Where to begin?!
“Resfeber (n.) the tangled experience of fear and excitement before a journey begins”.
Planning and organising the exchange took the most effort and time.
Category: Åbo Akademi
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Vasti at Åbo Akademi, Finland
Pre-departure:
Preparation for going abroad was certainly more work than I anticipated. I had to organise five months worth of medication, organise health insurance, and apply for a visa. The visa application itself was not particularly painful, I was quickly granted a residence permit that I had couriered to my home. It is important to note that the only Finnish embassy is in Pretoria, so I had to fly there for my interview and to get my fingerprints recorded. It was also very expensive to apply for this residency permit – 300 euros, which works out to about R4500, so I had to make sure to budget for this from my travel bursary.
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Nadia at Åbo Akademi, Finland
Pre-departure: Finland Bound
Preparing for my exchange was simple: the support offered by both the International Office and my host university made the process easy and stress-free. I was also in the fortunate position that I did not need to do a Visa application so I was spared that admin, stress and expenditure. In terms of pre-departure admin the following things were on my checklist: