Last Friday I rode on a big boat from the Stockholm archipelago to Helsinki, a 15 hour trip in which one pays for a bed in a cabin and wakes up the next morning in another country. I knew Finland would look similar to Sweden in landscape and climate, so I was looking forward to noticing the differences between the 2 Scandinavian neighbors. The main reason for the trip, however, was to visit my dear friend Sofia, who is half-Finnish and completing her masters degree in Helsinki. It was a beautiful weekend of deep conversations and giggles, observing a totally unique, incredibly difficult language all around me, and trying the simple food special to this recently very poor country.
Finnish is a language in which most people, except maybe Hungarians, cannot even make an attempt at guessing what a word means. In the picture I'm displaying the utter incomprehensibility of this sign which probably says "Keep off the grass." 
The biggest tourist attraction in the capital is the stone church, carved from a rock and beautiful in it's natural simplicity.
Sofia lives a walk away from the sea. It was a foggy, cold day, but the sea is always refreshing. Traveling on the train from her apartment on the day I left, I noticed people jumping into the half-frozen lake in their bathing suits. And then 50 ft. from the water's edge I spotted the little cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney....yes, the sauna. (A Finnish word which English has borrowed) This invigorating activity is much loved by Finns.
And one mustn't forget this special Easter treat. It's made of rye flour, malt, and a bit of molasses-type syrup. I cannot imagine such a humble dessert being eaten where I am from, where our sweets have names like "oooey gooey brownie pudding" and have at least 2 cups of sugar in them.
3 comments:
Hej, I remember the lovely Sofia.
Love the picture of you and the sign! It made me laugh! Looks like a great trip to Finland....
just the best blog on the internet. that is all!
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