FINLAND

Summer House - Finnish Archipelago

Misconceptions about the weather and other stories

2004. Summer trip to Finland

 

 August Night

I had to go in the summer, because it is common knowledge, that only those survive more than 10 minutes outside who are wrapped up in animal furs. It is especially dangerous for those of us who have thinning hairlines and no hair on our backs. I fit both of these categories. During the planning phase, associations zigzagged in my brain making me doubt my own sanity, questioning my decision to spend my summer vacation near the Arctic Circle. White Nights, White Christmas, snow, Russia, Finland, cold. I knew the nights would be long, and it is of no coincidence that they are called White Nights. Or do the White Nights stop at the border between Russia and Finland, and Finns only have Midsummer Nights? I was afraid of what I would find.

Sauna boat

We arrived with only a couple of suitcases in which I packed all 5 of my sweaters. We left warm, fuzzy but tornado prone Cincinnati behind. We got to Finland and the mercury never dipped under 30 C. The water was warm, I thought we got hijacked and arrived to the Caribbean.

Well, I am not complaining. Finland is a wonderful and beautiful country and the archipelago is amazing. We hopped from island to island, most of us fearlessly sharing the pleasant sea waters with poisonous snakes. I and my daughter were the only two outsiders thus - to put it mildly - we were slightly less fearless. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed the midnight saunas and ran down on the rocky shore like giddy children to dip our naked bodies into the waters during the endless twilights that almost seamlessly met the morning dawns.

And the food! Fish - no surprise, they are around - but the variety and the different ways of serving them, are amazing. And you can catch them fresh, just as you can find all sorts of berries and mushrooms in the wild. All you need then is a mother-in-law or a sister-in-law to prepare them the proper Finnish way. And I had both right there and they did their best to please me. I guess they might have been happy to see Joanna as well.

Winter trip to Finland

 Nokia boot

So we had to return in winter. We persuaded our friend Mark to join us in exploring the icy north, the walks on the frozen Northern Sea. Winters are long and harsh in Finland. Or so we were told. Mark and I are not convinced any more. We arrived in March. According to the natives March is still very much a winter month. The sun was shining, the ice – share a couple small patches shaded by rocks – were all but gone. So much for driving, let alone skiing or walking on the frozen sea. But I am not complaining; Finland is a wonderful and beautiful country with amazing people and food. Everybody speaks English and who knows how many other languages. The technology is far advanced, virtually nobody has a land-line telephone any more. Nokia rules. Maybe Nokia changed profiles from making rubber boots to mass producing mobile phones because the Finnish winters are over!

But technology struck us in Helsinki. We visited my mother-in-law in one of the marvels of the famous Finnish architecture. Well, she lived in one of the houses of the conglomerates of ugly looking buildings that actually feature wonderful apartments with fantastic balconies.

Two of the victims

Food is awaiting

Panic?

She lived on the fifth or perhaps sixth floor. We decided to take the elevator. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Except for my backpack. One of the tiny little straps of my backpack got stuck in the door of the elevator as it started to ascend on its way towards the next wonder of Finnish cookery. The elevator stopped, the strap did not budge, nor could we even cut it off. And we had no Nokia! No panic button available, although there was plenty of panic amongst the passengers. For different reasons: one was worried about her mother not knowing where her little girl was, one was worried about the time before he could get to the bathroom, and one was worried about the food getting cold. Finally our saving angel arrived, a woman who wanted to use the elevator was kind enough to inform Joanna's mom about our imprisonment and also called maintenance. Of course it had happened on a Sunday. Repair arrived in about an hour, he came from the other end of Helsinki.

I returned many times to this wonderful faraway North Country, whose people, unlike mine, treat minorities well, whose language to foreigners sound the same as mine. But the Finns recognizing that nobody will learn their language took the effort to learn other, more useful tongues. Unlike the Hungarians who believe that their often cited story should actually be followed:

 A foreigner arrives in Budapest and stops two men on the street and asks for direction:

- Pardon me, do you speak English?

The Hungarians just shake their heads

- Parlez-vous français? he tries a second time

Again, only head shakes

- Sprechen Sie Deutsch? - asks the man still smiling.

Now the Hungarians start looking annoyed and begin to talk to him in Hungarian.

The man becomes desperate, trying to pull out some words from his deepest memories in Russian and Italian.

Still no answer. So the man gives up.

The two Hungarians walk by talking: - Did you hear this man, he must have spoken five different languages.

So? - shrugs the other - he did not get too far with them, did he?

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