Visits To Finland

This is my second time visiting the northern European country of Finland. My first was in September to early October 2017, when I spent much of the time wondering between Helsinki in the south and Rovaniemi in the north. Durring one my my first times in Helsinki, I found a little Japanese restaurant which I normally like to go to. The people working and running the place speak Finnish English and Japanese, and one time I met a really interesting guy who retired from his previous job and later worked as a healer. I won't tell his whole story here, but he was one of those people that you meet once then never see again. Wonder whatever became of him ... While in Rovaniemi I met some super friendly but shy reindeers and some equally friendly huskies an a reindeer farm and husky farm. I recently found an experience listed on air bnb that Iwant to go on where you get to make things with local wood and reindeer antlers etc. I mention it in more detail on my craft blog at http://harmonyscrafts.blogspot.com/ but think it would be fun to do some time.

I like the fact that the people heredon't generally do small talk, so they mainly talk when they actually have something to say. For that reason, I don't find te silence awkward as it is the UK and probably other places. I find that people are more helpful in explaining things as well, wheras in other places, they seem to think it perfectly acceptable to grab hold of say someone with a white cane in order to apparently help. They do that a little here, but not so much by any means. Speaking of travel, I like the trains here, because you can't not reserve a seat when booking a train ticket and the conductor will look at every single person's ticket on that train. To the point of if you don't have a ticket, how do you know where to sit? So even if people are only going for a fairly short journey, no one stands up on the train unless you're say going to the dining car or something. The Finnish logic is kind of interesting too. In kitchens here there's a cupboard abone the sink where plates and cups go. The shelves of the said cupboard are racks so once you're done washing the dishes you can just put them there and they drip dry into teh sink. I thought tat was a Finnish thing, but actually someone in a youtube comment on a video said it's the Caribians who invented it, so the Finns didn't get to patent the design. Oh if you go to a hotel and have a double bed, they normally put 2 single duvets rather than a double one. Apparently that's so if one person gets hot it doesn't matter because the other person can keep their own cover.

This time I'm in the coastal town of Rymattyla in southwest Finland. I had heard of the city of Turku but never actually been there. When I looked up the place on air bnb, this little apartment was the cheapest I found. I didn't realize at the time that it was so far away from the city. I like the fact that the town is quiet and one side is the forest and the other is the ocean. Sadly the old windmil is no longer making flour, but stands empty with its sales still turning occasionally in the wind. I wonder why they just closed and abandoned it. :( I sit here now hearing it on the odd occasion and listening to the birst and the cars going past. For a coastal town though, I find it pretty environmentally unfriendly, because the only options we have for rubbish disposal here are rubbish that gets burned, biodegradable or plastic. This leaves me at a complete loss for what to do with teabags and tins etc, because teabags are lined with plastic so not biodegradable and tins don't really do anything except rust, and they're not plastic either. Then again certain plastics are not recylableeither, which is even worse for the environment. While I was in Helsinki I managed to get myself a reusable bag for fruit and vegetables and a paper shoping bag (at some point I'll either buy or make myself a cloth shopping bag or 2), but the local shop here has only plastic bags for fruit and vegetables and just about has paper bags for carrying shopping. Also the said shop has more prepared things than I even thought possible. I never knew that slicedd tomatoes in a box was a thing someone could buy until the other week! and there are no loose mushrooms or carrots, only packaged in boxes or yet more bags. This apartment where I'm staying is nice enough, butt I find it cluttered because there are loads of stools and tables and random things around. Then again the people ho own this place do tend to rent it out until they want to come and live here. The most irritating thing though is that the middle or outer bits of the windows don't open, only the inner ones so no air can get in. That's probably nice for the winter, but it's spring now and I wanted to let some air in here.

I leave here on Thursday, so will probably spend a few days in Turku itself and have a look at the ferries. I either want to go from Turku to Sweeden, then take buses from there to Berlin then Amsterdam then London, or else take the ferry to Germany and go from there to Amsterdam and London. I don't like airports at the best of times, plus I want to go the cheapest and hopefully most environmentally fiendly way possible. I know it's going to take a lot longer, but although I've heard that flying is friendlier, I don't know that it is as planes make a habit of dumping fuel in the ocean if they have too much of it. I find buses trains and boats take longer, but are actually less stressful, because there are normally fewer supposed security checks to go through if any and you can either sleep or walk around and do stuff. With a ferry you can sometimes go outside if it's daylight. Of course they shut the doors at night for safety, but then people are normally sleeping if it's a long journey anyway. I want to go back to the UK only for as long as I need to to minimize some of my stuf, then I want to come back and explore a bit more of the European countries. I say minimize because I have for example 2 of the same clothes just in different colors. Partly I bought them, but partly people give them to me. I also want to either pick up my kitchen scale or get a better one that measures liquid as well as weight, so I can make more of my own food better. Making own food is so much cheaper than eating out or ordering it.