what´s so different (strange) about finland? Here are my first 10 observations

1. The Doors. You rarely find one that you can open with just one hand, they all require two hands except for doors for flats where there is no handle or knob outside and just a key whole.

2. Locks. All the doors lock in the opposite direction you would expect. you turn the lock away from the place where the bolt goes through. Perhaps this is why a certain finnish someone who lived in america had so much trouble opening doors.

3. sinks in toilets. all the toilets here have little sinks in them, even the stalls in the public bathrooms in department stores. oh and they have little shower hoses too, for those of us who are washers and not wipers.

4. all people seem to eat here are variations of rye bread, yogurt, and new potatoes.

5. you see people with blonde roots and dark hair rather than vice versa.

6. Every place I go place American pop music from the bars and clubs to the operating room. i saw a liver resection today and heard eminem, maroon 5, and britney spears playing in the background.

7. Salmiaki candy and Rubarb Pie

8. the sun that never fully sets. no matter what time of day it is, sky basically stays light. It is strange to walk home at 4 in the morning and have it look like 4 in the afternoon.

9. Everyone has a summer cottage by a lake that they go to whenever they get a chance. All they do there is eat sausages, sit in the sauna, swim in the freezing lake, and sleep.

10. Asians like me make finnish babies cry just by being in the same room :) ¶ 07:33