Bad News and Then Amazing News

I know that I haven't been posting much mostly because I've been busy with school and work, but also because I've been a bit depressed about Finland.  My car broke down and so I ended up spending most of Finland's money, putting my plans to visit on hold.  But today I got some very amazing news!  I'm a Early Childhood Education and Development major and I found out that in April of this upcoming year there's going to be a study abroad program to Finland.  It's gonna be for ten days and it's going to be in Helsinki and another town slightly north of Helsinki (the professor I was talking to couldn't remember the name).  I've decided I'm going to do this program, meaning I'm going to be in Finland in less than a year!  I just have to focus on getting the money, but the way this is falling together, I feel like the universe means it to be!

Which means that I am hopefully gonna be posting pictures within a year of me in Finland and visiting Finland :)  See ya'll!

Bocuse d'Or

Finland has come under fire in the past regarding their food, supposedly by past President of France Jacques Chirac and Food stars such as Gordon Ramsay.  Although Mr. Chriac has denied such statements and different videos like this one shows Gordon enjoying some Finnish Reindeer dishes, but from a world stand point Finnish cuisine does often seem to be forgotten about.  So that's why it's a bit nice that Finland won two awards in one of the worlds most prestigious cooking contests in France.  Read the article yourself, and be proud for Finland!

Hyvää Vappuu!

For those of you who don't know May 1st is Vappu, or May day in Finland, otherwise known as Spring Fest or Labour Day.  A lot of Finns basically go to the streets and celebrate, most of them wearing their graduation hats.  If you want some more information here's a good blog post, and if you're wondering what Vappu food looks like here's another one.  Enjoy your day, drink some sima, and Hyvää Vappuu!

Hey Helsinki

It can sometimes be hard to find information about Finland, especially information about Finland from expats, and so that's why its so great to find wonderful blogs from expats in Finland.  Hey Helsinki is a blog by a woman from New Zealand.  She lives in Helsinki, and while she doesn't have as many post as say the blog Life in Finland, she does amazing pictures and reviews of places around Helsinki.

Helsinki Underground

This is a blog post just giving some tips on Helsinki Underground :) Just in case you find yourself needing to take the Underground in Helsinki!

One Million Finnish Passports

We talk so often about the good things about Finland, but like any country there are also less desirable aspects of Finland.  One example can be Finland's 'racism'.  While this is not as big of a problem with the younger generation, there have been many accounts of older Finns acting stand offish towards anyone who very obviously is not Finnish (although wither they really are racist or just typical quiet Finns has yet to be determined).

Another aspect is immigration for Finland.  It can be incredibly hard to get Finnish citizen ship and for immigrants to get resident permits (especially because an employer has to show why no Finn in the area can do the same job as the person the employer is getting the resident permit for).  Sadly, if you don't have family connections, or a Finnish partner, the likelihood of you being able to stay in Finland are pretty low.  About this specifically, Alfredo Jaar created a artwork called 'A Million Finnish Passports' (number three on the list) as an example of this issue.  It's a fairly interesting piece of work, check it out.  It was created in 1995, and things are much better now regarding this issue in Finland than they were, but there's still work to do.  And when I say that I really began to feel that we as a world of nations have more we need to do.  We're already extremely globalized, and thanks to technology today countries really need to be more open.  In my opinion, we should stop being citizens of a country and start being a citizen of the world.  Rant over.

Reaching Goals

I have some exciting news for you guys!  I've finally reached my financial goal for Finland :) If I wanted to, I could leave at any time and go to Finland!  I'm still waiting for a good time to go, lots of planning to do, but it feels good to finally reach my savings goal so early.  I'm still saving money every paycheck so that when I go to Finland in a year to two years I won't be completely emptying my savings.  But it's so nice to be able to talk to my Finnish friends and began to make actual plans for travel.