My Experiences of Finnishness

What actually is Finnishness? In my opinion it is everything that is considered to be Finnish or associates with Finland. The first things that come to my mind are sauna, salty liquorice, tranquility and our amazing, pure nature.

 

Finland is known for many different things around the world: Nokia, Kimi Räikkönen, ice hockey, safety, drinking a lot of coffee, Angry Birds, Moomins, Santa Claus… and the list goes on. But for me Finland is much more than those things. Being Finnish means that I can enjoy all four seasons and go safely out alone at night and I have the chance to get free education. Being Finnish also means, that I can find pure nature everywhere and I can freely pick berries and mushrooms in the forest or go hiking.

Many Finns are quite private and enjoy their personal space (which you can notice when people are holding 2 meters of so called safety distance when waiting for a bus). Perhaps loving the personal space is the main reason why we have so many summer cottages where people can retreat for the weekend. At the cottage we can also enjoy the nature as most of the cottages are near water or forest. Almost every cottage also has a sauna, and try to come up with more Finnish combination than sauna and going for a swim. Even the winter isn’t enough to keep us away from our lakes, that’s why we go winter swimming!

 

Comments

Leave a Reply

Processing comments...

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *