a Finnish twist: Umeå and the "Suomi System"

floating bastu (Swedish Sauna) in Umeå

During our field course across Canada, I made some fantastic new friends. We all formed a pretty close bond after 3 weeks of travelling, learning, and relaxing together. Perhaps there may have been a few cultural evenings as well...however, since the field course has ended, we have all dispersed across Europe and Canada. This has left me missing all the fantastic people I had gotten to know so well...

Jen, April, Robyn and I made waffles for Andreas' birthday...too bad he's in Vancouver!

A couple of weekends ago, one of my new friends, Jen, was celebrating her birthday in Umeå, Sweden and we (April and I) just had to join her...so we did! With the help of Robyn (also in Umeå), we planned a surprise weekend for Jen and flew out to Umeå so that we could all be together for her birthday! She was surprised. Like, REALLY, surprised. We accosted her as she was on her way to lunch and things just picked up from there. Biking, eating, trail running, eating, cooking, eating, sauna, eating...we had a fantastic weekend. We were sad to have to say goodbye to Jen and Robyn again, but they promise to come to Joensuu for our birthdays (April and I are 4 days apart!). On our return trip, April and I had 9 hours to spend in Stockholm. What a fascinating city! It is built on 14 islands with bridges, ferries, and tunnels connecting them. The buildings are colourful and have beautiful architecture. The boats have so much character...sailboats, yachts, fishing boats, house boats, new boats, old boats, wooden boats, fiberglass boats, restaurant boats, hotel boats, museum boats...the list goes on! Finally we had to leave Stockholm and continued the long trek back to Joensuu.

I couldn't resist tweaking the steeple! (Stockholm)

It was fantastic to see friends and have a relaxing weekend, but some things about the journey were a little trying to say the least. Allow me to introduce the "Suomi System," pronounced "SOO-oh-mee SOO-steh-meh" aka the Finland system. Things are done a certain way because it is the way they are done; it is simply the system. logical or not. For example...

Along the Umeå River

In order to get to Umeå, we had to take a train to Helsinki. A 50% discount is available to students with a students card, however due to the system of obtaining a student card, I do not yet have one. Without a student card we are issued a certificate of student status, which provides us with a discount at the cafeteria, for tickets to shows...most places. However, we showed up at the train station with our certificate and were told that was not sufficient. We needed either a) a student card, or b) another form to be filled out, signed and stamped, and pay €8 for a new card specifically to prove you are a student for the railway company. So we took the new forms and trekked back to the university to get our stamp and signature. We had already missed the first train at this point. Naturally, the student services office was "closed" (it was after 3pm), but the door was ajar, so April went in to investigate. She was rapidly shooed out and scolded...we would receive no assistance that day because it was after hours, even if there was a person physically there and able to help us. We head over to the forestry building (Borealis) and April managed to sweet talk the head of forest sciences into signing and stamping these forms. Awesome. But he then asked us about our passport photos...what?? The railway did not mention this. Oh well, I have a camera, the computer lab has printers...this problem can be solved. Photos were taken, cropped and printed and we rush back across town to get our €8 train cards. Our photos are rejected. We did not follow the guidelines in the system (copies are no good). The photo studios are closed. We end up catching a train 3 hours late for the full price. This was frustrating to say the least.

The playgrounds here are awesome...no lame, "safe," North American jungle gym

Fun Finnish Fact: Yogurt aka "Jogurtti"

You may be asking "how is yogurt a fun finnish fact?" It's true, yogurt is not unique to Finland, nor is it fun...until things go wrong. But, before I get into how yogurt can go wrong, I'll go over some differences that I've noticed here. Yogurt comes in cartons (just like milk!) and is measured not by grams, millilitres, or litres; instead, it is measured in kilograms. Interesting. Now, when yogurt goes wrong....

Does this really need an explanation?

April and I missed a train in Helsinki, so we had an hour to spare at 7am in Helsinki and we needed some breakfast, and lunch too for that matter. So, being practical, we headed to the nearest grocery store (ruokakauppa) and grabbed some supplies: bread, cheese, pears, tomatos, salami, and yogurt...or so we thought. The packages were not your standard carton, instead we chose small plastic containers with foil lids, just like individual-serving sized yogurts that you may find anywhere else I've purchased yogurt. We didn't read the sides to check if it actually was yogurt, but it was beside all of the proper yogurt cartons and had pictures of fruit and spoonfulls of tasty-looking dairy products on the package. Well...we got on the train and opened up our breakfast ready to dig in (with no spoons may I add...) and ended up eyeing the contents of our packages...hmmm...My product had the texture of yogurt-mucous...kind of gelatinous and slimy...maybe even stringy if you could describe yogurt that way. April's was the opposite. It was white...and solid...and smelt strongly of cheese, like a tub of cream cheese, but not quite. It turns out I selected something called viili, or "long sour milk" and April had selected maidon juustoaine, or milk curds. Interesting.