Rainbow Finns

You have happy Finns, sad Finns, angry Finns, scary Finns, cute Finns, hungry Finns, obese Finns, sporty Finns emotional Finns, rational Finns, gay Finns, lesbian Finns, straight Finns, bisexual Finns, asexual Finns, transgender Finns, intersexual Finns, city Finns, town Finns, countryside Finns, western Finns, southern Finns, eastern Finns, nothern Finns, snow Finns, sun Finns, water Fins, lake Finns, forest Fins, sea Finns, nice Finns, stupid Finns, crazy Finns, drunk Finns, sober Finns, male Finns, female Finns, androgyn Finns, living Finns, baby Finns, child Finns, youngster Finns, adult Finns, elderly Finns, dead Finns, immigrant Finns, emigrant Finns, Finnish speaking Finns, Swedish speaking Finns, cosmpolitan Finns, global Finns, national Finns, nationalistic Finns, socialist Finns, libral Finns, prograsive Finns, conservative Finns, religious Finns and common Finns.

So many diffrent kind of Finns and still the diffrent kind of Finns forget that they are all Finns. More importanly, they are all human. Me as citizen from gayloving and gayobsessed Netherlands find it still hard that gays, lesbians, bi's and transexuals are discriminated. YOU WERE THE FIRST AND TO DATE THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHO LEGALISE GAY MARIAGE BY PUBLIC ACTION, IT WAS YOU THAT GATHERED ENOUGH AUTOGRAPHS SO THE EDUSKUNTA (FINNISH PARLEMENT) DEBATED AND VOTED IN FAVOR OF A GENDER NEUTRAL MARIAGE!!! Please be proud of it. Of course I know the law that is gonna make it all possible comes in effect as of 01-03-2017, but victory was yours. In gayloving and -obsessed Netherlands only the parlement vote for the gender neutral mariage and it passes trough with a landslide, but no big action from the public was taken. And in the year that our current king and queen maried, we had our first mariage between two man and two women as first country in the world. That was 13 years ago. Since then we loved our pink fellow Dutchies so much, the Amsterdam pride becomes more and more of a national celebration. Of course we could do better at some points with gayrights, but all sexual varieties are generally accepted to the point we love them. Your friendgroup isn't complete if it not contains at least a gay, lesbian or bi, or maybe just one person you suspect to be that.

 For a country that goes proud that you are so democratic and strong suporter of human rights, you have a way to go to accept also your own people and people who want to become like the Finns. It was in your capital in 1975 that for the first time ever in world history, leaders from all countries come to gather to talk about human rights. This event led to much fewer tensions in the cold war, OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) was formed. Venture on on the path that was made with de Helsinki accords and accept all varieties of Finns in Finland. You don't have to accept them (well eventually), but the least you can do is respect the LGBT Finns. And stop shocking Dutchies that you do. We come from a place where we can't imagine that LGBT are not accepted, although we know that in some very far away places, like Russia. But not in Europe, and undoubtedly not in Nothern and Western Europe. 

And if this is all to hard for you: Well I hope you choke on Skittles    

Ei = egg or no

Although I try to get my Finnish language skill sharper and better is funny that more and more Finns I know also want to learn Dutch. I think one of the most strange language you will ever encounter.

Where you in Finnish (is regarded as one of the most diffelcult language to learn) write something, you know how to pronounce it. Sometimes that can be the struggle because I fall over the letters. Escepcialy when there are two the same two consonants, but still, my Finnish is better then their Dutch. I find it kind of cute that the Finns are so insecure about there language skills. They speak one of the best English as non native speaker in the world and still they are the only ones not to realise it. So don't be shy Finns and be proud for once in your life. You have an amazing language and culture and Finland is has the biggist fanclub on social media from all the countries in the world! Never ask why we want to learn Finnish, just laugh and help us when we try. The world loves Finnish

But if you want to learn a language where you have no clue how to pronounce it if you write it down and it's still in Latin script, try Dutch. We have the strange habbit to not pronounce letters in a word, where ever it's place in a word. Also the pronounciation changes depending on it's position in a word. Sometimes we make a complete new pronunciation by combining two or more letters: sch, ch, oe, ui, au, ou, ei and ij. Altough digraphs are common in more languages, Dutch can't survive with out them. Sometimes the pronunciation is typical Dutch, and then we Dutch all melt away by the struggle foreigners have with it. And then feel ashamed when we can't speak a foreign language fluently.

Dutch and Finns, sometimes more alike then we want to admit...

The glorious alcohol tsunami.

There are a few things in Finland that shock me: Sauna? Been there, done that and  I love it. I think it's the best invention the Finns ever gave to the world. Ice swimming, why not? It is f*cking cold, but hey, I done it. Eat a rye bun? Give me an hour and I chew it away. Conversation with a Finn? No problem, silent Finns are a myth. You only need patience then you wish that silent Finns exist. The key is to treat Finns like icecream. Get them out off the fridge and wait a couple of minutes so they are a little bit stating to meld, then the are more teastier. Of course this is not an encourgement to start eating Finns, because that is illegal and such a same of the Finn. Finns can serve the world in a better way then only as food. But you get my point: give Finns the chance to get used to a situation with involves you, help them to leave their confertzone a tiny little bit and then the silent Finn turns into one of the most social beings you ever encounter in the world. Of course, like in every culture, alcohol will sometimes help to speed up the progress.

But the use of alcohol can be a little tricky, before you know you are deeper into Finnish culture then you want to be. Because almost everything in Finland seems to include alcohol, a lot of alcohol. Going to friends, beprepared to drink wodka, poplar, lonkere or cheap beer. Not drinking is a cultural shock for them, seeing them drink alcohol like it is soda is a culturel shock for us. Either way, someone gets shocked and most of the times it is not the Finn. They are so into alcohol sometimes that they hardly notice some is not drinking or not drinking in the same pace as they are.

For me as a Dutch, I drink to get rid of the last taboos our sociaty has in social interaction. While it's perfectly normal to discuss the topic of sex, shamefull exeperience and so on loud in the open. When we are getting drunk with fellow Dutch, we start inviting other people in and give others advise of things they have to do. Finns on the other hand seems to drink only to get wasted, this actualy confirmed by some Finns I know. I'm happy that I only have good memories with drinking with the Finns. Our ever social and "taboo is Chinese food like tofu"  Dutch culture and the Finnish a half full bottle of alcohol is a great shame culture, is a great cobination for great parties, games and the cement for great friendships. Memories of cultural diffrences overcome by alcohol and the desire to meet each other again and again to relive the memories. Unfortunaly, it is also the one-way ticket to a terrible hangover the next morning.  

The darkrooms of Suomenlinna

A whole week has passed here in Finland again and it was a whole week full of fun things. Altough I love Turku and enjoy living here and the city itself won a place in my heart. There is one Finnish city I always long to go back again. That is the awesome capital of this awesome nation, Helsinki. I love both Turku and Helsinki for the vibe and atmosphere. But where Turku feels old and cute, Helsinki feels new and wow. Both have their pro's and con's but I still love both city's, although Helsinki a tiny little bit more.

I went this weekend with to German girls to Helsinki. The excitement already began when we hoped on the bus. Normally I go by train and enjoy the surroundings in silence while listing to music, like a Finn. But now we did go by bus because it's far cheaper then train. The bus was already full when we arrived to hop on, so we couldn't sit next to each other but at least we could see each other. Sign language could be the solution for this, but sadly enough non of us could do this. We survived the trip and where ready to run trough the city as overenthusiastic tourists.

After seeing the Helsinki cathedral, the orthodox cathedral, the market and some statues, we decided to go to Suomenlinna. Just to visit the place and go back to Helsinki. Little did we know that we would spend the rest of the day over there. First we wander around the place with no clear intention of doing something. We visited the church/lighthouse see some old buildings. and sit near the water on a bridge. But after our shot of coffee and hot chocolate, we went all crazy. It was all we needed to explore and do stuff on the island like there was no tomorrow. We visit the submarine made more selfies I could count and made some pictures of the landscape. And the highlight of all activity was that we visit every tunnel and dark path on the island, and where quite some tunnels and dark paths. We dubbed them our darkrooms, cause hey I was guy with two German girls. But making bad jokes and sing a song if a sentence was the same as lyrics from a song. Afterwards we eat our last icecream explore one more tunnel and then go sunbathing on the rocks. We did this already on a rock we called awesome rock, because it looked awesome. But you can always do things twice. One worthy event was that during the eating of the ice cream, a man asked to a woman if she had a big pussy... Probably something went wrong in translation. After that we wandered back to Helsinki and via the McDonalds back to the bus.

After that I had a lazy Sunday, so I could start fresh again with a new week at practical and to my first official lessons from my main course. And we have homework people, real homework. After weeks of practical no school I never thought I would be happy with homework. It is so much, I feel like going to school again.        

Back in Finland

I'm now a full month back in Finland and I can conclude that everything is still the samen and where I left it when I was here a year ago for the summerschool. Helsinki and the airport where still at the same spot as was Turku. The only diffrence now was that I didn't had to take the bus before I could hop on the train to go to Turku. No, now I could hop on the train right a way when I was at the airport and with only one transfere  could get in Turku by train.

But then again the traintravel went as aspected. Everyone was mute, for which I love Finland because in Netherlands everyone is talking in the train and absolutly no subject is taboo. You don't want to know how many times I overheard someones wild sexlife or sexualproblems in the train. Also the employee from VR checks all tickets during his exercise because he runs trough the train, why walking when you can run right? But during he this he remembers who he already checked and who not. A skill I don't have, but I'm Dutch and not a Finn. Dutch conducters check your ticket everytime they walk by. So if I had the same journey in Netherlands, in the two hours I had to search my ticket no less than 9 times. Here in Finland only once. And they would I ask where I was going, because I had two suitcases with me and I was talking English do them. But here in Finland the conducter doesn't mind, he checks the tickets and goes on. Not even trying to be social in the train. Like it should be, 'cause all I wanna do is listen to music and enjoy the landscape.