Observing Finland

Since arriving here in Helsinki, I've kept a little list of things I notice and manage to remember to write down. There are lots of things I've seen but forgot to make a note of that will have to wait for later. :)

• The eggs are not refrigerated. I went looking for the kanamuna several times before I realised that they were not in the refrigerated dairy section but near it on the shelves. I think the health department in the US would faint at the sight of them.
• Burberry scarves and plaid everywhere. All winter long, everywhere I looked, there were women in Burberry plaid scarves. I don't recall ever seeing Burberry worn in such concentration.
• Grocery stores are smaller and stock more whole foods. There are loads of cakes, bisuits and candy but very little selection of what would qualify as junk food.
• The majority of people I've seen are of a reasonable size which makes me think that the lack of fast food joints on every corner, no obsession with fat free/low-fat foods in the grocery and mostly whole foods in the grocery are somehow related to this. There is an obsession with lactose and gluten-free foods since dairy products are so much a part of the diet that lactose intolerance is very common.
• The Osbournes is un *beeped* which makes it more entertaining but somehow looses most of its cachet. Although nothing will help the strip poker show on after 11p it does make me happy to live somewhere that doesn't really get all fussy over a few dirty words and naked people on TV.
• Female TV news anchors actually have a few extra pounds. It's nice to see women on TV who aren't stick figures.
• Mannequins have perky, erect nipples and anatomically correct bulges. The downside is that most of us are not 17 anymore...gravity does have a price.
• Some movies which have English titles are translated and some are not though what the algorithm is for selecting titles for translation is unknown. I would guess that the ones with titles that can be translated are and the rest are just left alone, but I don't think that's correct.
• Finnish movie theatres all have reserved seating. This is so much nicer than the seating free-for-all in US theatres.
• Donald Duck, a.k.a. Aku Ankka, is very popular. I really haven't delved into the Finnish psyche enough just yet to understand this particular oddity.
• Kotipomo - literally means 'house boss' -- She who must be obeyed. I love this word and hope it makes its way into English slang. :)
• "The Wonderful K"! K is sublime. If Finland had the Wheel of Fortune TV show they'd have to buy K's. James Thurber would have loved writing about K.
• The anti-fur protesters would need to buy a paint plant to keep up with all the fur coats and accessories here. There are crowds of short old ladies who wear the full-length mink with matching pillbox hat and shop at Stockmann. Who can blame them as fur is warm :)
• Some Finnish words make me giggle. Such as 'puu' (wood) but is pronounced like 'poo' and 'mopo' (moped) which makes me think of a tiny St. Louis dialect that involves an array of 2 letter words all ending in o, e.g. FoPo for Forest Park, PoHo for poor ho and HoJo for Howard Johnson's...all in the state of MO :)
• Energy efficiency is apparent in many, if not most, appliances and lights.
• Portion sizes on the nutritional information panels are far more realistic than the ones in the US. Eating 100g of a 200g can of pringles is far more likely than 'approximately 8 chips'.
• My wardrobe fits in perfectly here as black is very fashionable :)
• Hay may be for horses but in Finland Hei is hello :) And 'ei', pronounced 'eh', means no.
• Street numbers are usually under 100 and the numbering between street blocks is not consistent, e.g. a building on the corner of one street may be 28 but on the next street over it might be 18 or 35. I've yet to figure how this came to be.
• English shows up in a lot of unexpected places, especially in advertisements, e.g. the entire text of an ad will be in Finnish but the slogan will be in English.
• Finland is a place of many superlatives yet is a quiet little Nordic country that even the BBC couldn't locate on a map.
• When Finland has a national holiday they mean it as there really aren't any grocery stores or anything else open...except for the pubs.
• Finns may avoid eye contact with people on the sidewalk but they nearly always will stop and talk to my St. Bernard and ask how old he is. A large percentage of Finns are dog people :)