Enjoying Finland

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Ah...

I'm really liking Finland! 😉

i had a wee bit of trouble getting past passport control at the airport because the controller guy asked me how long i plan to stay, where i was headed to after this, have i ever been in europe before.

about a week, estonia, and yes, about 6 times?

all the meanwhile he was flipping through my passport. then he tells me that the reason he asks is because he doesn't see any other EU stamps in my passport... the implication being hm, is she ever going to leave finland... and i suppose it didn't help matters that i only had a plane ticket IN to the country and i had no return flight planned. yet.

but he let me in after he found a fainted exit stamp from italy. i guess that proved i'm a legit traveller.

And for those of you who doubted my 'poste restante' trick would work, the Finnish post has proven you all wrong! My winter clothes arrived right on time at the main post office and I have my cashmere socks and my down jacket.

So what's happened so far? Well, I've been learning Finnish words here and there; in the evenings when Vesa and I get home we watch TV, eat dinner, and we pull out the suomi-english dictionary and we pick out interesting words. yeah, this could sound a bit boring but i'm a nerd, so it's fun for me. I can't put any sentences together (because most words have been nouns) but really, this place is so English/American friendly, everyone speaks English already... and when they speak it to you, they don't make you feel like they're doing you a favor (like the french do...).

Here's a short rundown of what I have been doing. Ok, be forwarned that my stay has been fairly prosaic (not prozac, you idiot!) but that's just the character of this town.

I've spent a lot of time walking around just checking out the architecture (pretty modern boring stuff), statuaries, churches, markets, and just resting up and soaking in the snow and cold.

I've eaten a lot of bread (dark rye) and smoked salmon (the word for salmon is lohi). Oh, the lox here is so cheap compared to the US! I bought a pound for 5 bucks! If only I can package a truckload of this stuff up and bring it back with me.

Yesterday (Saturday), I went to the seafortress Suomenlinna (suomi = finn, linna = castle) with Vesa and his co-worker Himbo, who's Estonian but works here in Finland. We took the ferry to Suomenlinna and watched it part the ice. That was really cool. It made a lot of noise, all the ice chunks got rammed aside and shoved onto other pieces of ice...

And on Suomenlinna we just walked around. Everything was covered in snow or ice (this is a reoccuring theme here in Finland) and me, being from a non-snow environment, kept slipping and sliding everywhere. Everyone was walking normally, I was like a drunk.

(to be continued)

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Photos

Jackpot in the Market
Kinder heaven!

Mushroom
Lookie what i found in the grocery store...

Frozen in ice
not going anywhere soon..

Frozen Lake
Beeeeeutiful. People were walking on it. I decided against it for fear of slipping and making an ass of myself.

Chandelier inside the Lutheren Church
Doing the geeky architecture thing here...

That's me!
On the steps of the church

Mmmm
Lox sandwhich. 2 Euros.

Harvis Amanda. Brrr! Someone get her some clothes!
Statue of a naked lady, Harvis Amanada. Supposedly every spring the female students from Helsinki University wash her. She must be cold, butt naked in the snow storm...

Suomenlenna
Walking on ice. Vesa and Himbo. I was trailing behind.

Heading home.
Waiting at the Metro stop, Kaisaniemi.

Comments

[Wendy]

mushroom?
what's with the large mushroom picture?

[judylay]

but isn't that like the biggest mushroom ever???
and it's not even a portabello, it's just a regular white button mushroom!

[sally]

oh my gosh, that pile of kindereggs almost
brought tears of joy to my eyes. dang, what a vision! i bet the toys are all duplicates though :( ...probably those annoying plastic flower ones with the faces on them.