10 things Finland is known for in Sweden

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1. Horrible accent when we speak in a foreign language. And when we speak Swedish we sound like the characters in the Moomin cartoons. Some Swedes can’t stand it and some have fetish towards it. Either way, most make fun of it. And here’s a sample of a Finn (from Finland’s most popular Youtube channel) speaking English:

2.Jävla temperament” when a Finn is upset it can be dangerous.

3. Quietness. When we’re not upset, or drunk, we’re quiet and awkward.

4. Koskenkorva, or as we say in Finland “kossu”. My last name used to be Koskivaara and terribly often Swedes made an association between my name and this lovely vodka-like hard liquor.

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5. Knives. This was a more well-known fact in Umeå, which is located right across from Pohjanmaa. Messing around with knives was a popular activity in the region during the 19th century. I’m from Helsinki so I never saw this in myself.

6. Good selection curse words, for instance, Saatana, vittu, perkele… There aren’t many good ones in Swedish so they sometimes borrow ours.

7. Moomin trolls. The characters from the books and comics by Tove Jansson are for sure Finlands gift to the world.

8. Sauna: the winter is long, dark and cold, so we have to find alternative sources of heat.

9. Nokia, it was once so great.

10. Education: it’s the best in the world! So: “why study in Sweden and not Finland?” people like to ask. I always clarify that it’s the elementary and middle schools that are so great, after that the quality isn’t guaranteed anymore.

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But no one in Sweden remembers what happened at Globen in 1995… Do you?

Kaljakellunta 2016

This was more than two months ago, but I finally went through the material I filmed with my GoPro at the annual Beer floating event in Vantaa, Finland! The idea of the event is to float in Vantaa river and drink beer.

I think this was my fourth time to participate and it’s always the best day o the year. Though as we’ve gotten older we’ve switched the beer to sparkling wine and snacks. 🍾🍻🍫🍿🍉

Graduation

Today I finally graduated with a bachelors’ degree in business management! The graduation itself wasn’t too important for me, but I finally had a reason to buy myself a new dress. I wanted a dress with mid sleeves that I could wear at a ceremony during winter time. I found a really nice one from asos.com, with a bit of the spirit from 1920’s and a lot of sparkle.

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I have tattoos on my arms and I wanted them to be covered. The dress worked great on that and it looked really nice on my pale skin.

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The day before the ceremony I came across a big issue, I heard that Laurea UAS will be the first University of Applied Sciences in Finland that will make the graduating students to wear gowns… I’m quite strick about what I wear, I refused to buy the overalls students wear at parties at the beginning of my studies and this was something that would definitely not suit my style.

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Although we were told to take gowns, I didn’t take one. One of my friends brought me one, but I still wasn’t willing to wear it. I was kind of nerveous and though that I’d be kicked out of the ceremony or something, but luckily no one complained. I kind of stood of the ground when shaking hands with the school president.

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I’m happy to be finally done with scool. I’m applying to master programmes now, and will hopefully be out of Finland next fall again.

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Independence Day

It was Independence Day in Finland last saturday, Dec. 6th. So I decided to bake a rainbow cake with Finnish flags on top. I chose the rainbow theme partly because same-sex marriage has been a big issue in Finland lately. And I see Finland in rainbow colors…  The cake turned out better than I expected, a bit too sweet though. I’ll try to come up with something as creative as this for Christmas.

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Rainbow cake

Ps. I can’t wait until next thursday when I’ll be done with TOEFL, GMAT and graduation… Then I’ll have time to update this way more often, work on my jigsaw puzzles, etc.

Back in Finland

So… Shanghai and Korea times are over for now. I had so many other things in mind during the last weeks in Asia I didn’t put any effort on updating this. And I’ve now been in Finland for a month and gotten the most important (school) things done, so I can finally start again. It’s cold and dark here but it’s okay for now, I’m just happy to be back in school.

I missed the new year in China, but we celebrated in Finland too. Although I’m pretty sure it would have been better there. Maybe next year. And I’m still learning Chinese!

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Chinese new year in Helsinki.

Hope there’s still someone interested in what’s going on in my life. I’ll be posting some pictures from my travels in the near future!

Finnish in Japan

During my trip in Japan I came across two shops with Finnish names. I noticed later both stores had “SM2” next to their own names, so I did a little research and found out there were four different store names under the SM2  brand. The stores I came across were ehkä söpö and olohuone. From the webpage http://www.sm2.co.jp/ I found also otan tämän “I(‘ll) take/have this one”  and keittiö “kitchen”.

The www-page was in Japanese so I couldn’t figure out whether they had any connection to Finland besides the names.

Ehkä söpö “Maybe cute” Harajuku, Tokyo

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Olohuone “Living room” in Tokyo or Osaka, can’t recall where, but anyway, sweet!

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A Swedish bag I found at a store in Tokyo. It says “Can I use your phone?” I don’t know if people actually buy this stuff. Most Japanese wouldn’t probably even recognize the language. It could say basicly anything. Or maybe they google before they buy…

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