Reindeer for dinner: Exchange student extols virtues of Finland life
Eating reindeer, visiting Santa’s home in the Arctic Circle and speaking Finnish at school were all novel experiences for Marley Hines.
As an exchange student living in Finland, naturally, Australian teenager Marley Hines had to take classes in the local language, Finnish.
Eventually, she could follow roughly what the teacher was on about, but getting her head around the unfamiliar pronunciation was a challenge.
Exchange student Marley Hines, left, on a walk at Kaitalampi lake near Espoo with her host family “sister” Tanja.
“To say ‘r’, they roll their tongue, it’s like ‘aarrrthh’. It’s not something that comes naturally to me.”
But in her four-month stint in the Scandinavian nation, Hines, 17, from Mount Martha in Melbourne’s south-east, achieved her goal of experiencing life in a different culture on the other side of the world.
She ate sauteed reindeer and visited the self-proclaimed home of Santa Claus in Rovaniemi, Lapland, in the Arctic Circle, where the temperature was -25 degrees.
Hines was struck by how beautiful Finland is — how often you’d find yourself “right by a forest or a lake”.
Snow worries: Marley Hines, right, standing with her host family “sister” Tanja, left, and host “mum” Marjo, centre, in Rovaniemi, Finland.
Scenic cities in nearby countries were very accessible. Tallinn, in Estonia, took two hours’ travel by ferry from Finland’s capital, Helsinki.
Hines is the fourth and last person profiled in The Age’s Living Abroad series about Australians who resided overseas in 2025.
Hines said she had “an incredible time” during her exchange placement in the city of Espoo, in Finland’s south, which was organised by agency World Education Program Australia.
She said most Finns she met spoke English well, including her lovely host family – a couple, their 21-year-old daughter and 18-year-old twin sons.
