Hungarians visit to Ii, February 2018

Last winter our school hosted visitors from our long term partner school Baktay Erwin Gimnazium from Hungary. Our guests were welcomed by our students and host families on  Friday 9th of February.

Here are some writings from our students and teachers what happened during their seven day visit.

Saturday Feb 10th

At noon we went to Salla’s place. To Salla's place there came something like 7 of the hungarians. We showed Hungarians some Finnish winter things like skiing, ice fishing,  down hill sliding, snowmobile driving etc. We also ate sausages that were made in campfire. A little bit later we moved inside. Inside we ate more and chatted. After an hour we decided to go to Oulu.

In Oulu we introduced Hungarians to Oulu's sights. Our route started from mall Valkea. After shopping a while we moved to local marketplace. We introduced Hungarians to the “Toripolliisi” which is a statue. After that we showed them some other local statues, library and theatre. After the tour we went to another Salla's house. We had bought some good delicasies and soda to her place. In Salla’s place we had a good time chatting and doing magic tricks. After being there a while we decided to go back home. When we were at home, we went to sleep.

- Kimi and Eetu

Sunday Feb 11th

On sunday Taneli, his family  and the student who they were hosting went to the swamp that was about 10 kilometres from their house.

We woke up at around 8am and started preparing breakfast and at around 9am Anita (who is the student we were hosting) woke up and joined us for breakfast. After that awesome breakfast we started preparing our trip to that swamp that was mentioned earlier. We ended up leaving the house at 11am.

At the swamp me and Anita tried snowshoes. It was the first time for both of us and we ended up having a lots of fun and we walked about 2km around the swamp. After the snowshoeing my mother made a campfire and started to grill some sausages and drink coffee.

After the fun swamp adventure we went back home and made some fishsoup and ate it. Then we took a little break from everything and watched some netflix and played Game of Thrones monopoly.

On the evening we went to raasakka and tried sledding with my mother, sister, my friend Sara and with the hungarian student Anita. Everyone loved sledding and we had a lots of fun until i bumped in to a car and almost broke my ankle. Then everyone decided it was the best thing to go home and to go to sleep.

Pictures were taken by Taneli and Anita

-  Taneli

Tuesday Feb 13th

On Tuesday our Hungarian guests visited Valtari Lower Secondary School. The day started with language showers for the 7th graders. Marjo Frondelius, the foreign language co-ordinator in Ii municipality attended the classes, too. Our fellow Finno-Ugrics had planned an action-packed morning for the students with various activities ranging from songs and power point presentations to quizzes and games. The most attentive students were awarded some Hungarian sweets for their participation.


After breaking the ice with a round of introductions, Tuesday’s second lesson was a delightful joint effort of Finnish and Hungarian students’ ukulele-rendered music originally recorded by the pop/country sensation that is Taylor Swift. What was remaining of the initial awkwardness, we shook off with the help of our music teacher Merja Liehu.  The lesson ended in a wonderful performance of a traditional Hungarian folk song entitled ’tavaszi szél vizet áraszt’. Before having lunch, we rushed for one more language workshop with the 9th graders.

- Tuomo

Wednesday Feb 14th

On Wednesday we went to Lapland. The bus left from Ii at 7:30 am and we drove to Rovaniemi. First we visited in Pilke. We learnt many new things about forests and how we can use trees in many different ways. For example we played some games, sang karaoke and haunted elk in simulator.

Then we went to the Arktikum to eat lunch. After lunch we had about 45 minutes to look around the museum part of Arktikum. For examble there weas information about how people have lived in Finland. There were also stuffed animals, tools and many different things too.

Then we headed to Santa Claus holiday village. We had one and half hour time to look around. Hungarian exchange students went to take pictures with Santa. There were also opportunity to get a ride with reindeer and change to see huskies with a payment. Hungarian students bought souveniers from gift shop. Before we left we took a group picture in front of Santa Claus’ main post office.

Last we visited Kemi’s Snowcastle. There were hotel rooms with different themes. They were amazing. Every year there is a church in the Snowcastle in case someone wants to get married there. In the yard of the castle there were sliding hill. It was really fun.

I’m sure that we all had really fun day with good company.

- Anni Alamäki and Diana Nikkinen

Thursday Feb 15th

On the last day of their stay, our guests got to take part in Penkkarit, sort of a carneval day. The day was special because our oldest students left school to prepare themselves to the matriculation exams. They celebrated the day by wearing costumes and they held a special event for all the teachers and students. Hungarians also watched rehearsals of the traditional Wanhojen tanssit, a dance, where the new old students celebrate becoming the oldest students in school. At the evening we had a farewell dinner. Our visitors left early on Friday morning.

Thank you to you all who took part in this wonderful week!

- Jukka