Jenny and Kae have spearheaded a daily posting plan for May (I didn’t do NaBloPoMo this year; it felt too overwhelming!) and, since I’m already posting almost daily, I figured why not officially join in?
After a week, we’re finally all well enough to do something as a family. On our agenda today is a visit to the local amusement park, Linnanmäki. We’re heading there shortly, so I’ll keep this post short and sweet.
How about a little Helsinki Potpourri?
It’s been fun to notice cultural quirks, especially in Helsinki. Here’s one that’s glaringly obvious: they keep their floors incredibly clean.
At John’s office, everyone takes off their shoes as soon as they go inside. No one wears outside shoes indoors (it was part of our rental agreement for our month-long apartment stay). When I got my hair cut, I was expected to take off my shoes at the entry (they had slippers available to wear).
And most buildings have shoe cleaning brushes outside the door. And people use them!
Another fun fact: Helsinki is GMT+3. So when it’s 11 pm in Helsinki, it’s:
- 6:00 am the next day in Australia (Hi Sophie and Melissa!)
- 10:00 pm in Vienna, Austria
- 9:00 pm in Cardiff, UK (Hi Rachel!)
- 5:30 pm in St. John’s, Newfoundland (Dare to be different!)
- 5 pm (back home) in Nova Scotia, Canada (Hi Joy!)
- 3 pm in Wisconsin (Hi Sarah, Kae, Engie, and all the other WI bloggers)
- 1 pm in California/British Columbia (Hi San/Julie/Jana + Nicole)
RAPID FIRE POTPOURRI
- Finland was recently ranked (once again; 9 consecutive years) the “happiest country in the world.”
- There are over 3 million saunas in the country (there are fewer than 6 million people living in the country, so that’s a <2:1 ratio of people:saunas).
- They claim to have the best tap water in the world—while that doesn’t necessarily feel verifiable, it is amazing.
Over and out. Happy Saturday.
Your turn.
- Do you wear “outside” shoes inside your house?
- Preferred footwear inside: “indoor” shoes, bare feet, sock feet? I’m a mix of bare and sock…
- Do you like saunas?
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That’s a lot of saunas.
I don’t mind shoes inside, but somehow my kids take theirs off automatically- I don’t think I trained them? My husband rarely takes his off coming inside, so he’s the worst offender for tracking in dirt. Taking shoes off wasn’t a thing when I was a kid- not sure when the culture shifted .
I typically wear slippers or bare feet inside. A lot of shoes hurt my feet after a while, so I like to free them when possible.