everything you've ever wanted to know about Finland!

Songburst wrote:

lol -- I'm pretty sure that St. Urho's Day is a Northern Ontario / Northern Minnesota reason for hard wroking Finlanders to get drunk and make fun of the Irish while we are at it. There are several websites on google.ca that describe the many legends of St. Urho.

I want to visit Finland, though I have heard that it is very similar to Northern Ontario. Ironically, my dad is the only member of my family to visit Finland since I was born and he is a 7th generation Canadian. Even more funny is that my mom's uncle recognized him in downtown Helsinki, without even knowing that he was there and invited him and his co-workers to dinner that night.

haha. you're probably right.

I dunno about the similarity.. but you should deffinately visit if you wanna.
maybe also other places than Helsinki, though it's a great city too.

IndianSummer wrote:

ty.

so how come finns being a germanic people dont speak a germanic language??
are they non-germic then ??

and if the sami arnt aleuts, then who are the sami related to ?? is the sami language finno-ugric ?

I'm gonna get back to this, gotta do some research.
my knowledge about this.. well, I dunno much!
but I'm gonna find out, okay?

Riverrunner wrote:

Tell me about cycling in Finland. Are there lots of cyclists? I would tend to think not because of the climate. However, if Finland is pro-environment I can envision lots of mountain bike trails? My husband and I are cyclists/runners and every place we visit we always try to bike. I just wondered how it was in Finland. In the part of the US where we live drivers are very dangerous towards cyclists. Otherwise good people try to run you off the road or scare you off the road. Then we go to places like southern France and drivers are very polite and safe towards cyclists.

Is Finland hilly, mountainous, flat?

Thanks for the thread. It is very interesting. I love visiting foreign places even if it is through cyberspace.

there are a lot of cyclists in the summertime. in winter obviously less, but some people cycle then too.
drivers aren't dangerous to cyclists, unless the cyclists are acting stupid and cycling where they're not supposed to. all in all it's safe to cycle here. and you are able to do so if you wish.

haha, we don't have ANY mountains here! literally, none!
that's because our soil is so old that all of the mountains have "rubbed off" because of for example the ice age.
we do have hills here though. but altogether Finland is quite flat.

you're welcome. cyber-travelling can be really fun!

Mondariso wrote:

ciao! i love Finland, but i have never been there...sigh!
anyway, i just want to say to you my admiration for your country...and ask you what does your president think about war in iraq and usa, in general...

thank you, that's very kind! you should visit.

as far as I know (and remember) our president hasn't expressed her personal point of view about the war in Iraq. which I think is good.. we as such a small country don't need any enemies.. but seriously I at least can't remember her commenting the situation.

generally the Finn's opinions about this matter can be divided to two groups, "it's none of our business" and "it's totally wrong!".

pearlmutt wrote:

no one is voting here, except for el, he's thinking about it, me, i'm thinking about moving

sell me on your country, mine's already sold.

hmm. I already answered your tennis-question, but I haven't quite figured out what to say to this..

but I could use this as a quite akward transition to the voting percentages here. (sorry, don't be offended.) mainly because the percentages in the US seem very low and because we have the presidental election in February next year.
in presidental elections the voting percentage here has always been about 80. this is pretty good, but we still need to have young people voting too, as we are the future of this country and the whole world.
in local elections the percentage is lower, about 50 %.. that needs to go up too.
anyway, I still think we have these things better off here than maybe other countries..
please correct me if i'm wrong.
well, I guess that's enough of that.

hello to everyone!
just decided to give this thread a small bump...
actually I just wanted to declare that today, December 6th is Finland's independece day!!! (I was too lazy to create a whole new thread.. ) 88 years baby!

yep, tonight is the night when all of Finland sits down in front of their TV-sets and judges the dresses of the people invited to the presidents Independence day reception.
it's a tradition what can you say..
actually the reception is quite boring, watching almost 2000 quests shake hands with the president. but it's good fun if they have interesting clothes!

mookie blaylock 10 wrote:

happy independence day eMMi ! forgive my ignorance, but it is the independence from russia, correct?

thank you.
and you are correct!

oh, and something not to be so proud of as a Finn, is that a year after independence (1918) we had a civil war.
but that's all gone now!