Like I said, I'm Eduardo Gouveia from Porto, Portugal. I study Industrial Engineering and Management at Faculty of Engineering of Porto University (FEUP). After gladly deciding to take the Erasmus programme during Fall of 2004, another question tormented my mind: Where to go? My possibilities were limitless, although I prefered to stick to the "standard" destinations, because of paperwork issues. They were mostly Nordic cities (2 in Sweden and 4 in Finland). I always wanted to be in a Nordic country, especially Finland (not just visiting, but actually living there). I wanted Finland because it would be the most extreme kind of experience for me. I believed there was no similarity between Portugal and Finland except the Euro currency (boy, was I right...). The city of choice was obvious: "Helsinki", I thought. The rest of the preferences were Tampere in second and Oulu in third. Well, it happened that two students with better grades than mine got the first two vacancies, and I got Oulu (I'm still thanking them for it...). 
What did I know about Finland? Just that it is cold, the language must be really weird, it's full of blond, tall, cold but honest people (lowest corruption rate in the world), "where Santa lives", 70% of forest, 20% of lakes, "they beat us 4-1 at football", and of course, I knew about ten rock/metal finnish bands :)
Obviously, I did a lot of research about Finland and Oulu, so my knowledge became greater by the day. The more I got to know about it, the more I wanted to be there (it's only natural). I saw a lot of pictures of the famous "police-man statue" (Toripollisi) and I couldn't wait to be in front of it (it's just one of those things).
In a short line: Oulu is the 6th biggest city in Finland (120 000 hab.). It is considered to be the Northern Europe's centre of competence, having a considerable amount of high technology ability concentrated in the area. Oulu University is the 2nd biggest in Finland (its airport is also the 2nd busiest). You can find more on Oulu at: www.oulu.fi .
During the "waiting time" (deciding what courses to take, getting the paperwork done, reserving housing, etc.) a lot of people told me: "Are you nuts? You're gonna freeze!", and others asked: "Where the hell is Oulu?", while the remainder wondered: "When will you shut up about that Oulu thing? You're getting on my nerves!"
I couldn't help it. The excitement was beyond me. Spending 4 months away from home, alone, where nothing was familiar to me, was indeed a challenge. I wasn't really aware of what I was doing, I just decided I was going for it, without being afraid. It would be easy to stay in Portugal, but I would always be thinking: "what if...?", and if one has the chance to do something like this, he should take it.
So the packing started, and my "3 take-offs and 3 landings in one day" were just the beginning of a really wonderful Fall...
I couldn't help it. The excitement was beyond me. Spending 4 months away from home, alone, where nothing was familiar to me, was indeed a challenge. I wasn't really aware of what I was doing, I just decided I was going for it, without being afraid. It would be easy to stay in Portugal, but I would always be thinking: "what if...?", and if one has the chance to do something like this, he should take it.
So the packing started, and my "3 take-offs and 3 landings in one day" were just the beginning of a really wonderful Fall...