My Favorite Things About Finland

I am celebrating 11 years in Finland. Time flies!!!

To celebrate, I am listing 11 things I love about Finland: 

Nature and the seasons: Finland is so beautiful. I recommend you having your camera ready if you are coming to visit. The lakes, the forest, the majestic scenarios… I read somewhere that Finland is the country in Europe with most forests and it has more than 1800 lakes. All those places look so beautiful in each season. Each season has their own charm. The summer is for sure my favorite, understandable coming from a tropical country, right? There are no many sunny or warm days in Finland...So, in addition to enjoying the weather, it is fascinating to see how people act here during those days. During the summer Finns try to do -everything-: barbecuing, going to the summer cottage, enjoying the summer festivals, sit outside to drink a beer or two in the terraces, swimming, sailing, going for a walk, partying, getting married, graduating, eating a lot of sausages, training in the park, running marathons, partying again, taking care of the garden, biking, etc. 

One lake in Finland. No filter.

How the Finns take care of the environment. Of course, nature is very important for them and they know how to take care of the environment: they recycle, many of them use public transportation to commute, others prefer the bikes or if they need to drive their cars they might arrange share rides with 3 or 4 people going to the same direction. It is something about the culture, that makes taking care of the environment part of their habits and routines. For example, in the stores you can find more and more products which are coming from closer areas e.g. local farms, and many Finns prefer to buy those products to avoid transporting and polluting the environment by bringing similar products from remote places.  

The Sauna: do I really need to explain why I love this? Yes, we have saunas in Venezuela, too. However, for Finns this is a kind of temple (where they can drink!?), and going to sauna is their ritual. It is very common to find saunas I their own places or at least in their own buildings. For Finns, there is no summer without the sauna and jumping into the lake. Did I ever mentioned, that I thought when I moved to Finland, that all people needed to go together to the sauna, naked. I was not ready for this. Fortunately, it is not very common to find mixed naked saunas. Yes, those exist, but those are not the common rule. Phew!

The tranquility: I know that for many foreigners, Finland is extremely calm. Luckily, I enjoy it. Perhaps, I have my doses of chaos from my native city. Here I can walk around without feeling anxious about too many people around me. If I compare to my native Caracas, the use of public transportation is remarkably more relaxed. When using the metro or the buses I don’t need to push people to get in. Also, most of the time it feels very safe to be out there. If you leave in an apartment, you will also notice that they are very calm and you don’t need to worry too much about having neighbor partying very load and very often. 

This is Helsinki Centre.

The equality: Finland is one of the most egalitarian countries in the world. It does not matter if you are "rich or poor" you will have the same access to education, healthcare, and opportunities in general. The social classes are not so clearly seen when you walk on the streets as for example in Venezuela. By my own experience, I can say that there are still some challenges on how Finland can manage foreigners as a workforce but, in general, if you have your permission to be here, and you pay your taxes you also get similar opportunities than the natives in terms of education, healthcare, etc. I am very thankful for that. I can also emphasis that the difference between genders is not as remarkable as in other countries. You can see that at very early stage. For example, here the boys and the girls all learn to cook, clean, fix the clothes, make laundry and iron both- at home and at the school. Yes, they teach how to cook at the schools.

The typical food to celebrate almost everything. Perfect for a foodie. Finns have particulars food for the main festivities and for some local celebrations. A funny fact:  It is very common to find pea soup at the school or workplace restaurants every Thursday. Usually, Finnish pancakes with cream and jam are served as a dessert. Finns are very good at preparing some festivities desserts: they have cakes and pies to celebrate many -very interesting- things. They also use a lot of their own seasonal products such as berries, mushrooms, apples and own fishes to prepare their food.  

Semla, Sweet bun roll or Laskiaispulla, which is normally eaten on Shrove Tuesday.

Runeberg's cake, eaten on Feb 5th to celebrate the Finnish National Poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg

Berries from my previous house garden. Sorry, no cake!

Libraries: Yes, I am a nerd. I love their libraries a lot, and I have used those at least thousand times. You can find almost whatever book you want for free. And sometimes if the book is not available, they can order this for you. You just need to have your library card with you. No doubt, the Finnish libraries are an example for many other countries.

Santa Claus: If you think that Santa Claus is from North America as I thought when I was a little girl, you are wrong. Santa is from Finland and He lives in Lapland. Finns have this beautiful tradition, Santa actually visits each home on December 24 to give the presents to the kids. I can testify, I have seen Him.

Less corruption and best education: Finland is one of the less corrupted countries in the world and has been ranked as the country with the best education in the world, too. I think these two things are very important in a country and very much related. 

Internet access. Finland was the first country to declare broadband Internet access a legal right, and believe me it works. In Finland, Internet is available and affordable. Kids have access to computers, cell-phones and Internet when they are very young, too. Most of the services are offered via Internet (online), which means that you can save a lot of time for example by paying everything online, from normal services like electricity to the movie tickets, and ordering pizza. Perhaps, this is something that we take for granted when we are here, but when we travel to other countries, we notice the lack of Internet access and how amazing is to have this easy access in Finland.

Finnish people: Finns are not very talkative at first which can be a challenge for those coming to Finland from more talkative countries... But when you get to know them you discover their real personality, you can actually have great conversations with them for hours. The majority of them are very honest and that is one of the values that I appreciate the most. So, when a Finn say that is your friend, he/she really means it. I feel very lucky to have good Finnish friends.

These 11 years have been a journey. I have learned so much about this country which is now my home, and about myself. I really love Finland. I am very lucky to be here. (Well, I have my doubts in November when I usually feel like moving to an island in the Caribbean, but...)

Thank you Finland for this experience, but especially, thank you to my Finnish husband, all my friends and my family here for been an essential part of this journey.