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.  

How to Survive Winter in Lapland

Lapland is the northern most part of Finland, the part that is really in the arctic circle.  It's the best place to see the Northern Lights in Finland, and also the home of the indigenous Sami people.  This is a fabulous blog post with pictures and tons of information about visiting Lapland and tons of actives and hotels.

Sleeping in a Box and Outdoors!

One of the best ways to understand cultural differences in a country is to look at the way a child is raised, doing this brings understanding to adult behavior.  Finland is often known as being really cold, in fact when I tell people that's where I want to live someday they respond about how cold it is.  Part of why Finns are so good in the cold may be because of them sleeping outside when they're babies.  Despite seeming very odd to those who don't experience such frigid temperatures it's not that unusual for babies, or child in general, to sleep outdoors in the dead of winter and some parents even say it helps kids to sleep longer and deeper if they're outside.

Another interesting thing about babies in Finland is that no matter their social status, rich or poor, all parents receive a baby box from the government (or a check from the government, though most choose the baby box because its a much better deal).  Part of why I want to move to Finland is because they amount of support to parents and to children truly create an environment where you can succeed no matter your background.

Finally, here's a blog post from a fantastic blog about Finland where the mother uses both the baby box and lets her baby sleep outdoors.

Finnish Grocery List

This is just a neat little article from Yle.fi that talks about what Finns buy at the grocery store, and how that's basically been unchanged for the past ten years.  It does mention though that recently Finns do seem to be trying to buy healthier options.