Finnovations

Having lived here for nearly three months, I feel it's time to report on some of Finland's quirky and creative contributions to modern society. Things that might be worthy of importation. Finnovations.

The over-the-sink drying cabinet

When I first moved into my city centre apartment, I found the kitchen to be as expected. Small fridge, even smaller freezer, appliances with bizarrely large European plugs, normal cabinetry.


Upon further inspection, however, I was caught by surprise by what lay inside one of these cabinets: an over-the-sink drying rack.

For an apartment without a dishwasher, this installation is extremely useful. Once the dishes are washed, just stick them in the cabinet. Water drips from the cabinet right into the sink. Close the cabinet when you're through and grab the dishes when you're ready to use them again. No unsightly drying rack on the counter, no mildewy dishtowels.

Lettuce Pods

While shopping at my favorite supermarket, which is located in the basement of the famous Stockman's department store, I came across the next Finnovation: heads of lettuce sold with their roots still growing in a little plastic containers filled with soil.


The result? Lettuce that stays fresh much longer; a food product that doubles as a bit of greenery for your kitchen; the satisfaction of gardening and harvesting without the painful kneeling.

Heated Sidewalks

Believe it or not, a number of sidewalks around Helsinki's tourist attractions are heated so that snow melts instantly upon impact.

There have undoubtedly been complaints about the energy wasted on this luxury, but it's certainly pleasant for us pedestrians.

Winter Baby Naps

This isn't so much a recent innovation. Nor am I convinced that it's a good thing. But here in Finland, pediatricians and government experts encourage parents to put their babies to sleep outside -- especially in winter! From the Ministry of Labour's pamphlet entitled "Having Children in Finland":

Irrespective of the season, many children have their evening naps outside in prams. Many babies sleep better outdoors in the fresh air than in the bedroom. Sleeping outdoors is not dangerous for a baby. One may gradually start going outdoors when the baby is two weeks old. If it is very cold or excessively warm, it is better to let the baby sleep inside. If the baby takes her/his evening nap outside, make sure she/he is clothed according to the weather. It is not good for the baby to be either too hot or too cold. You can try the temperature of baby’s skin from hands or neck when the baby is clothed. When the temperature is below zero [celsius], a baby must have woollen clothes, but woollen clothes should not be placed next to her/ his skin. In summer, make sure that the sun is not shining directly into the pram, and protect the baby from insect bites. Protect the baby from rain and wind as well.

I've approached cafes on bitterly cold weekend days to find a line of strollers out front. While the parents warm themselves with coffee inside, the babies are napping the day away in the open air. Anyone with kids want to volunteer to test out this Finnovation back in the US?

Another Thing

I love this too.

GRANDIOSA!

Since I can't get the jingle out of my head, I thought I'd share it with everyone.

Two Days in Finland (Part II)

More on our two-day adventure in this wintry country. Because Jeevan had already explored most of Helsinki while I was working last week, we decided on Sunday to go further afield. We considered Lapland and Estonia, but instead settled on the city of Tampere. We paid a pretty penny to take the train there, but it was worth it to see some of the Finnish countryside.


Amazingly, only about fifteen minutes outside of the city the ground was covered in snow. We were excited that even though we hadn't traveled to Lapland, we were still being rewarded with white groundcover.

We chose Tampere because in addition to being an easy day trip from Helsinki it is one of Finland's tech centers and a historically important city. The sites aren't bad either.


Our first destination was the Pyynikki Ridge with views of Tampere's two lakes . . .


a forest preserve with hiking trails . . .


and a tall observation tower.


Oh, and I almost forgot -- donuts!

Which brings me to the discussion of Finland's deceptive treats. Don't those donuts look good? Don't you want to just bite into one right now? Well, you would and you'd be mighty disappointed. That's because in addition to sugar and butter and flour and whatever else should be in a glazed donut, the Finns apparently add something that tastes like black licorice. Now, other than raisins, Annis (or whatever creates that flavor) might be about the worse thing to to happen to a tasty baked good. Why would any self-respecting baker do such a thing? This whole situation was particularly insulting because it came on the heels of our morning pastries (with caraway seeds?) and Jeevan's Hesburger Turkish Pepper Ice Cream Treat.

The lesson: inspect any Finnish baked good for small black specks of licorice flavor. Perhaps you think the lesson is that we shouldn't be eating so many sweets. You'd be wrong.

Our day continued with some impromptu ice hockey watching.


Finally, we took at step back into Tampere's Red past with a trip to the very pro-Lenin Lenin museum.

During the early 20th Century, Tampere's working class made the city the Red capital of Finland. In fact, Lenin spent several years in Finland (and some time in Tampere) while he was exiled from Russia. The museum did a fine job of glossing over cultural revolutions, the creation of the USSR and Stalinism. Nevertheless, some of the early photographs, maps and letters were quite interesting.

So, be you a nature-lover, hockey enthusiast or historian, the next time you're in Southern Finland, don't forget to visit Tampere!

Two Days in Finland (Part I)

For those of you clamoring for pictures, read on. My brave travel companion and I have had a weekend full of Suomi fun and adventure. The weather is unseasonably warm right now, to the dismay of nearly everyone I encounter. This has made sight-seeing more easy and enjoyable, however. Not having been outside in the daylight in four days, I needed to take advantage.

Yesterday we began by walking through the city center.




There's a lot of interesting architecture in Helsinki -- part Baltic, part Scandinavian, part Soviet. More on that in some future post. Our destination was Temppeliaukio Church (hewn out of rock, as we know) built in 1969.


I was skeptical about what we would find inside when we approached the church and encountered a half-dozen tour buses (from across the border in Russia, it appeared). But the inside was quite stunning, if difficult to capture in photos.


All of this architecture viewing can make a person tired. So we headed back to the Korkeavuorenkatu homestead for a nap and our first real Finnish sauna. Although the sun had set, the day was not yet over!

For dinner, we partook of some famous Finnish Tex-Mex food at Cantina West. The fare included antelope and sausage (both on Jeevan's plate). He liked it, despite the expression on his face.

Next destination: the Arctic Ice Bar. We were looking forward to a real experience -- something very blog-worthy. All we knew was that we were to get to the bar through a Spanish restaurant, pay 10 euro (which would include one drink), don a special warm cape and gloves and enter the bar made entirely of ice. What Lonely Planet did not prepare us for the fact that it would be, well, kind of lame.


Upon entering the club that houses the ice bar, we were required to relinquish our much-needed coats (at 2 euro a pop). Once inside, we paid our 10 euro for the privilege of entering the "Arctic." A totally unenthusiastic hostess gave us our new outwear and ushered us into the small cube of ice. I was disappointed to see that neither the floor nor the ceiling was made of ice. The bartender gave us our Finlandia cocktails and watched while we shivered away. Only about ten people could fit in the place -- this wasn't a problem because people tended to leave pretty quickly. The lesson for future travelers to Helsinki: skip the Ice Bar.

No matter! What night could not be salvaged by a little dessert? We walked back towards home and stopped at the Finnish fast food chain, Hesburger.

Hesburger, unlike almost every other restaurant in this city, includes no English on its menu. But this would not deter us. A handy poster advertising McFlurry-like frozen treats was our guide. More information on strange Finnish confections in my next blog, but suffice it to say that our ice cream treats -- which included chocolate-covered raisins and Annis-flavored Turkish pepper candy -- were not your average McFlurries.

So, eight hours after sunset, it was the end of another full day in Finland. Stay tuned for Part II, which has this pair traveling north and sampling more licorice-flavored desserts.

Back in Finland (guestblog)

Apologies for the long pause. Tytto is back in Finland, after jaunts in Paris and Amsterdam.

This is Töölönlahti reporting. Guest reporting. Guest blogporting. Tytto is busy, determining which clothes are clean and which are not by smell. We are in a lovely apartment in downtown Helsinki, a hop skip and one jump to the Esplanade and the water. "Katu" means street in Finnish.

I have been up and down Helsinki, and back and forth, hitting the main spots. I have been to the Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum (architect: Holl), a lovely building with fine art inside. There is art all over the place inside that building.

I have gone to the various churches. They are lovely. Tuomikirkko is lovely, in the Russian sort of way. It is made of stone. Uspenski Cathedral is made out of lovely brick. Both buildings sit on their own individual hills near the water, like two sitting sisters on top of hills (gigantic sisters made out of churches.) The highlight church is Temppeliauko Church, HEWN FROM SOLID ROCK in 1969 by two Finnish Architects, Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen. They hewed it bravely. By the way, can one hew anything besides STONE or ROCK? Can you hew a cup of coffee from the coffee beans? Can dwarves do this better than humans? If you asked a dwarf to write you a memo, I bet he would screw it up, but if you asked him to HEW the memo from SOLID ROCK, it would be a totally awesome memo. Your client would be like, "Damn"

The churches made from wood and straw were nowhere to be found. Did you know that Finland got really screwed in WWII? First the Soviets were like "hmm, let's take over Finland." Russia owned Finland til the Communist Revolution in 1917. (Lenin really liked Finland and he was like "totally be your own country.") The Soviets wanted it back. The Finns were like, "No" and there was a nasty war, called the Winter War. They got help from the Germans. Then the Germans wouldn't leave, and the Finns had to fight them too. And before all this 20th century nonsense, Finland was basically getting traded back and forth between Sweden and Russia, as if it were some valuable baseball trading card, like Honus Wagner or something. But Finland is worth a lot more than that baseball card, so you can imagine how crazy things were.

But now they are super independent and the country is totally awesome because of it.

I also went to the Design Museum, which wasn't that great, considering Finnish Design is pretty nice. You should know about it.

I also went to Suomenlinna, the ISLAND FORTRESS built by King Gustav of Sweden. That could be a wrong fact. It's very pretty. They have two artists colonies AND the naval academy there. You think they would do that in Annapolis? They should, think of the awesome paintings and experimental films about Nuclear Submarines there would be if they did do just that.

Did you know Tolkien based a great deal of his writings on the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland?

There is a section in the Finland Lonely Planet called "Beaches and Cemeteries." It's after "Candy and the Plague" and "Hugs and Rats."

The Shortest Day of the Year

Many co-workers have assured me that after today, the amount of daylight increases noticeably. I haven't found the short days to be too bad. It's true that when I leave for work around 8:30 a.m., it's still quite dark and only a bit of pink daylight is beginning to peek over the horizon. At about 2:30 p.m., the sun begins to set again. In the interim, the sun stays low in the sky, tracing a shallow arc that barely rises above the tree line.

The short days lead to a real feeling of productivity: I got up, worked out, got ready for work, ate breakfast and made it to work -- all before sunrise! And when the sun begins to set, it feels like it's time to pack things up and leave work for home. The other advantage is the possibility of seeing beautiful sunrises and sunsets everyday.

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to spend Christmas in Paris, followed by New Year's in Amsterdam. More blogging after I return to Helsinki. New Year's resolutions include taking and posting more pictures of Finland. Happy holidays, everyone!