We’ve been in Finland for two weeks already! Despite the puke-filled trek over, and a combination of baby jet lag, language barriers, GI disease and some always fun foreign administrative procedures for getting set up at the bank and university…

we love it here.

Finns are a strange (“quirky”) group of oddballs. They are hilariously, charmingly literal. The street the university is on is called yliopisto-katu…”university street” and walking along it, you find “duck park,”  …which has ducks. There’s also “bear park” …which has a statue of a bear. It’s ALL like that. The busses run reliably, and people are genuine in a big way. But if you ask a Finn how his day is going, you have to be prepared for an actual answer.

Other highlights – the summer produce includes abundant chantarelles (5€/liter!), lots of tiny blueberries, and sweet strawberries, and strange tart orangey-colored cloudberries. They eat LOTS of salmon, and rye breads, and more coffee per capita than anywhere else. (Ha. My highlights are always food-related.)

We’ve been really lucky with the weather so far – it has been bright and clear and warm. And a favorite pastime is to drink hard cider (lots of options to choose from), with ice cubes. As my Auntie Di would say, it does not suck.

And yet… there are already cold breezes and shortening days…

and full-body infant down suits already lining shelves in the stores…

and our small town of Tampere has TWO very established local ice hockey teams…

Shit is about to get real. Real cold.

(Stay tuned!)