Finnish from Afar Blog

13 Tips for Foreigners Invited to a Mökki

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 06:54:00 +0000

The Finnish vacation period is coming to an end, and with it so does the main mökki (Finnish cottage) season.

I have been lucky enough to spend quite a lot of time in mökkis, so I thought I would provide my fellow foreigners with some tips, should they ever be invited to one..

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Winning Over the In-laws - Finnish Style

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:35:00 +0000

If you are dating someone and it's getting serious, there comes a time when you need to meet the parents, and gain their acceptance.

This is always a tricky situation, and even more so if you are dating someone who is foreign.

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Finnish Milky Way

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:29:00 +0000

Despite being a small country, Finland leads the world in many areas, some of which I have previousy documented here.

But recently, I discovered that Finland is world leader in one surprising field.

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Finnish Priority Boarding Woes

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 05:41:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I flew from Gdansk (Poland) to Turku (Finland), because that's the glamourous life I have.

As I waited to board, I was witness to a very Finnish situation, which had me sniggering under my breath.

Polar Bear Pitching - Ending Death by PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 06:22:00 +0000

Let’s face it, we have all been on the receiving end of overly long and boring pitches and presentations, delivered by someone with the charisma of a sloth on Valium.

But help may be at hand for us poor victims. And it comes from Finland.
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The Best Finnish App for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 13:51:00 +0000

This time last year, I was celebrating Christmas in Lapland, having an amazing time that included a sauna on a frozen lake, a hot-tub under the stars and the Northern Lights on Christmas Eve.

That trip was also the first time I heard about one of the most useful Finnish phone apps.

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Give pizza chance...

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 20:32:00 +0000

A few days ago, I had a sudden realisation: Finland’s national dish is not reindeer and mash, or pickled herring.

No, it’s actually pizza, aka “pitsa”.

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Finnish Countryside Fashion

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 18:18:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, my friend Kirsi wrote on Facebook that she was relieved that her 3 year old daughter had finally grown out of her Crocs, as she thought the footwear was an "awful fashion-faux-pas".

I had to point out to her that she might be very mistaken about Crocs not being fashionable, as I had just returned from the Finnish countryside, and there, virtually everybody was wearing them!

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The Dark Side of Mökki-life

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 04:38:00 +0000

No Finnish summer vacation would be complete without spending time at a mökki (summer cottage), and indeed sharing pictures on social media.

Mökkis are invariably lovely photogenic wooden buildings, set in the woods and close to a lake, a river or the sea. They are places to relax, go to [the] sauna, swim, barbecue food, drink beer, and enjoy life with friends and family.

But there is a dark side to this idyllic summer setting…

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Random Top 10 List of Finland 2014 World Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 08:24:00 +0000

As 2014 draws to a close, I have to admit that it hasn't really been a great year for this blog (just one post so far!?!). You know, excuses, excuses...

To be honest, it hasn't be a great year for Finland either, particularly on the economic front. But 'tis the time to be jolly and positive, so I thought I would share some good Finnish news from the past year.
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Something Better for Eurovision

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 15:42:00 +0000

Recently, Finland selected the song that will represent the country in this year's annual celebration of kitsch and bland that is the Eurovision Song Contest.

“Something Better” by Softengine is somewhat predictable and inoffensive, though not unpleasant. However, it does stand out for its frankly puzzling English lyrics.

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The Finnish Festive Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 20:18:00 +0000

There are some things I feel that, as a foreigner, I will never quite understand about Finland and the Finns.

One of those is the Finnish Christmas spirit.

Exclusive: Finnish Teen-Idol Robin is Deaf!

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 17:41:00 +0000

Ppntori

Today, I join the very select group of bloggers who are able to break some news ahead of the mainstream media. Oh yes.

For today, I can exclusively reveal that the Finnish teen-idol Robin is in fact deaf. I don't mean tone-deaf, I mean really deaf; as in can't hear at all.

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Guest Post: KT Goes to Helsinki

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 05:52:00 +0000

The very first time I went to Helsinki, many years ago, it was for a business trip, in the middle of winter. It was very cold and very bleak, which led me to put Helsinki on my "been there, don't need to go there again, ever" list of cities. Little did I know...

Anyhow, my second guest blogger (the first was Santa) had an altogether different experience of travelling on business to the Finnish capital.

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Dedicated to Kone

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 05:40:00 +0000

One of Finland's largest company specialises in lifts, escalators, and moving-walkways. The company is called rather brilliantly Kone, meaning quite simply "machine" or "engine". Not even "machines" or "engines", just "machine" or "engine" in the singular form.

As it happens, I am rather fond of kone. Not so much the company, but the word itself.

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Just When I Thought I Had Mastered Finnish Declensions

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 05:56:00 +0000

Let's face it, if learning Finnish was graded like judo, I would still be a white belt. This despite years of training with an excellent sensei.

However, there are some areas of the language where I think I might be awarded a yellow or even green belt. One of these is case declensions, or the fine Art of wrestling nouns into admitting what they've been up to. Yet, despite my amazing skills, I can still be surprised by the ability of Finnish nouns to fight back.

Mini-Post: Pointing the Finger at Meerkats

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Apparently, the Finnish word for "meerkat" is "nelisormimangusti", or "four-fingered mongoose".

Well, well, well... I didn't know that meerkats were part of the mongoose family (to be fair, I have not spent much time considering the subject before now); nor was I aware that meerkats had just 4 fingers (toes actually) on each foot, whereas most other mongoose species have 5 toes it seems. Fascinating. Somewhat.

I might not be getting anywhere fast with the Finnish language, but I sure am making a great deal of progress in zoology.

Laserskater, Helsinki's Superhero

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:31:00 +0000

The first time I saw him was on a warm summer's evening in Helsinki. He was standing near the parliament, patiently waiting for the traffic lights to change so he could cross the road. He was quite a sight to behold: middle-aged, lean, balding and dressed as if he was on his way to a roller disco in a New York gay club in the 1980s.

But he was no clubber, he was... LASERSKATER, Helsinki's very own superhero.

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Finnish Men Can't Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:13:00 +0000

Finnish men can't dance. Fact.

OK, OK, I admit: like most things I write about in this blog, I don't really know what I am talking about. This week however, I was reminded of some classic Finnish dance videos when I saw an animated GIF picture of a middle-age man showing off his disco thrusts.

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10 Useless Facts about Finland

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:54:00 +0000

In the past couple of weeks, my social media inlets [is that the word for the SoMe equivalent of an inbox?] seem to have been filled with an unusually high number of, well, numbered lists. You know the kind that go: "5, 10 or 20 [useless] things you need to know, do, avoid, see, read or have, now or before you die".

I figured it was time for me to contribute a trivial and pointless list of my own – about Finnish things, obviously.

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Almost Sisu

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:58:00 +0000

Finns are rightly proud of their long tradition of perseverance in the face of overwhelming challenges. This courage and determination is so much part of their character, that Finns even have a word for it: sisu.

Silly foreigners like me don’t always quite appreciate what qualifies as sisu though, as the following anecdote illustrates.

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An Unfortunate Loss

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:23:00 +0000

This week, the winter returned with a vengeance in the UK. Temperatures have plummeted, and the weather forecasters are getting ready to roll out the hyperbolical meteorological clichés (Arctic conditions, Siberian winds, etc.). It was actually +2C/36F in Southern England today, but then what do Brits know about cold, huh?

Anyhow, for some unknown reason, I was reminded today of an anecdote involving my early fumblings with the Finnish language.

Same Procedure As Last Year?

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:00:00 +0000

New Year's celebrations are over for another year. And so is the broadcast on TV of one of the most successful piece of British comedy ever. You know... The sketch that has been shown on TV over 250 times since it was first broadcast. No, not Monty Python's "parrot sketch"... The one starring the British actors Freddie Frinton and May Warden...

My guess is, if you are from the UK, the US or virtually anywhere in the world, you have no idea what I am on about. Freddie who?

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A Weird Food Passion

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:30:00 +0000

There are two things I bring back from Finland on a regular basis. There's the amazing Fazer chocolates – no surprise there. And there's leipäjuusto.

For the uninitiated, leipäjuusto is cheese, but not as we know it, as Spock might have said. Had he visited Finland. And tried leipäjuusto. And felt the urge to comment on it.

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The Tailor Began with a Button

noreply@blogger.com (Telefinn) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 07:29:00 +0000

A couple of weeks back, my friend Simo forwarded an email to me that had me smiling and frustrated in equal measure.

The email contained a short Finnish text with a series of word plays, which I thought were rather clever – that was the smiley bit. However, as I reached repeatedly for the dictionary to try and decipher the text, I also realised how far I was from ever understanding Finnish – and that was the seriously frustrating bit.

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