A Finnish Getaway

A quick scan of the other passengers around us in line to board our flight – towheaded students with piercing blue-green eyes, athletic builds and an impenetrable language – and there was no doubt we were headed for Scandinavia.

Friends expressed their surprise when we told them we would be spending a long weekend in Finland in the middle of July. Won’t it be cold? Imagining brisk walks, gray, fluffy clouds and the occasional rain shower, we erred on the safe side – arming ourselves with light jackets and umbrellas though nevertheless incredulous that we would be swapping one un-summery city for another. Or would we?

To our surprise, we only donned our ‘gear’ once in four days. Instead, we reveled in Helsinki’s and Turku’s soft, summer rays and extended daylight, wishing we had dared to pack shorts and bathing suits to sunbathe and read alongside (half naked) locals in Kaivopuisto, Helsinki’s oldest park.

Hemmed in by water and vast expanses of blue sky, Finland is truly a place of beauty during its brief estival season. I don’t think I’ve ever breathed in such unpolluted, fresh air before – at first inhale, it summoned summer euphoria and a brilliant sense of renewal. According to one local we spoke to, the transformation from winter to summer in April (when snowfall isn’t unusual) is radical. Because of the long, erratic winter, Nordic summers are celebrated with relish. Layers come off and the sun works its magic.

At the Helsinki Market Square (Kauppatori), vibrant produce overflowed transparent cartons and fresh flowers stood tall in their pots and crates. Artisans plied their wares – woodworking, stationery, jewelry and trinkets all made locally -while food vendors fashioned their spaces into mini cafés with seats for guests to down a coffee or Finnish meat pie. It was an outdoor paradise, brimming with enough goods to keep visitors busy for hours. Their excellence in design (Helsinki is the World Design Capital for 2012) also captured our attention and revealed the cultural importance of efficiency and functionality.

Before arriving, however, we were only dimly aware of the local culture. They speak Finnish and Swedish, boast the world’s greatest number of blondes and coffee consumers per capita and have a penchant for saunas (the only Finnish word we’ve adopted into the English vocabulary + a fixture of the culture). Aside from these basics, we knew little of the Finnish people or their idiosyncrasies.

In this piece, an American expat remarks on the Finnish matter-of-factness, a quality certainly not lost on the French. But the frank talk we experienced in this short weekend was different. It did not come from a place of rudeness or spite, sometimes the case when engaging with the French, but rather it reflects a courteous honesty. Their coyness might smack of coldness or distance but during our sunlit getaway, smiles and kind gestures were in ample supply.

We were in town for my friend from grad school’s wedding – a woman about as effusively American as you can get. But that’s precisely what her Finnish husband and his family adore about her. She exudes warmth and vivacity – qualities guests could feel potently during the couple’s seaside nuptials in Naantali, one of the oldest towns in the country.

The price of food and homewares may be wincingly expensive and the people more outwardly stoic but their hospitality and good humor speaks volumes about who they are as people. We barely broke through the surface of the Nordic puzzle but our four days in Finland left a lasting imprint and we’re eager to return to learn more.

If you’ve been to Finland, what were your impressions?

{More Finland photos here}