Monday, June 25, 2007

"You have beautiful blue eyes." Learn Finnish. And do it quickly.



Want to learn Finnish in 3 minutes? Well, you should! How to order a pint, tell someone has beautiful blue eyes, and other pretty important stuff you need in this country. Including a funny Northern Finnish accent, from somewhere close to the Arctic Circle.

Get the course from here, in Helsingin Sanomat English Edition. (HS is the biggest Finnish daily.)

*****

And, I found this, too. At the same site of HS.

You Know You Have Been In Finland Too Long, When...

* You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage.

IStori: Why? What's wrong here? Of course I must to have my 507 plastic bags near me, all the time, and why on earth should I throw them away? I need them. Well, maybe not now, but sooner or later... And I would like to get some new ones, too.


The nasty commentator at Helsingin Sanomat:
Apparently the plastic bags - formerly free, now costing about EUR 0.10-0.15 - supplied by Finnish shopkeepers are vastly superior to those in other countries. It's probably something to do with the weight of bottles they need to be able to withstand. In bag-stretching competitions (don't laugh, the Finns have had dumber contests than that - most of these wacky competitions are all that the American media ever report about the place) they have allegedly outperformed most condoms currently on the market. In any event, sales of the small black plastic bin-bags (not the BIG ones that line dustbin/garbage cans, but the little ones for in-home use) are pretty poor, and everyone uses the plastic shopping bags as temporary storage for garbage till it gets chucked out. An alternative and less attractive theory is that Finns are too cheap to consider buying shopping bags. Take your pick.

... there were quite many of those examples on that very ugly and un-Finnish list. Or, should I say, warnings.

And I just noticed I have been here too long. ('sigh')

3 comments:

Vaiheinen said...

Oh well, I've also been too long here.

Not with the plastic bags, but coffee. I passed through first seven on the list but 8th was too hard. 6 cups? It is before noon portion! (ok, I know it is not healthy habit).

PS. What's the problem with Jaffa?:-)

I.S. said...

Right! I like Jaffa, too. Some of those were really weird. Or we just have been here too long.

IStori

Vaiheinen said...

Really too long if we don't even understand questions. Or maybe there should be the last question:
"You don't understand why these phenomenons are in this list, leva immidiately":-)

Okei... My vacation begins on next week...

Vaiheinen