4 Finland Links (and 1 Italian Link)

There have been several news articles, blog posts, and mentions of Finland online lately, and I’ve wanted to share them. Why not share them all at once?!

The Independent, a British newspaper, recently published an article: AAA to Y* of Finland. The subtitle is “Finland is now the last eurozone country to hold a triple-A credit rating. So, why are things so rosy in the Scandinavian state?” The alphabetical list includes C for Coffee (although, I’ve heard the coffee here is pretty atrocious – I don’t drink coffee, so I can’t give you my opinion); G is for Games (Did you know Angry Birds came from Finland?); L is for Lakes (187,888 lakes, to be exact); and W is for Wife Carrying World Championships (I seriously want Stephen to agree to hoist me over his shoulder and carry me in a race). And yes, the article is only to Y, because the letter Z does not exist in the Finnish alphabet.

Life in Finland reviewed the book  A Year in South Karelia, a book written by and about a Canadian in Finland. I haven’t been here nearly as long as either Michael Child or the Life in Finland blogger, but I, too, can already relate to some of the things mentioned – the “parking puck,” the “Finnish ‘Non-smile,’” and I absolutely must know more about the bathroom incident… Dying to read the book, if anyone is looking for a future gift for me…

This isn’t about Finland, but it ties in. According to Amusing Planet, the Village of Viganella in Italy is so deep in a valley, the mountains block the sun completely from November 11-February 2 each year. That’s no direct sunlight – in other words, we get more direct sunlight here in Western Finland in December than this village in Italy! Of course, some engineers have designed this gigantic mirror that reflects the sunlight into the town square for 6 hours a day – not really possible in Finland…

Found this blog post from steverp, who reposted it from Trapped in Finland: How to be Happy in Finland. Number 1 – Don’t learn Finnish. I keep meaning to write a blog post about that… I think the most important one, though, is Number 5 – Don’t surrender to negativity. “Finland is not tough for foreigners, it’s tough for everybody. Perhaps the effect of these problems is amplified for foreigners because they are away from home, their comfort zone, but I really don’t think these challenges are due to racism or xenophobia.” Sure, he’s talking more about public institutions and systems, which I don’t really take much part of, but it’s still a good point to remember. Things are tough sometimes, but they seem tougher because we’re out of our element, our comfort zone. One of the things I always remind myself to do when I’m not happy with something, is to take it out of context. If something is odd to me, I ask myself, “Yes, it’s odd, but removing any expectation, is it okay?” Because it’s the expectation that’s the killer.

And finally, this is a rather old post, but I dig it. Float trips are awesome. I really need to find out when this is and attend next year. I give you: Keljakellunta, Beer Floating in Helsinki. Video below is probably NSFW: