Kesärenkaat

I cycle through the snow when I go to the family center. I cycle through the snow when I cycle home. I walk through the snow when I do groceries. I walk through the snow when walking through the forest, city center or the nearby park. As you can notice, snow is a big part of my life here in Kokkola. It is also amazing to notice how fast I got used to the cold. -10°c is nowadays conciderd as warm for me. Especially if you know that at some point it was -30°c around here. So I have the feeling it is getting warmer and warmer if I see on the weatherforcast that temperatures around -10°c are comming for the weekend. This week it is around -15°c and -20°c in Kokkola so warmer weather is welcome. As long as it doesn't meld the snow away. I'm already too used to it and since we almost never have snow in the Netherlands, I would like to have it here in Finland before I leave.

Also it is funny to notice the diffrence in the perception of wind. For me as a Dutch Kokkola and Finland in general has almost no wind, only breezes and sometimes a windblast. In the Netherlands we have a lot of strong winds and more worsen windblasts. This makes that I hardly notice the wind and also put it in a diffrent cathagorie than the Finns do. The most funny incident was in Pietarsaari this weekend when a Finn was freezing in the wind and wanted to run through the city center and I was on sight seeing mode and let me be caried away by the beatifull scenery of snowed trees in the old part. He was constant complaining about the hard winds, which I really didn't notice. Well, of course I felt that there was some wind. But the trees where barely moving and the wind was really weak in my opinion. Now he dares me to go ice swimming with him and his friends in a lake between Pietarsaari and Kokkola, but I skip that one. I always regret when I jump into cold water, so he wins that one. He can't stand the wind like almost all the Finns, I avoid cold water in icy enviroments. Just wondering which of the two is the worst trait to have.

Meanwhile, I see on Dutch newsmedia and Facebook that the people are suffering of the slipperly weather they had there. Also the trainsystem colapsed and people complain about the cold 1°c. Of course I know it feels at least 5°c colder because of the winds we have in the Netherlands. But still it can not beat the cold which I had here in Kokkola. So I start feeling that I'm the tough kid now, even I wear a snowjacket, snow throusers and snowboots to beat the cold, I beat the bitch. I still cycle through the cold, the snow and Finnish complains about the weather, while the average Dutch complains about the weather (which is always too warm or too cold, too wet or too dry and too windy) and the whole public transport system slowley colapses every winter and still it always comes as a complete suprise the system doesn't function in winter (or in summer and mostly in the autumn and sometimes in spring). We have a few days of snow per year if we are lucky and we can't handle it. While in Finland life continues as normal, well as normal life itself can be...

But in secret I'm longing for summer, cycling through Finland with a summer breese. Wait a moment... I hate cycling, even in Finland. So maybe a walk is better or a cardrive to the unknown Finnish nature and continue hiking and sleeping in the car and continue hiking. Jup, I have to leave Finland soon, but I'm already longing back to Finland.