The "Olympics" of Daily Life, Part II

Okay, here's another installment of the friendly competition between Finland and the US. (I had planned to finish it before the Olympics ended, but with the baby and traveling to the UK, I couldn't get to it until now...) It looks like people are enjoying this section because I've received a bunch of comments about the entries. Keep it up because it's great to hear everyone else's perspective on the topics...

Plastic storage bags: US, GOLD; Finland, BRONZE

It's funny that something so simple could be so different across continents. Apparently, people in the US use self-sealing plastic storage bags (i.e. Ziploc) a lot, whereas most people in Finland still use the "old school" kind with twist ties. In fact, it's hard to even find a zipper storage bag in the stores here! The very largest stores sell the largest size, but I've yet to find the sandwich size. Very strange!

Flavored sparkling water: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

I've thoroughly enjoyed the flavored sparkling water here. In the US, the range of flavors is limited (comparatively speaking), and often they are sweetened, too. In Finland, there is a huge range of interesting, unsweetened, lightly flavored waters so I'm really enjoying trying them. They're much healthier than soda but still taste more interesting than plain water. To give you an idea, here are some of the tasty flavors I've tried so far: blueberry, grapefruit-cranberry, pear, and black currant!

House numbers: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

Another seemingly trivial item but a useful one. In the US, people put metal house numbers next to their doors, or sometimes they're painted on the curb. In either case, they are often hard to see, especially when trying to find them in the dark. I thought of this tonight when coming home from a friends' place in a taxi. As the taxi neared our place, Matt was pointing out which one was ours. It was then that I realized that the house numbers here are actually on little lights that are attached to the walls of the buildings. So they are easy to see because they are lit up- how ingenious!

"Swiss" cheese: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

You probably have to be a cheese lover to properly appreciate this one. While Swiss-style cheeses are not the most interesting cheeses available, a good one can be quite good. The ones here, especially the aged ones, are really tasty and much better than any I've had in the US. I wonder why??

Allergy labeling: Finland, GOLD; US, N/A

Products in the US do sometimes carry a generic warning like "May contain traces of nuts," but they don't have the extensive information that nearly all products in Finland have. For instance, foods are usually labeled to show which are low lactose or lactose free, gluten free, vegetarian, etc. even on restaurant menus! Household products are labeled to show which are approved by the national allergy association for people with chemical allergies. It's really quite cool!

Toaster ovens: US, GOLD; Finland, N/A

Can you believe that one cannot find a toaster oven in Finland? Standard toasters weren't even that popular until a few years ago, but it seems that the benefits of toaster ovens remain a mystery here... We have found some mini ovens, but they're pretty rudimentary and don't have an actual toast function. Instead, you have to put it on a bake setting and remember to watch it- hah, right! I miss my Cuisinart combination toaster/oven/convection oven!!!

The "Olympics" of Daily Life

In the spirit of friendly international competition, I thought I'd conduct a little comparison between the US and Finland in some of the areas of daily life that I've encountered since our arrival. Here's what I would award, if I could...

Public transportation: Finland, GOLD; US, LEAD maybe?

Not only is the transit network fabulous and convenient, but I learned when we arrived that, if you are an adult traveling with a baby carriage/stroller, you ride for FREE! That means that anywhere I go with Leila in the greater Helsinki area, whether on a train, bus or tram, I don't pay anything. That just boggled my mind and is just totally fantastic. 

In addition, the transit runs impeccably on time. Matt told me that people are furious and complain if a train is 2 minutes late. Also, instead of dropping your money into a machine inside the vehicle, you just hold up an electronic debit-type card to a scanner and push the appropriate button to deduct the cost of your ticket. If you (or the transit police) hold it up to the machine, it shows when you paid and how much. (By the way, if the transit police catches you not having paid, it's an 80 euro fine! Most people here don't dare try to cheat the system.)

The transit here is unbelievably efficient and convenient. The US doesn't even come close to competing in this area...

Recycling: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

Parts of the US, like California, do pretty well at the recycling gig, but Finland does it better. Your household garbage can has multiple compartments for compost, paper, cardboard, and then general waste. Bottles and cans are recycled at the grocery stores, where you get your deposit back in the form of a voucher to use at the store. 

Apartment flooring: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

Almost all apartments in Finland have wood floors or laminate at the very least. Rental apartments in the US usually have some variation of beige or brown carpeting (ick). I gotta say, wood is so much nicer!!

Bathrooms: US, GOLD; Finland, BRONZE

Here's one area where the US excels. Bathrooms there are, in general, palatial and spacious and esthetically pleasing. Finnish bathrooms are very functional. They have their plusses, like the drain in the floor that makes cleaning the floor a cinch and the towel bars that are heated by the hot water pipes that pass through them (very nice on a cold day!), but they are generally small and kinda ugly. Our bathroom has the added plus of having a sauna in it, but I would still love some windows, a bathroom fan, a big tub (or at least a decent shower head instead of these stupid handheld ones) and a stylish tiling job...

a) Toilet flushing mechanisms: Finland, GOLD; US, BRONZE

It seems funny that something like how you flush a toilet could be so different. In the US, toilets have one way to flush. Generally, the flush is powerful and uses lots of water. Here, the flushing mechanism has two parts: a kind of half flush for No. 1 and a whole flush for No. 2. You just push the button that corresponds to the type of flush you want. It's a great way to save on water consumption if you don't need a powerful flush every time.

b) Toilet paper: US, GOLD; Finland, SANDPAPER

The US definitely has the world's best selection of soft toilet paper. The stuff all over Europe (Finland included) is coarse and scratchy. I think it has something to do with being more environmental and not using so many resources to create pretty, bleached white and soft toilet paper. However, sometimes my rear end could care less about those issues!

Clothes dryers: US, GOLD; Finland, N/A

Dryers in the US work well and generally get your clothes dry in about an hour. In Finland, dryers are either non-existent, or they take like 2+ hours to actually get things dry. Some apartments (like ours) do have these "drying rooms" where you hang your clothes on a clothesline in a room with a machine that blasts hot air through the room. It's kind of like a sped up version of drying your clothes on a clothesline outdoors. However, it still takes about 8 hours to get everything dry... Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have laundry facilities. I don't know what I'd do without access to washers, but it would be so nice to have an effective dryer, too. Can't Finland import some good ones from the US??

To be continued...

Leila is two months old!

Leila is now two months old so here are a few new photos of her. She just started smiling soon after we got to Finland so I tried to take a couple shots of her smiling. It's tough to catch a quick baby smile on camera fast enough, but she's almost/kinda smiling in two of these. In the third, she is just being admired by her Oma (Matt's mother) and her cousin, Veronika.

More summer evening photos

Here are a few more highlights from our evening strolls. We went for a walk and then to dinner with some friends and their kids. In the first photo is Matt pushing Leila and talking with Timo and one of Timo's sons. (Timo's wife and other son were walking next to me when I took the photo.) Then you can see Senate Square and the Church of Finland. 

On another night, we went out for dinner with Matt's sister, Helena, her fiance, Antti, and our neice, Veronika. Afterwards, Leila got hungry so we stopped to feed her and took some photos. As you can see from the pictures, Veronika is very excited about her new little cousin!

Captions for photos below...

Here are descriptions for the photos below, in order:

1. Strolling down the Esplanade (with everyone else!)- Matt is in the photo towards the right pushing Leila in the stroller...

2. The stage on the Esplanade where a jazz band was playing

3. Kappeli (Chapel)- a famous coffee house on the Esplanade- with its terrace packed with people.

4. Kids getting rides down the Esplanade on miniature ponies!

5. A statue on the Esplanade with some kids playing in the shrubbery (see the one in the green shirt at the base?)

Summer strolling in Helsinki

Getting settled

Well, sorry for the hiatus there. Moving was more hectic than I expected. Getting the stuff we brought with us here wasn't too bad since we just loaded it all into a big cab and brought it to the apartment. However, shopping for furniture and trying to get that here has been a challenge, especially while being at the mercy of Leila's schedule... So, I've resigned myself to the fact that it's not going to be possible to get the house in order quickly nor make blog entries every day. It will all just have to happen when it happens!

I hadn't realized that it's tough to shop for furniture and housewares when you don't have a car. All the big stores that carry a large selection of those things are in the suburbs (which, in retrospect, is logical, I suppose) and not very accessible via transit. So we had to mooch rides from friends and Matt's parents when they were in town.

We picked out a bed and kitchen table/chairs and bare essential housewares like linens and a few dishes from IKEA and then a sofa and armchairs and a dining room set from a couple of local Finnish manufacturers. We had to pay to have the large items delivered, and, although each store told us it would be a "couple of days," it was more like a week.

When the guys delivered the bed frame from IKEA, they dropped it (which we saw) and severely chipped the side (which we discovered later while trying to assemble it). We called the store and asked them to come pick up the damaged one and bring us a new one. They were supposed to come on Saturday, and it's now Thursday... So we're still sleeping on our mattress on the floor- ugh.

Aside from these minor annoyances and our mostly empty apartment (as our stuff doesn't arrive from the US for another 2-4 weeks), things are fine. We've gotten over our jet lag, and Leila has started sleeping longer stretches at night (4-5 hours). We also have been enjoying the long summer days. Before Matt started work, we spent some time visiting with his family and our friends. We especially have enjoyed strolling around Helsinki in the evenings when so many people are out and about!