Self-made gift on Mother’s Day

The TV has lately been busy with giving us tips of what to get for mother on Mother’s Day. Traditionally in Finland you get her some flowers, preferably a self-made card by the kids and a nice gift, that also preferably self-made.

Daddy bakes a cake with the kids and cooks dinner. Imagine how messy the kitchen will be after daddy having cooked there with the off-spring, and if this is the only time in the year daddy does some cooking? Who does the cleaning but mommy?!? So I guess this is the most common gift to mother on Mother’s Day.

And what if mommy really likes her cooking and would prefer to do it herself like I do?

Another tip has been to not buy mother buy her something glamorous and romantic like lingerie or a necklace. Something “useless” and pretty and not any kitchen utensils or appliances. What if she wants a new toaster or a blender? Or the espresso-machine just broke down? Or she needs a new tea-pot like I do?!?

Why not really listen to what mother herself wants to do and have? You should know that much of your mother, and wife, at least. Flowers yes, or perfume perhaps is nice, but is she allergic?!? Chocolates, but is she on a diet?!?

Just be yourself and skip overdoing it on Mother’s Day. Ask mum what she wants!

Credit-card in your own wrong name!

A friend of mine moved to Finland a couple of years ago and now recently opened a new banking account with her own brand new cash- and credit-card attached to it instead of a joint one with her husband.

Imagine her receiving the card and discovering that her name was wrong. Instead of using her full name, the bank had just used the first name together with her surname on her credit-card.

What heavenly delight to a credit-card in your own rich cousins’ name! Only sad it is not the same bank balance to go with the card. The name is exactly correct but completely wrong as my friend is called by her second name instead of her first name. As my friend has kept her maiden name when she married since it is quite uncommon, and her cousin has not yet married resulting in that they are named exactly the same. One is using her first name as her first and the other is using her second name as her first. Imagine trying to explain this to the police on day!

I guess that in some families just imagination for names run low.

Anyway, when talking to some other friends that are also foreigners or have returned to Finland after having been living for ears abroad, we discovered that his is a common problem here. All officials always take for granted that your first name is your first name. So please have a little more creativity when choosing the names of your children!

Hmmm…fun would be for twins though, to be named exactly the same. Nobody knows who is who anyway.

Knives and wildlife

Before I moved to Finland I had heard about the Finns always settling their differences with their knives. Well, I came here and was thrilled about the idea of men getting their knives out in the streets and having real knife-fights, and how disappointed was I to find out that no such things exists anymore. At least not living in a big town, maybe in the country-side far up north they might do in the woods.

Another big delusion for me when moving here was to find out that here are no polar-bears walking in the streets! You will certainly have to go to the US and Alaska for that. It would certainly be cold enough in the winters for the polar-bears even here in the southern part of this country.

But you do get bears around in the woods quite a lot. Never have seen one in the wild, but some friends live in the countryside nor far from here and they have a bear wandering around in their neighbour-hood in the woods. Imagine go out in the woods berry picking and walk head on into a hungry bear!

But the strangest things are quite rare and you do not see them much in big cities. They are easier to discover in small towns or villages a little off the beat so to say.

Imagine a young woman in her twenties, good looking. She has made her hair properly, done a nice, fresh looking make-up, high heel pumps and here we go!!! She is also wearing a track-suit!

Why bother with the hair-do and make up, and then wear high-heels to a track-suit?!? I have seen it several times during the years. So keep your eyes open look around you when you are as there are many of them to see, they are just hard to detect when dressed properly.

How is that for wildlife?

May Day

I have discovered that the celebration for May 1st always begins on the day before “Vapun Aatto” people gathering for Pique-niques and a nice time, students celebrating their examinations. Balloons, serpentines and streamers are sold for the children, and traditional “sima” to drink is a must together with “tippaleipä”. Nice food and lots of nice drinks and outdoors if the weather is as gracious as it has been this year.

The next day, on May Day itself, political parties have their marches for one cause or another as everywhere else in the world. But most students thought are sleeping late due to their late-night activities when politicians hold their traditional annual speeches missing most of the fun seeing the politicians keeping their annual speeches promising everything and keeping nothing of it.

The youth being the future maybe better is kept in the dark, quiet and unknowing of the promises of the politicians so they don’t get their hopes too high about the future.

At least I was not concerned with the future when young, and I did graduate too, but where did my bright future go? Where did all the important things disappear to? After discussing the problems of the future sharing a bottle of wine some twenty years ago? Here we are now in the future and nothing did we get done…It is sad that life is so short and we have to choose what to do, have children or change the world.

Well, maybe one thing though.

There’s nothing much one can do to change the world but to change yourself…
So I have been thinking about a new hair-colour!

Drunk more cost-effectively

When moving here I was stunned to find out that the only place to shopping for your accustomed alcoholic beverages such as wines, strong beers and strong liquor is the Finnish governmentally owned shop “Alko”. They only have the exclusive rights to sell alcohol, and no such things as off-license from a restaurant or a Pub! And nothing stronger than mild beer and ciders are sold in the supermarkets. I have heard that is not until quite recently that the liquor still was rationed and you had to save up your ratios if you had a party coming up!

This is just plain, ordinary Finnish politics, Big Brother watching over the little citizen.

The Alko-shops are quite conveniently open, even on Saturdays so you won’t have to make big plans to get your drinks either and they are usually most conveniently situated in big shopping-centres or in junction with big supermarkets. But one thing that catches the eye though.

About a year ago the government decided to lower the taxes on alcoholic beverages, especially strong liquor. But the prices of wine, beers and ciders were not cut as much as the prices of stronger alcohol like vodka and such, and the consumption of strong liquor has since then increased.

Cheaper prices on strong liquor has resulted in young unaccustomed drinkers and teenagers getting drunk more cost-effectively on the more affordable liquors, with the result of an alarming increase in the amount of teenagers ending up in hospitals because of various intoxication related causes. The youngsters now get too drunk too fast on their vodka to be able to properly handle their level of intoxication.

And here I have to mention that you are not allowed to shop in Alko if not old enough, so another problem is the illegal bootlegging of alcohol to youngsters. Now with EU the tax-free has disappeared and you can bring almost as much alcohol as you like to into the country, so I guess this no longer is such a big issue. Is it?

But still worth a thought.

Russian-roulette the Finnish way?

The weather has now been warmer than usual for a change and they talk about the spring catching up for lost time. At least as an allergic to pollen I have discovered that spring is on its’ way. My hay-fever is well on its’ every year visit and this year it is as close as possible to developing into an asthma. I always look like a red eyed rabbit at all the graduation parties in the spring. At least I can wear a big hat and sunglasses when outdoors in the sunny weather and no one will notice.

Kind of sad, I won’t be able to see any skiing on the lakes at Midsummer after all!

I just heard about some people that had been driving in their car on the ice and got stuck. I mean they did not sink into the lake, they just got stuck. This couple just sat in their car and waited for the fire-brigade and police to come and rescue them and finally had the police talk them into leaving their car.
Well, I would get the hell out of the car if it got stuck in the ice, I mean the car might sink ! Questionable is if I would get into a car driving on the ice, and certainly not this late in the year!

I do not know what happened to the car in the end, if they got the car out as well or if they just left to sink into the ice.
But I wonder if this was just having fun playing Russian roulette the Finnish way?

One thing is for sure, the ice is melting, so no skiing if no cars either on the ice.

Finnish cuisine

Finnish cuisine has been talked down badly lately in the media alongside with the English cuisine. Some EU-countries brag about their world famous gourmet-cuisines. So what really is pizza more than tomato-sauce on bread? Or Confit de canard, a mushy bird simmered in fat? Foie gras, pate on the liver of geese with too much food forced down their throats so they develop enlarged, sick livers?

It is just that these dishes are well known around the world and people are more accustomed to them. Finnish food is not merely smoked reindeer-meat and cloudberries. Or did you just get served the bad pieces or is the real problem that you are jealous at the Finns, ( and Swedes and Norwegians) cooking food on all Santa’s reindeers and none left to the rest of Europe?

The Finnish cuisine at least has different seasons with different foods accordingly. Wild game, wild berries and mushrooms in the fall. Pork, ham, rustic stews and soups, fresh sweet water fish such as Pike and Perch in the winter. Summers filled with food barbequed outdoors, fresh cooked dill potatoes, pickled herring, smoked salmon and strawberries and whipped cream and crayfish in end of summer.

Here we are really dealing with originality and preserving the Finnish national identity in a united Europe, the European Union! So leave the Finns their food and when here if you do not dare to try something different, then you are welcome to have your everyday tomato-sauce on bread yourself.

Oh, and one more thing about Finnish traditional cuisine, at least you get full on what you are served on the plate and do not have to wear your reading spectacles on to see what is on your plate.

Unless if you are on a reduced calorie-diet, then I guess just seeing some food, no matter what food, just any food, will do. And the less the better!