Liebster Award

December 18, 2014May 29, 2016 / Mel_inHelsinki / 7 Comments

In the last few weeks I’ve found some great Nordic blogs that I love to read. One of those is by Marja & she has very kindly nominated me for a Liebster Award. Thanks Marja!

The idea is to nominate someone, ask them to answer 11 questions and share 11 random facts about themselves and then they pass it forward by nominating someone else. Here are my answers to Marja’s questions:

What’s your favourite time of the year and why?

Summer, definitely. I’m a bit of a cold lizard and lying in the sun, although not recommended these days, just makes me the happiest I could ever be.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt so far in life?

That life can change in ways you never imagined and you really never know where you will find yourself one year from now.

How do you see your life five years from now?

Who knows? I guess moving to Finland from New Zealand last year has made me realise anything is possible. And I’m also trying to make my five-year goals now more about experiences, well-being and enjoyment rather than achievement, accolades and accumulating stuff (although I’m still a bit addicted to those last three).

If you have to choose one big reason for having a blog, what is it?

To keep in touch with family & friends back home in New Zealand and Australia & to share with them what life is like here in Finland. I also love that it means when we skype or call we can talk about what’s really happening in our lives as they already know we went to the museum etc. I hope it also helps my son’s grandparents, aunties & uncles feel connected to him.

What’s your greatest accomplishment within the last year?

Moving to Finland and finding my feet somewhere so very far from home. Finding people and places I love in a world that at times can be challenging to cope with as it is quite different to New Zealand – and everything is in Finnish!

Where are you planning / dreaming to travel next?

I’m going to meet my parents in Switzerland in May but may have to book somewhere with sunshine before the end of this Nordic winter.

What’s one of your happiest moments so far?

When I’m with my husband and we are visiting somewhere new and the sun is shining and people are in the streets I will often find myself saying to him, “I’m really happy right now.” And also finding out I was pregnant with Miko after such a long road to get there and being able to share that news with family and friends – people spontaneously cried with joy, it was amazing.

If you had to describe your personality with three words, what would they be?

Friendly, open, curious.

What’s your ultimate dream job?

To get paid to write about all the cool things happening in Finland.

What’s your resolution for 2015?

To learn Finnish to a conversational level and continually improve my writing and photography skills.

What characteristics do you admire in other people?

A commitment to doing what they truly love, courage and uninhibitedness.

11 Random Facts About Me

My grandmother taught me to drive her car when I was eleven-years old. She had a tiny Honda Civic with automatic transmission and sometimes I would drive her to the shops or the beach.
I’m a pretty good whistler.
My best friend and I used to practice our hiragana charts a lot at school and I still remember them.
Somehow I came up with this philosophy that we should always do the things that scare us. But now I seem to have a lot of fear-facing in my life and it’s exhausting trying to be courageous all the time. So I’m going to just do the things I like for a while.
I love vinegar and chilli and eat both every day.
I don’t get out of bed for chocolate that’s less than 70% cocoa, my favourite being 85% cocoa.
I have a small rock on my bedside table that was given to me as a gift for my 21st birthday. My friend found it on the beach and thought it was such a nice shape he declared it was a ‘peace rock’ and I still hold it in my palm when I need some peace. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.
I love swimming in rivers most of all.
My happiest place though is sitting in hot water – be it a bath, spa or hot spring.
I find it really hard to say my name (Melanie) really clearly and often people think my name is Naomi.
I met my husband when I worked at an organic supermarket and he shopped there. I used to time it so that I was working on the checkout when he came in. We have now been together 14 years.

For the Liebster Award I now nominate five blogs that I follow and really enjoy:

Hannan Helmet

Glitter on my Passport

Gossamer Goes Postal

People of Helsinki

Sundari Austin

And here are my questions for you:

What is your favourite drink?
How many countries have you lived in and where?
What is the most important thing you get from your blog?
Are you a city or a country person?
What are three things you are good at?
What is the scariest thing you have ever done?
What did you want to be when you were younger?
If you could do one thing next year where money / time / courage were no obstacle, what would you do?
What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?
Are you superstitious?
What are you looking forward to most about 2015?

Here are the rules of the Liebster Award:

Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their blog.
Display the award on your blog.
Answer the 11 questions provided to you.
Provide 11 random facts about yourself.
Nominate 5 -11 blogs with less than 1000 followers & let those bloggers know, with a link to your post.
Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
List these rules in your post.

Thanks again Marja & to anyone else who has read this far!

Finding Saint Lucia

December 18, 2014December 18, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 4 Comments

Here’s a confession: I used to love watching beauty pageants. When Miss New Zealand was crowned Miss Universe and then went on to marry an All Black* I remember thinking ‘Could life possibly get any better than this?’ (it was 1986 and I was 8).

Lorraine Downes – she always woke up looking like this

So I quite like it when a person is selected from a group of applicants and not only wins but is given a crown. A crown! Which is why Miko and I braved the cold and went to see Saint Lucia last Saturday night.

The celebration of Saint Lucia is popular with Swedish-speaking Finns and is marked on 13th December. This was once thought to be the winter solstice and some elements of the festival still celebrate the bringing of light after the darkest day.

We met some friends and had dinner at the Christmas Markets before waiting with a large crowd for Lucia’s appearance. A TV screen in Senate Square broadcast the 2-hour service happening inside Helsinki Cathedral, including the crowning of Lucia.

Hundreds of girls apply to be Lucia each year and the winner is decided by popular vote after a panel selects the top ten. Lucia needs to be musically gifted and her role in Finland is to bring light, joy and good cheer during the long, dark Nordic winter.

After being crowned, Lucia descends the stairs from Helsinki Cathedral to her horse-drawn cart

The original Saint Lucia was born in 283 and there was an attempt made to burn her when she refused to give up her virginity to her future husband, choosing instead to devote her Friday nights to Christian scholarship. But Lucia did not burn and now wears a crown of lights upon her head.

Another story credits Lucia with helping Christians that were hiding from the Romans and suggests her crown of candles is a result of needing to have her hands free as she brought food to them in the catacombs. So practical Lucia!

Modern-day Lucia is still associated with charitable acts and collects money to donate to worthy causes.

Whatever the reason for her crown of lights, it’s a good reminder to all Finns that there is light beyond the winter darkness, as Lucia and her followers parade through the cold December streets. (Yes I did squeal when I saw her).

And do I still watch beauty pageants? No. I guess you could say… I saw the light.

*All Blacks = New Zealand’s national rugby team

St Lucia – Wikipedia

The Chosen One – This is Finland

Helsinki Christmas Markets

December 16, 2014December 18, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 7 Comments

I’ve lost track of time. When I went to buy our Christmas tree yesterday I couldn’t figure out why it was on sale. And then I realised – there’s only one week till Christmas! A common complaint in NZ and Australia is that Christmas merchandise starts appearing in stores around October but I haven’t noticed that so much here, with things really kicking off just this month.

Helsinki Christmas Markets run from 8-21 December and over 100 colourful cabins have been set up in Senate Square. Nerea and I went down on a cool and crisp day to check them out.

One of the hardest things about the Baltic wind right now is having cold ears! The markets have piles of warm woollen mittens, hats and ear warmers to choose from.

You can see this mannequin is also sporting a knitted neck warmer. Plainer versions are really popular for children to stop cold air slipping down their jackets and are easily removed so they are not too hot once indoors.

There’s a range of food on offer – including the ubiquitous smoked salmon, pickled vegetables, pickled herring, berry jams and sauces.

You can also find reindeer pelts and sheepskins to warm up your home – or why not go the whole fox if that’s your thing?

Finnish baking is on offer, such as traditional ginger biscuits (piparkakut) as is glögi, Finnish mulled wine popular at Christmas.

There are also warm Kareljan piiraka and lihakeitto (meat soup) as well as pulled pork rolls and vegan burgers to be found.

If you are in Helsinki I recommend stopping by before the markets close in five days time!

And for anyone feeling even slightly grinchy I have included below what may just be the cheesiest photo I have ever taken.

Fake birds and sun lamps

December 2, 2014December 2, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 14 Comments

“I’ve got sunshine, on a cloudy day,” – The Temptations

Number of winters The Temptations spent in Helsinki: zero.

Töölönlahti starting to freeze

Getting up before the sun is no big deal in Helsinki these days because the sun doesn’t get up until 9am. And by up, I mean legs over the side of the bed, still in its pyjamas.

Today’s forecast – with 3 weeks to go until the shortest day

At mid-day the sun in Helsinki sits just 8 degrees above the horizon. Which means that while we have sunlight, we often have very little sunshine. In fact, November was ‘three times gloomier than average’ with Helsinki having a total of just 12 hours of sunshine in the first 26 days.

A rare November day

So how do we cope with these grey days that seem like constant twilight? Well luckily it’s still quite novel which helps and before heading out we have a hit of Vitamin D spray every morning.

We also bought a sunlamp which wakes us by filling the room with a soft glow. This grows stronger until we wake to what feels like a room full of sunlight – it also has a setting that includes the sound of birds chirping.

Time to wake up! The fake sun has risen & the fake birds are chirping

The temperature has been sitting around 2 degrees for a month now, which means any snow we have doesn’t stick around. Last winter was very mild by Finnish standards and no snow means dark days as there’s nothing to reflect the light. So for the first time in my life I’m really hoping it will get much colder!

Perfect number plate for snow

But I’ve got a bit to learn yet about snow. I was walking home the other day admiring the flakes as they fell around me and decided to pull my hood on. What a rookie! There’s no better way to spoil a romantic mood than by dumping a whole lot of snow on your own head!

Sun and Moon times in Helsinki

Day trip to Estonia

November 24, 2014November 25, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 4 Comments

New Zealand’s closest neighbours are New Caledonia and Fiji, each about two hours away by plane. So it’s still a buzz to be able to pop across to places like Estonia and return the same day. Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, lies about 80km south of Helsinki, across the Baltic Sea.

Tallinn’s Old Town is an amazing place to visit and its lack of wooden buildings mean many original buildings date back to the 11th century, for the most part free from any fire damage.

The first time we visited Tallinn we went on a huge ferry that left around 6pm and arrived just after 10pm. We were not allowed off the ship until morning, when we went ashore and had lunch before returning to Finland.

Many people don’t even disembark, except to stock up their trolleys with alcohol, as it’s much cheaper in Estonia than Finland.

The second time we went, we took a faster ferry that took about 2 hours to get there and returned later that day. The fare was about €25. The trip on the larger ferry only cost €40 for the three of us and included our cabin for the night.

While Peter Jackson’s movies may leave you thinking New Zealand is inhabited by hobbits and elves, I think they’d be most at home in Tallinn’s Old Town. There’s a restaurant (above) where people sit around candle-lit tables and eat elk soup out of wooden bowls, while a woman in a headscarf kneads dough behind the counter.

The old walls of the town are still standing and you can have a drink at the top once you have negotiated the huge stone stairs that are set about 50cm apart from each other in height.

The view from the top of the town is reminiscent of Prague, as you look out over all those red-tiled roofs.

There are so many little stores and places to see we still have reason to visit, plus we’ve yet to explore much beyond the Old Town walls.

Until then, I’ll enjoy reminiscing about our trips over the Baltic Sea and the blue-sky days we had, especially as we move into the darker months. With the sun currently rising in Helsinki just before 9am and setting at 3.30pm those sun-filled days make Tallinn seem a world away!

You know you’re in Finland when…

November 17, 2014December 9, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 13 Comments

Some days I wake up and it takes me a while to realise I am still in Finland. Voices float up from the street and then it dawns on me, ‘Oh yeah, I’m in Finland. And everyone speaks Finnish.’

I’m also reminded by things around our house, as although ours may not be a typical Finnish home, I’d say it is pretty standard for most Helsinki apartments.

Here’s what is different to our home in New Zealand:

There are two front doors, about five inches apart and the first front door has a slot in it for the mail to be delivered through.

Just inside the apartment are two open wardrobes for hanging jackets and putting shoes. As winter approaches this becomes even more important and now holds gumboots, gloves, hats and scarves too.

There is a thermometer just outside the window near the front door. As winter approaches we check it every day before we go out so we dress for the weather and not our heated apartment.

There are heaters in every room that are turned on by the building manager once the temperature drops below a certain level for a few days in a row.

The washing machine is in the bathroom.

There’s a sauna off the bathroom.

The pipes in the bathroom are exposed.

The windows are triple-glazed and there are two doors out onto our balcony to keep the cold out. In summer we had the balcony open but you can also pull the windows across to make it more like a conservatory.

This photo was taken before we unpacked but is pretty much how our balcony looks again as the plants and armchairs have been brought inside for winter.

We’ve seen dramatic changes in the view from the balcony in the five months we’ve lived in this apartment.

July

August

September

October

November

You may notice that every apartment has external ladders too, which I believe is to do with removing snow from the roof. There are not many chimneys either, although Joulupukki (Santa Claus) comes in the front door on Christmas Eve so no worries there.

Oh yes, and there’s always this: the Finnish flag which is raised by each building manager on public holidays and special anniversaries. My brother-in-law also told me the flag will be raised to half-mast if someone in the building has died – a good time, he says, to call in if you are looking for a place to rent!

Update: how could I forget this??

Two Women Practising Everyman’s Right

November 13, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 3 Comments

Nature’s supermarket

I’ve met two talented herbalists in Helsinki lately and their commitment to sourcing herbs that grow wild in Finland is supported by the concept of Everyman’s Right – which is not, as it sounds, some dating manifesto from the Victorian era.

The first herbalist was Justine Cederberg who, among other things, makes a Love Elixir using herbs that grow in the wild. You can read my interview with her here and how she uses the sauna to make her tinctures.

I also had a consultation with Henriette Kress, a herbalist who has created one of the world’s largest online herbal archives. In her consulting room is a large cupboard, full of glass jars. Each jar holds dried herbs she has collected from the wild and from which she made me a tea to take home.

My herbal tea – wild rose, sage root, nettle and (perhaps imported) mandarin peel

To both herbalists it’s important that people are taking herbs that grow around them and Everyman’s Right allows them to do this. It also ensures that Finns can continue to eat according to the seasons as they have traditionally done so.

Basically, Everyman’s Right means that without going into someone’s yard, you can walk, fish, swim, camp and forage on other people’s land in Finland without permission, as long as you don’t disturb protected species.

For those who don’t want to get their hands dirty

It would be really unusual I think for anyone in Australia or New Zealand to be okay with finding someone else on their land, picking their fruit without permission. Being recently colonised countries, land rights and fishing rights can be contentious issues back home.

Although we do have a wonderful culture in NZ of fishing and gathering shellfish, picking wild berries and foraging, I think the main difference here is not needing permission to go onto someone else’s land to do so.

We had a great day out searching for mushrooms and blueberries in the forest during our first trip to Finland four years ago. Although we ate everything we picked, any income people make from selling picked berries or mushrooms is tax-free.

Blueberry bushes (foreground)

Natures way of saying: Do not go there

We used to pick blackberries in New Zealand when I was younger and although I’m sure we had the landowner’s permission, what I remember most is being chased by a big ol’ hairy goat that obviously hadn’t read the memo about our rights at all!

Freedom to Roam

Everyman’s Right – the Finnish Ministry of the Environment

Henriette Kress

Porvoo, according to Frida

November 10, 2014December 16, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 9 Comments

Over a couple of drinks last week we realised our friend Frida was going home to Porvoo for the weekend, the very town we were planning to visit. Just 50km east of Helsinki it’s an easy bus-ride away and Frida offered to be our tour guide.

Porvoo is Finland’s second-oldest town and was given city rights sometime around 1380 – which blew my mind because it is believed that the first Polynesians only arrived in New Zealand around 1300.

It was a beautiful, blue-sky day but fresh at only zero degrees. We wandered around the Old Town and visited an amazing toy shop; a quick poll revealing that yes, Miko and I agreed this was the best toy shop in the world.

We stopped by the home of national poet, Johan Runeberg, a Swedish-Speaking Finn. Frida regaled us with tales about how he devoted a good part of his later years to drinking, which led to his wife writing most of his work and him returning home one night so inebriated he drove his horse and cart straight into the river.*

Frida also answered my questions about Swedish-speaking Finns as Porvoo is a bilingual city and our visit coincided with Swedish-speaking Week. For some reason it’s hard for me to get my head around but she was very patient, even when I asked her twenty minutes later, ‘So when did your family arrive in Finland?’ to which she reiterated that they are Finnish, not Swedish, they just happen to speak Swedish (and Finnish and English).

The Old Town has some great shops to visit, including antique and design stores. As we looked for lunch we noticed snails feature on many of the menus but opted instead for pizza and risotto in a warm restaurant.

After lunch we headed to Porvoo Cathedral which Frida told us had recently had a fire in the roof. The man who was found to have started it was rewarded with a lengthy jail sentence*.

We walked back down the hill through streets lined with old wooden houses, peering into windows (me) to admire reindeer pelt-covered seats set in front of warm fireplaces. I stopped in at vintage store Doris & Duke and bought some snowflake leggings while the others huddled outside.

The paint on some of the buildings is red ochre and so old that it will leave a powdery substance on your hands when touched.* We dutifully rubbed the outside of people’s houses to see if we could remove some of the paint ourselves.

After all this walking, snooping and rubbing it was time for a treat and so we stopped in at Helmi Cafe which is one of those cafes you often find in small Finnish towns. It’s as though you have entered someone’s private home as you wander through connecting rooms until you find the place you want to sit.

In honour of Frida, Johan Runeberg and Porvoo itself we finished our tour with a round of Runeberg tortes – a fine way to complete our cultural exchange and more fun than riding into the freezing river.

*Source: Frida

Runeberg Torte

Excuse me, do I work here?

November 7, 2014November 7, 2014 / Mel_inHelsinki / 1 Comment

New Zealanders love a good DIY ( Do It Yourself ) attitude – build your own fence, concrete your own driveway…but Finns bring it into the everyday as at most cafes you’ll find it’s DIY dishes.

You don’t actually have to wash them but there’s usually a place for you to scrape your dishes, stack them and sort the rubbish from the recycling.

Having grown up with school lunches provided I’d say most Finnish adults are used to this and probably do it without thinking.

It’s great actually – it means the tables are cleared before you sit down, even when the staff are busy.

Used dishes stand & rubbish bin at Fafa’s

At Cafe Regatta there are a couple of places for customers to stack their used dishes. You can also have free coffee refills and you get 5c back each time you refill your cup….*

So if times were tough and you were really desperate, you’d probably only have to drink 45 cups of coffee before you started to make your money back and started getting paid to stack that one dirty cup.

Cafe Regatta

*the beauty of this is no one wants a 5c piece in their wallet so they tend to go straight into the tips jar

The Night of the Dead

November 2, 2014October 30, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 9 Comments

I quite like cemeteries. There’s one in Parnell, Auckland that has stories about the early white settlers and their relationships with local Maori. I’ve also been to one in Perth, Western Australia that has cages over the freshly dug graves so that wild kangaroos won’t dig them up. But I didn’t expect to be wandering around in the dark in a Finnish cemetery last night.

Hietaniemi Cemetery is a huge piece of land that contains the graves of some of Finland’s most notable people, including fallen soldiers. We walked past it every day on our way to the beach last summer and I was fascinated by what I saw.

A stall outside sells potted plants for placing on graves. This intrigues me because in NZ we tend to just lay fresh or plastic flowers down. In Finland however they plant the flowers into the gravesite so that they continue to grow.

They also have a bucket of trowels and scissors you can borrow to dig the plants in and tend to the gravesite.

Traditionally burial in Finland has been free for members of the Lutheran Church (attendance not compulsory) and I believe you can pay someone to tend to your loved ones grave if you are unable to do it. Burial plots in NZ and Australia can be quite expensive and there are advertisements on TV to get funeral insurance so you can have the send-off you want.

As we move into the colder months in Helsinki the plants being sold for grave sites are becoming more hardy, things that have more of a chance of surviving winter.

Yesterday was All Saints Day, where Finnish people remember those who have passed away. We don’t mark this day in NZ so were surprised by the public holiday.

Finnish traditions go a long way back, including Joulupukki (the Christmas goat who later became known as Santa Claus), solstice celebrations and children dressing as witches on Palm Sunday. I guess the missionaries who arrived in NZ in the 18th century only brought with them the traditions they wanted to keep and not any they may have considered pagan.

It’s traditional for Finnish people to visit the graves of loved ones on 1 November. The cemetery stalls and markets were selling havu – branches bundled together to lay on graves – and candles. I tentatively headed off to the cemetery by myself last night in the dark to witness this part of Finnish life.

The streets around the cemetery were full of people and cars, as though there was a major event on. The grounds were full of people, including children, lighting candles on graves.

In spite of the crowds, at times I would find myself alone, wandering amongst the headstones. Looking down towards the water I could see thousands of candles, as the bells tolled in the chapel. It was 3 degrees and my breath made white clouds in the night air.

I was amazed that candles had been lit on nearly every grave, even on those of people who had died in the early 1900s – it seems no one is forgotten on this day.

Wandering around the cemetery at night I actually tried to scare myself, narrating a horror movie in my head with me as the lead actor, but it didn’t really work. There was a special kind of stillness about the place. It seemed like a beautiful time to remember those you’ve lost.

I think this is a beautiful tradition that would be good to commemorate in NZ. We are such a multi-cultural country I’m sure there are Maori traditions or newer cultures that have brought with them similar customs. I think a lesson from Finland is that even the things which we’ve buried need not be forgotten.

Hey Helsinki

A New Zealand girl in Finland

Author: Mel_inHelsinki

Liebster Award

Finding Saint Lucia

Helsinki Christmas Markets

Fake birds and sun lamps

Day trip to Estonia

You know you’re in Finland when…

Two Women Practising Everyman’s Right

Porvoo, according to Frida

Excuse me, do I work here?

The Night of the Dead

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