How a Romanian researcher slowly discovered that feeling at home is built in ordinary moments?
Melisa Benchish says the sentence almost casually, yet it captures something that statistics, migration policies and integration programmes rarely can. Feeling at home is not marked by the day someone receives a residence permit, finds a job or signs a rental contract. Those milestones matter, but they do not necessarily create belonging.
Home emerges much more quietly. It grows through ordinary routines, familiar streets, spontaneous conversations, shared meals and friendships that slowly transform an unfamiliar city into a place where leaving begins to feel harder than arriving.
It took me two years to feel at home in Vaasa.
In recent years, researchers have increasingly argued that integration cannot be understood simply through employment figures or language tests. Instead, they point to the importance of everyday social interactions — the small encounters that shape how people experience the communities around them. A neighbourhood, a café, a university campus or a public event can become just as important as official institutions in creating a sense of belonging.
Melisa’s story reflects this idea in a remarkably human way. Rather than describing integration as a formal process, she describes it as something that unfolded through hundreds of ordinary moments, each one almost too small to notice on its own, yet powerful enough to change how she understands the meaning of home.
Everything happened so fast. I didn’t really have time to research Finland or build expectations. I packed my suitcase and came.
Melisa did not come to Finland searching for a new identity. She arrived because of an opportunity.
Originally from Romania, she first moved to Vaasa to work on a blockchain project. Soon afterwards, the possibility of continuing her academic career opened another door, and she decided to pursue doctoral research at the University of Vaasa. Looking back now, she smiles at how unexpectedly everything happened.
Suitcase, a new country, and no expectations
Unlike many people who spend months imagining what life abroad might look like, Melisa arrived without a carefully constructed picture of Finland. She had no long checklist of expectations and very few assumptions about the country she was about to call home. In many ways, this allowed her to experience Finland exactly as it presented itself — through everyday observations rather than preconceived ideas.
Those first impressions were not about snow, darkness or cold winters. They were about people.
– The first thing you notice, she explains, is how differently people interact with one another.
Coming from Romania, where conversations often begin easily and social interaction is woven naturally into everyday life, Finland initially felt remarkably quiet. People appeared more reserved, more independent and far more protective of their personal space. One simple observation became symbolic of those early cultural differences.
People sit alone on the bus. It’s like they invade the seat.
To many Finns, this might seem completely ordinary. To Melisa, however, it represented an entirely different understanding of public life. In Romania, sitting next to a stranger rarely carries social meaning. People occupy whatever seat is available, brief conversations emerge naturally, and accidental physical closeness is rarely interpreted as uncomfortable.
In Finland, she encountered something different. Passengers often chose an empty row instead of sitting beside someone they did not know, and silence itself seemed to be an accepted part of everyday life.
People here are not very open. They are a little individualistic.
At first, those differences were difficult to interpret. Like many newcomers, Melisa briefly wondered whether the distance she observed reflected a lack of openness towards outsiders.
Yet as the months passed, her understanding gradually changed. She realised that what had initially appeared as emotional distance was, in fact, a cultural expression of respect for privacy and personal boundaries. People were not avoiding her; they were behaving exactly as they behaved with everyone else.
That realisation marked an important turning point. Integration, she came to understand, was not simply about learning Finnish customs. It was equally about learning how to interpret behaviours without immediately viewing them through the lens of one’s own cultural background. Many situations that had once felt confusing slowly became understandable, and eventually, entirely ordinary.
Understanding a culture is not the same as feeling part of it
Melisa is remarkably honest about how long the process of integration took. Unlike the simplified success stories often told about migration, she does not describe a dramatic turning point or a single life-changing moment. Instead, belonging emerged gradually, almost invisibly.
It took me two years to feel at home in Vaasa.
The sentence carries no frustration. If anything, it carries acceptance. Looking back, she no longer sees those two years as time lost.
They were the years during which the city slowly became familiar. Streets no longer required maps. Favourite cafés appeared. Familiar faces began greeting her. Daily routines replaced uncertainty. None of those moments seemed significant individually, yet together they transformed Vaasa from a temporary destination into somewhere she genuinely wanted to build her future.
For Melisa, home is no longer defined simply by geography. It is not only the place where she was born, nor merely the apartment where she now lives. Home has become something built through relationships, routines and shared experiences — something that could never have been created during her first weeks in Finland, no matter how welcoming the city had been.
That realization would shape every step that followed.
Because once the unfamiliar no longer felt intimidating, another challenge began to emerge: not understanding Finnish society, but finding a place within it.
Finding belonging one friendship at a time
If the first chapter of Melisa’s life in Finland was about understanding a new culture, the second was about becoming part of it. Yet belonging did not arrive through a single friendship or one unforgettable encounter.
Looking back, she describes the process as gradual, almost invisible. Without planning it, her social world expanded one circle at a time, each new relationship making the next one a little easier.
Like many international students and newcomers, her first friendships naturally formed within the international community. They shared the same uncertainty, spoke a common language and understood the everyday challenges of adapting to life in a new country. There was comfort in being surrounded by people who were all trying to find their place.
Those friendships created a foundation, but they were only the beginning.
As months passed, Melisa noticed that many of the people she felt closest to had something unexpected in common.
After getting to know people, I started asking what their first language was. Then I realised that many of them were Swedish-speaking Finns.
It was never something she intentionally sought. Instead, she found herself repeatedly connecting with Swedish-speaking Finns through university life, cafés, concerts and everyday social activities. Looking back, she believes there was something familiar in the way those friendships developed.
Swedish-speaking Finns remind me of my own people.
She smiles before explaining why.
They have a somewhat Italian mindset. They’re always ready to go for coffee and spend time together.
For someone raised in Romania, where social life often revolves around long conversations and spontaneous gatherings, those encounters felt surprisingly familiar. Coffee was rarely just coffee. It became an excuse to meet, to talk, to stay longer than originally planned and to slowly build trust.
Eventually, another circle opened.
Through these friendships, Melisa gradually became closer to Finnish-speaking Finns as well. She does not describe this as crossing a cultural barrier. Instead, she sees it as a natural continuation of a journey that had already begun months earlier.
Belonging, she realised, cannot be rushed.
It grows at the speed of trust.
Speaking the same language doesn’t always mean feeling included
Language appears again and again throughout Melisa’s story. Not because she considers it the biggest obstacle to integration, but because she has experienced how closely language and belonging are connected.
Sometimes people get tired… and I completely understand why.
Like many international researchers, she spends most of her daily life communicating in English. Lectures, meetings, research and friendships all happen naturally in a language that everyone around the table understand.
Yet even within those conversations, there are moments that quietly remind her she is still an outsider.
I mostly speak in English.
Her friends are always willing to switch languages for her.
She never questions their kindness. Instead, she admires it.
At the same time, she is aware that speaking a second language requires effort, especially during an entire afternoon together.
Sometimes people get tired, especially when we spend the whole day together.
Eventually, almost without thinking about it, the conversation begins to change.
At some point they naturally switch back to Swedish. I understand because it’s difficult to keep speaking another language all day.
Melisa does not describe these moments as exclusion.
She describes them as reality.
Everyone eventually returns to the language where thoughts arrive most naturally.
Still, there are moments when the emotional distance created by language becomes impossible to ignore.
She remembers evenings spent playing games with friends.
The atmosphere would be relaxed.
People would laugh.
Someone would make a joke.
The pace of conversation would suddenly become faster.
Without anyone consciously deciding to do so, English disappeared.
Swedish returned.
When they play games or start talking quickly among themselves, they switch to Swedish. During those moments it’s difficult to feel included.
It is perhaps one of the most honest moments in her story. Not because anyone behaved unfairly. But because it reveals something that statistics about language learning rarely capture. Understanding words is not the same as feeling that you belong inside a conversation.
Language is more than communication.
It is participation.
It is spontaneity.
It is laughing at the joke the moment everyone else laughs.
It is responding before the conversation has already moved on.
For Melisa, these moments strengthened rather than weakened her motivation to continue learning languages. She does not see language as an academic requirement or a bureaucratic necessity. She sees it as a bridge — one that allows people to move from simply living alongside a community to genuinely becoming part of it.
Being in a community helps a lot with language.
Looking back, she believes she learned just as much around coffee tables, at concerts and during evenings with friends as she ever could inside a classroom. Language, after all, grows through relationships. The more connected she felt to the people around her, the stronger her desire became to understand not only their words, but also the culture those words carried.
When sense of home begins around a table
For Melisa, belonging has never been built only through conversations. Some of her strongest memories of settling into life in Finland are connected to something much simpler: sitting around a table with other people.
Sharing food at the table is an important bonding mechanism.
Food, she believes, carries a meaning that goes far beyond nutrition. Across cultures, sharing a meal often signals trust. It creates space for conversations that rarely happen elsewhere, allowing strangers to become acquaintances and acquaintances to become friends.
People usually don’t share food with someone they don’t feel close to.
She believes that some of the friendships that eventually made Vaasa feel like home were strengthened not during formal meetings or organised activities, but during ordinary lunches, coffee breaks and shared dinners.
Conversations around the table help people become friends.
Yet food can also remind migrants of the distance they have travelled.
One of the less visible challenges of migration, Melisa explains, is adapting to unfamiliar food traditions. While language classes, employment and housing often dominate discussions about integration, everyday habits such as eating are rarely mentioned. Still, they quietly shape how comfortable people feel in a new environment.
She has noticed this not only in her own life but among many other international residents.
Having access to products from your own country is important for creating a sense of belonging.
She recalls friends who return from visits home with suitcases filled with familiar ingredients.
I have some Chinese friends who bring a lot of food from their country.
Those products are not simply about taste. They carry memories, routines and a feeling of continuity between the life left behind and the life being built in Finland.
Rather than seeing food as something that separates cultures, Melisa believes it has the potential to connect them. Trying someone else’s traditional meal, cooking together or simply gathering around the same table often creates conversations that might never happen otherwise. In that sense, belonging is not only spoken into existence — it is also shared through everyday rituals that people rarely stop to think about.
Learning to belong without losing yourself
Migration often comes with an unspoken expectation that newcomers must constantly prove themselves. They should learn faster, adapt quicker and demonstrate that they deserve to be part of their new society.
Melisa admits she carried some of that pressure with her when she first arrived in Finland.
Over time, however, something changed.
Rather than feeling constantly evaluated, she discovered a society where people seemed less interested in appearances and more interested in authenticity.
Living in Finland made me realise there is no social pressure here.
That realisation gradually influenced the way she saw herself.
She no longer felt the same need to perform or to meet expectations that had shaped parts of her earlier life. Instead, she found herself appreciating qualities that she believes define Finnish society.
Honesty is one of them.
Finns are honest. Hypocrisy doesn’t really exist here.
Another is the genuine attention people pay to well-being.
People here care about your well-being.
Melisa is careful not to idealise Finland. Every society has challenges, and integration is never effortless. Yet she believes these values created an environment where she felt increasingly comfortable becoming herself rather than trying to become someone else.
Perhaps that is why, when she speaks about belonging today, she rarely talks about becoming Finnish.
Instead, she talks about becoming more comfortable being Melisa— in Finland.
A city that creates opportunities to meet
Belonging does not happen in isolation. It requires places where people can encounter one another naturally, without the pressure of formal introductions or organised networking.
Melisa believes Vaasa has offered many of those opportunities.
Whether through cultural festivals, university activities, concerts or community events, the city has repeatedly created spaces where people from different backgrounds can spend time together.
Those events may appear ordinary, but she believes they have played an important role in her own journey.
Every invitation accepted, every conversation started and every event attended added another thread to the network of relationships she gradually built in Vaasa.
Looking back, she feels genuinely grateful for those opportunities.
They allowed her not only to meet people but also to become part of the rhythm of the city itself. For newcomers, that matters more than many people realise. Communities are rarely built behind closed doors. They are built in the ordinary places where everyday life unfolds.
Integration is more than just learning Finnish
When conversations about integration begin, they often revolve around measurable outcomes. How quickly someone learns the language. Whether they find employment. How long it takes before they become financially independent.
Melisa does not dismiss the importance of those milestones. Language, she believes, is essential. It opens doors, creates opportunities and allows people to participate more fully in society. Yet after several years of living in Finland, she has come to believe that integration cannot be reduced to a checklist.
Belonging is something different.
It cannot be measured by certificates, language exams or years of residence.
It grows quietly through everyday experiences.
Looking back, she realises that some of the most important moments in her own journey had nothing to do with formal integration programmes. They happened while sitting in cafés with friends, attending concerts, accepting invitations that initially felt unfamiliar and simply spending time with people whose lives slowly became part of her own.
Melisa has some advice to newcomes.
Be curious.
Learn how Finnish society works — not only the language, but also the everyday systems that shape daily life. Understand how public services function, become familiar with digital systems and don’t be afraid to ask questions when something seems confusing.
Just as importantly, make room for people.
Friendships rarely appear overnight. They require patience, initiative and, sometimes, the courage to accept an invitation even when everything still feels unfamiliar. Language becomes easier when there are people you genuinely want to speak with. Communities become familiar when you choose to participate in them.
And cities begin to feel like home when they are filled with people whose absence you would notice.
Home, reimagined
At the beginning of her journey, Melisa carried a single suitcase from Romania to Finland.
Like many people who move abroad, she expected that the greatest challenges would be practical ones — finding accommodation, adapting to a new education system or learning how everyday life worked in another country.
Some of those challenges certainly appeared. Others surprised her completely.
She learned that silence does not always mean distance. That people who value personal space can still be deeply caring. That friendships are built gradually, one conversation at a time. That speaking the same language is not always the same as feeling included. And that sometimes a cup of coffee or a shared meal can bring people closer than long conversations ever could.
She also discovered something else.
Feeling at home does not mean forgetting where you came from.
Romania remains part of who she is.
Its traditions, its food, its way of bringing people together around a table continue to shape her everyday life.
But over time, Finland has become part of that identity as well — not by replacing one home with another, but by expanding her understanding of what home can be.
Today, when Melisa walks through Vaasa, she no longer experiences the city as a visitor trying to understand unfamiliar customs.
She experiences it as someone whose daily life has become intertwined with the rhythms of the place.
The cafés are no longer just cafés.
The university is more than a workplace.
The festivals are more than public events.
The streets carry memories.
The people carry stories.
And together, they have transformed an unfamiliar city into somewhere she genuinely belongs.
