...ago we moved to Tampere on August 19th. Back then we were only three German exchange students with the hope of someday maybe living in Tampere.
Moving here through a student exchange took a lot of responsibility of our shoulders and made a lot of things easier (e.g. getting a residence permit, finding somewhere to live...), plus we got some money from the exchange program. Of course we did study and every single one of us got their degree at some point or another. After about five months living in a student dorm, we moved to our own flat, but we had the time to find a nice one because we could have lived at the dorm for another two to three months.
That summer we spent some weeks in Germany, finishing our studies and getting our degrees and getting everything else in order. Then we tried to find jobs. We were lucky and found jobs at the same cleaning firm in the same spot. Yeah, cleaning, just like so many other foreigners. But it was a fun working place and I started stumbling up the ladder and so none of us really complained. We had our fun, we made our own money to pay for it, and eventually we all found out what we wanted to do with our lives and went to pursue it. One became a barkeeper/waitress and is pretty happy with this, the other went to Helsinki to become a make-up artist/hairdresser and I myself started to study again (going to become a big time business law advisor or sth in this general direction. or a politician if all else fails :D).
And somewhere along the road of working, stumbling into strange Finnish nightlife adventures (the best memories I have are of evenings that turned into early mornings sitting on a roof in Tammela eating hamburgers and watching the sunrise with friends, concerts after which I've been talking for hours with nice people walking back home in the morning light, dancing with the nicest group of study buddies one could wish for), making friends some of which were really unexpected, and having really weird experiences with Finnish guys (they are a breed of their own ;) ), we have been living here for five years already. And one day a work mate asked me if I'm applying for the Finnish citizenship. He himself is from Chile and has been living in Finland for a long time, seeing a lot of his friends through the process.
This got the stone rolling. I looked up everything I could find, and found out that we had actually a shot at it.
You have to:
- be able to prove your identity reliably: check
- be 18 or older: check (at least that's what my passport says)
- you've been living in Finland for at least 5 years, without breaks: check
- you have no entries in your crime register: check
- you're not hopelessly indebted or haven't been neglecting paying fees etc.: check
- you can show and prove how you earn your living: check
- you have prove that you speak the language well enough: WAIT.
The last condition was a little more problematic than the others. We went to the police and asked if our BA in Finnish Language and Culture was enough, but it wasn't in the list of acceptable documents, so we had to go do the YKI-test. The woman at the police looked at me and apologized a few times because we spoke Finnish well enough, but law is law and she was not able to change it. So: next step, YKI-test.
You could not apply for the YKI-test through the internet. You had to be at the school that organized the test in the morning and hand in your application papers. They recommended you come in time and get a number. So, we were there an hour before application started only to find that there were already about 25 people waiting. An elderly Arab guy wrote down all our names on a list and put the newcomers in in order of arrival. By the time the doors opened, there were about 36 people there. But it still took an hour for them to get the application process going and numbers were nowhere to be seen. By the time application started there were about 45 people. They gave the list to the woman who gave out the application numbers. Yes, now they gave out numbers, and she started screaming our names and gave a number to everybody in order of the names on the list. Wait, did I say everybody? Well, not exactly. The first 40 got a number, because they would not take more than 40 people to take the test. After we had our numbers, they took the first 20 up onto the third floor to go through the application process. We had to wait in the foyer of the school for another hour. Every now and then someone would leave the building, but no one told us what was going on. After an hour of waiting we got to the third floor and there they did nothing else than call out a number, that person went into a room, sat down in front of the woman in charge of the whole thing, gave her the application, she would have a look at it, give you some papers with information about the test and then she'd send you home. That was it. Because of that we had waited three hours! Well, turned out that they did it that way because some of those guys applying filled in their names in the wrong spot because their language competence was rather...iffy. I don't even want to start on that topic (applying for a language competence test if you can't even fill in the test application? Dude...).
After a few weeks we got our test invitations and they were in Finnish. And English. Again, I don't even want to comment on that. We had to pay the fee (100e) and then we went to take the test last Saturday.
There was a part on reading and understanding, writing, understanding spoken language and speaking.
The reading comprehension test was just laughable. There were several articles, letters and invitations and you had to answer questions concerning these. Piece of cake. The writing part consisted of three parts: first an email to a friend, second was feedback via email to someone official and third an essay. Again, piece of cake.
Understanding spoken language was just laughable (they spoke clearer and more pronounced Finnish than any of my friends and acquaintances) and the talking part... let's just say, my job has been to talk people into stuff and convince them of things and talking things up, plus teaching newbies and giving seminars in Finnish. I also instructed gym classes. In Finnish. So, yeah, no problem there, either.
My friend who was with me got the giggles every now and then because she felt that the whole test was kind of ridiculous. It was for us, I have to add. The people who weren't able to fill their names in in the right place in the application form had their problems. And one guy was severely hung over, he was fighting with difficulties of his own.
And now we wait. They said it takes them about two months to check the tests. So, in late October or early November we can probably take the next step. Filling in new application forms and standing in line and waiting at the local police station for a change. Finns love standing in lines and taking numbers. I've had to get used to it, but they do.
If you want to apply for the Finnish citizenship yourself, check out the homepage of the Maahanmuuttovirasto here.
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