observations, irritations and likings from a new resident of finland

koli

status august 2011

after 1 year in finland the new observations irritations and likings are getting less, so i’ve decided my list will be more about how my month has been rather than how i find finland, so my august status:

irritations:

- yo-yo weather… sun or crazy rain? - who knows!

- not being able to vote for the danish election

- trees dripping their syrup on my bike

- some neighbor got a new set of dogs that likes to hooooowwwwl when owner is gone

- another round of negotiations

likings:

- conan o’brien is back on finnish tv. (also they started sending west wing all over again.. niice)

- new full size dishwasher: finally! (i feel so grown up)

- chantalle time

- the album coral by monster rally

- the new organic department in stockmann (and that new organic shops seems to soon opening many places)

About names.

In finnish there is only one gender “hän”, no he and she.

This doesn’t make it any easier for a foreigner when trying to figure out if Onni and Lauri is a man or woman (both are men.)

You might think, ahh names ending with -i are for men, but no, Tuuli and Elli are women.

What really makes me confused is when male names end with a, like Pekka or Kustaa, (which is the finnish version of Gustaf, kusta with only one -a in the end means peeing btw)

try to see if you can make any sense of these: Marjo is a woman, and Mauno a man, Oili a woman and Oiva a man. Lumi is a woman but Pasi is a man.

Then there is Janne which is only for women in Denmark is for men in Finland

I guess the safest thing is really to get better at Finnish so i can refer to everyone as “hän”.