij velen op de bucket list, ook op die van Tom Waes. In zijn programma Reizen Waes gaat hij naar Spitsbergen een eiland boven Noorwegen. Het noorderlicht is er prachtig te bewonderen. Bekijk hieronder de fascinerende beelden. Ik heb zelf enkele pogingen gedaan om het noorderlicht te fotograferen, bekijk hieronder de selectie!

International diner!

Een tijdje geleden werd er een international diner georganiseerd in ons gebouw. De volgende landen zijn te zien op de foto: – België (jammer genoeg geen wafels maar pannenkoeken door een gebrek aan wafelijzer…) – Slovakije – Spanje – Tsjechië – Nederland – Hongarije – … Veel speciale smaken en zeker de moeite om eens…

Sports

You still have time for sports ? Yep, or at least I try to! Back in Belgium I did sports like rock and wall-climbing, Ultimate frisbee and Kayak-Polo. I think I found quite good replacements! Once a week I go play ‘Ultimate Frisbee’ in an awesome club nearby. The people are really great and we’re…

Trip to the top of Europe: Vasatokka

A few days ago we got back from an amazing trip to the high North ! It was just so wonderful to travel through these amazing views and nature. We are very grateful to ESN (Erasmus Student Network) to organize this magnificent trip! Some awesome facts about my trip to the North!: In the parts we were,…

‘Science Fiction’ in the ‘Smart Kitchen’

Most of the time we were posting about our trips and the things we did beside school. Actually one of our main activities is working on our big project: ‘The Smart Fridge’! (Sounds awesome right?) In best-case-scenario this fridge will(*): – Recognize the user – Know which products that are present in/added to the fridge – Detect…

Roadtrip!

Less than one week after I left Helsinki some Belgian friends came to visit me. Ofcourse they know what’s good and the brought the right things with them: They stayed in our apartment for a night so we could plan our roadtrip to the north! We First drove to Kiruna in Sweden where we…

Ice-Hole-Fishing

When you don’t have any money anymore to go to the shop you will have to go on the ice to catch some fish! A couple of weeks ago I went Ice-hole-fishing with some friends on a frozen (of course) river/lake nearby. We did it for the experience and because it’s a really typical Finnish…

What is your Finnscope?

Find your Finnish horoscope sign by typing your birthdate here.

Discovering Southern Finland

Last week I traveled to Helsinki to visit my girlfriend. I traveled by night train (see pictures bellow). It took about 10h to travel from Oulu to Helsinki. I made for a few days a culinair tour trough Southern Finland with my girlfriend. I want to discover if there is a difference between the Belgian…

The perfect week in Helsinki!

I just had an amazing week. I took a plane to Helsinki to meet my girlfriend. After some research I found a flight for only €35 (and I had Free Wi-Fi onboard!!). My plane arrived one hour earlier than the plane of my girlfriend, so I had the time to already arrange the keys of our apartment…

Hyvää päivää, mitä kuuluu?

Or ‘Hello, how are you?’. Since the 5th of January we are following a Finnish Survival Course in our school (OAMK University of applied sciences Oulu). The course ends on the 18th of February. During this course we are ’trying’ to learn some basics of the Finnish language. No wonder they say it’s one of…

Long time no see !

Hi there ! It almost got a little boring here, right? This could be because of two reasons. Either we were really doing fun-stuff and couldn’t find the time to post anything about it, or we are in the middle of exams/schoolwork! … Well, actually it was both ! We really had some busy weeks….

Phone got Frozen! ❄️

In the past I heard a lot of people saying that there phone got frozen! Most of the time it’s all working again when you restart the phone. This past week, I experienced something strange. When we took a long walk to the supermarket, suddenly my phone switched off. The outside temperature was around -20°C….

The Oulun Beach in Winter

Today, we went to the Oulu beach. Every summer the Fins have there morning swim, but now you can walk around the beach and the sea is like in a desert, white sand as long you can see. The path to the beatch was iced-over and slippery. The beach was snowy and the sea was…

Ice Hockey game at Oulun Energia Areena

On the 7th of January a very large audience gathered a novel contest on the ice between Oulun Kärpät and Pelicans Lahti. The game of hockey on ice is the national sport in Finland. In the Oulun Energia Areena there is place for an audience of 6.768 people. We went to the game. It started…

Awesomeness

After we had thrown a cup of water outside at minus 22(1)and saw the effect we couldn’t resist to try it big-scale ! Yes, with a bucket: (click to enlarge) (1) https://vimeo.com/116002712 We also added a nice extra feature to our tunning-mood-lighting in our apartment: Smartphone-controlled apartmentlights – Oulu, Finland from Tom Mampaey on Vimeo. Something else…

First Finnish Sauna-experience!

Yesterday we went on a trip to the nearest Lidl. It was -25°C outside and we hoped we only had to walk a couple of km’s. But of course we made a huge detour, so everything was freezing blue! We never felt so cold in our lives! And at the top of the bill the Lidl was…

A walk in the neighborhood

Today we got up early to make a walk in the neighborhood. When we opened our curtains and checked the temperature we were surprised! The temperature already dropped 22 degrees below zero ! We took a cup of (warm) water to see the effect. After we tried it once we were very impressed and did a lot…

Our apartment

After a nice trip in Oulu, Tomi drove us to our apartment. It was already very late, and we were very tired. The only thing we already unpacked was my router, so we could contact our (girl)friends and family!

Contact us!

Today we went to some shops with Tomi. The first thing we did was go get a Finnish sim-card.

Final destination: Oulu

Our blog ended in Helsinki yesterday… Finally I’ve some time to describe the first hours in Oulu. Before we got off the plane, we had a little talk with the pilot. Here’s a picture! 🙂 After we picked up our luggage. We searched our Peer Tutor Tomi at the airport. After we found him he drove us…

Second stop: Helsinki

Finally we touched the Finnish ground! The weather is not very cold as we expect… 1 degree celsius. It’s snowing outside. After we got our boarding passes and settled us at the gate. We’ve got some coffee and are in total ZEN mode! The Finnish people at the airport are very quiet. What I didn’t…

First stop: London !

I didn’t get a lot of sleep but we arrived safely at our first stop: London !

Bags are packed! Ready to go!

Packing the bags was not exactly an easy task. Eager to bring everything with me, the first attempt failed at 45kg. Since I can only bring 23kg, I had to make some difficult decisions . It became clear that I had underestimated my needs for 6 months (I even tried to put my girlfriend in my…

You think it’s cold in Belgium ?

It’s getting cold in Belgium, but also in Oulu. The temperatures are already dropping 30 degrees below zero! Brrr

Happy Holidays!

We wish everyone Happy Holidays! See you next year!!

Last day at school in Belgium

Thursday, December 18 was the last day on our campus for two exchange students Bernd and Tom. However, we couldn’t let this go unnoticed and we celebrated with an exuberant waffles bake in our campus. Hyvää ruokahalua!

Northern lights @Oulu

A picture of an Aurora last night over Kuivasjärvi, Oulu! Already looking forward to see this! (7/12/2014)

Fun Facts about Finland

Some facts you would like to know about Finland! More facts will be added soon…

The countdown has officially begun

Only a few weeks till we leave Belgium and travel to Oulu in Finland. Preparations are running smooth. We’re getting ready for our trip with some facts about Finland. Check this article!

Travel to Finland

Some facts about our travel to Finland!

The first big steps…

The 3rd of January is coming closer every day and we already making some nice advances! We are getting everything ready from motivation-letter (see below) and Learning agreement to insurance and flights. We will be starting our Erasmus with a good adventure because we will have to make three transfer-flights to get in Oulu! ERASMUS: Letter…

Letter of Motivation

Letter of motivation is sent to the host institution. Let’s hope they like it! ERASMUS – Letter of Motivation Oulu, Finland Hello, my name is Bernd Verhofstadt and currently an ICT-Electronics student at the Artesis Plantijn University in Antwerp, Belgium. I’m getting very excited about ERASMUS and hope to be offered a place at Oulu,…