The most complete account of my life-changing exchange year in Finland and my nail-biting internship episodes in Helsinki is available at A Year in Tampere.
Hei. I'm Julie.
I was born in Dunkerque, France. My mother's family originates from a small town nearby, precisely the one in which infamous local pride movie, Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, was shot. I grew up playing around in my garden, fantasizing it was a lost forest full of spirits and magical plants, and I was some sort of lonely ranger taking care of all this little world.
I grew older. The two immense poplar trees, which had cast for decades their long shadow on the neighbourhood, and provided a fresh shelter against summer heat, were cut down. I wasn't so much outside anymore, anyway.
I got infatuated in politics, sciences, IT, philosophy, all sorts of things, preferably the ones I could dismantle to understand how they would work. I got an upper secondary education degree in Economics and Social Sciences with German language as speciality and passed the entrance exam to Lille's Institut d'Etudes Politiques, with European studies in mind. The subject was pleasant, and I could very much see myself entering the Collège d'Europe someday after my Master's degree, then ending up in a good and safe position in the Union's administration, keeping a substantial time off for music, which I had grown very keen on through Internet to counter my relative isolation on that matter -- not of the most common kind indeed, industrial, neofolk, experimental on the whole.
A friend had passed me Tenhi's Maaäet and I loved it first time I heard it. I was intrigued, and wondering: Are those people really like that, up there? What's in the songs, it does really exist? The turnaround regarding my destination choice for the compulsory international mobility year was operated at the last minute. No Germany. I was resolute to investigate by my own whether the North was really like in a Tenhi song, otherworldly. The University of Tampere was very conveniently offering first-class European studies, so there was not much to ponder about. It would be Finland.
Then, things got complicated.
I arrived in August for Summer school and was left speechless with amazement at the freedom we were suddenly granted, the possibilities, the new horizons opened by intercultural encounters, and above all, at how simple, common-sense and effective administration (in a broad sense) could be. Let alone the light. The light was one of a kind, and the sky the most immense I had ever seen. It felt like standing at the very top of the world, head into the universe.
I knew I was Finnish upon visiting the Song and Silence exhibition at Ateneum, during my first visit of Helsinki for the occasion of the Night of the Arts. There were boards explaining how Finnish symbolist painters were perceiving and representing music. The way I ever did, and I thought I was alone. Suddenly a whole country could understand.
A month after, I ended up in the most improbable cottage concert afterparty on one of the islands off Oulu, at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, only foreigner along with a Czech friend amongst a small crowd of warm and fantastic Finnish people. The train ride back to Southern Finland was so far the best hours of my life. Perhaps I wasn't Finnish, but for sure the ones I met there would suffice to bind me to any land.
I watched sunsets and dawns, first snow, frozen lakes; enjoyed sauna every single time, saw the trees and recalled the garden and the poplars. I wrote all nights, at moonlight and candlelight, to describe the indescribable, or at least approach it. Dived into music meanwhile. It was just like in a Tenhi song, and so much, unimaginably more than that. I drew extremely near to abandon my studies in so faraway, so incongruous France.
There was no way I would leave before I was compelled to. After immense efforts I found a summer internship in Helsinki. Not anyone's pointless occupation: journalist trainee at Reuters. Four months there and the sunniest days ahead.
Then, things became impossible to tell. But no stay away from there would ever be possible.
I moved back to France for my fourth compulsory year of studies, had no rest until my school's administration accepted to let me go for the final fifth year on a special agreement I tricked them into, wrapped up the whole European studies thing in a rather inelegant and hasty manner, packed my suitcases and flew straight back to where I belong.
But, speaking of suitcases...
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