Why Finland is awesome

As I have probably mentioned before on this blog, Scandinavia has always fascinated me for some reasons, not that I am 24/7 watching the news but I rarely hear about Scandinavia on TV, I haven’t met many Scandinavians while traveling (judging by its population it is understandable) and they have some unique customs.

I first started exploring Scandinavia back in 2013 when I did my first Eurotrip (one of the best trips I have done) across central Europe and stretched it a bit to Stockholm just to really become fascinated for that upper part of Europe. So Sweden was somewhat familiar to me at that point but then what about its neighbor? I’ve started reading more about Finland and figured I had to visit that country. During my year living in New Zealand I was lucky enough to have met a couple of really cool Finns who I can now call lifelong friends. They introduced me some of their food, customs and was I getting even more intrigued to see that place. We had friends in common (mostly Germans, of course, they are everywhere) so decided this past summer to have a reunion/camping across Sweden and Finland, spending most of our time in Finland.

One of the main reasons we decided to have this reunion was to attend Kaljakellunta (which literally translates to Beer Floating) a festival where a few thousand Finns, and non-Finns myself and many other attending, pick their best floating devices (in our case paddling pools) and let the river take us along its path while having some drinks with friends and chatting with other attendees along the way. It’s completely free and needless to say worth going, this is what you get to see along the way:

 

Kaljakellunta takes place every summer around the last week of July or the first week of August, on the official website the date is always posted a couple of months prior to the event.

Finland is also known for being cold, which I haven’t experienced yet since I was there during summer but, I hope to soon enough. The very north of Finland is within the Arctic Circle and while getting to the North Pole might not be so simple heading up to Rovaniemi at the Santa Claus Holiday Village you get to easily cross the Arctic Circle Line.

The wild life in Finland can also catch you off guard. When my friends and I were heading up north of Finland we got to see reindeers out on the highways. Being the good tourists that we are, we were dumbfounded and probably took more pictures than necessary when we saw the first reindeer.

Only to find out later that the more north we were heading the more of them we were going to see. Everywhere.

 

Due to its geographical location Finland had to defend itself against a possible Soviet Invasion (I am not a history guy so Wikipedia is helping me on this one). Salpa Line is a 1,200km (745 miles) bunker line on the eastern border of Finland. In Miehikkälä you can find the Salpa Line Museum which explains the history behind this long bunker line and even enter the bunkers while doing a guided tour.

 

Also Finland proved the saying the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach right, Finns love some good meat, veggies and they have Karelian Pies, one of the best pastries you’ll ever have. It is composed of a rye crust with rice filling and topped with a mix of butter with chopped boiled eggs.

I have never seen this pie anywhere else in the world and can’t see myself managing to make a perfect Karelian pie from scratch so I would easily come back to Finland just for those pies.

Finns are also very active, from cooking, building things, exercising and so on. A well known activity in Finland is berry picking. My friend took us to her father’s place where we got to pick fresh blueberries and mushrooms which we later used for a blueberry pie and a stir fried mushroom dish. I can now say i had my Martha Steward moment in Finland.

 

My trip to Finland would have been complete without going to a concert of the one and only Robin. Unfortunately Robin after summer put his singing career on hiatus, but from 2012-2017 he was what I (and my Finn friends who introduced me to his songs) call the Finnish Justin Bieber, quite popular in Finland with catchy pop songs. Back in New Zealand when my friend introduced me to his songs we would play it over and over so I even got to learn a few Finnish words and we were lucky enough to even win a local contest to meet Robin and attend his concert in Helsinki.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, the capital Helsinki is just beautiful.

And to wrap up, the most popular thing in Finland, more popular than Robin, Karelian pies and all the reindeers, SAUNAS! Basically every Finn owes a sauna, maybe part of their condo, their summer house, or even inside their bathrooms, that’s right.

And yes, clothing is option in Finnish saunas.