The past month or so I have been travelling alot for work, I even was asked to attend an event we hosted in Helsinki ....quite entertaining.The Finns are VERY BLOND and VERY QUIET, so imagine their shock at meeting a very non-blond, extremely loud person of hispanic descent- by the end of my stay I thought they were going to offer me my own talk show, hahaha!
Being one of the two women present, I was able to chat up all of the Finnish dudes and learn a bit about their strange culture. From what I was able to gather in such a short time, I have put together a brief list of observations in order to shed some light on what makes Finnish people tick:
1. Finns drink SOOOOO MUCH!
2. Finns are really bad about small talk and would rather be silent than say something stupid just for the sake of keeping a conversation alive. Thus, there are many long silent pauses in conversations with a Finn.
3. Finns are extremely honest, the few things they say are very to the point. They have no problem telling you that what you just said is a load of crap. Just dont expect them to tell you why, remember they dont like to talk!
4. Finns love saunas, they all have saunas in their houses. Apparently alot of business deals are done in saunas and people go in the suana with the whole family....NEKKID!
5. Finns get LOADED anywhere there is alcohol present, this includes airplanes. In fact, on each of my flights there were large bottles of cognac and champagne wedged in with the orange juice and coffee on the breakfast cart!
6. They don't like Sweden- take every opportunity to let you know that all Swedish people suck and especially that all Swedish men are gay
Needless to say the Finnish people are fascinating, their silence is a bit unnerving at first and makes you feel like you are crazy because suddenly you become aware of how much you are talking just to fill the long empty silences in your conversations. But once you get past that, and once the first 4 rounds of drinks are thrown back, things change completely and the crowd actually gets pretty rowdy. Suddenly, they all get really red and really loud and alot of jumping takes place, and next thing you know one of them is in front of you singing "Mony-Mony" in an off-key falsetto voice, while another walks by with a tie on his head and hands you your third shot of a horrific national liquor that you can't pronounce and that makes your stomach turn because it smells exactly like Jagermeister . Suddenly you remember why you swore it off after your first year of college, and then you are dancing and singing alone in Spanish with your walkman on your way out of a bar while several Finns stare at you thinking you are cool because you are not from Finland while you secretly think about how if any of your friends could see you now they would know how much of a loser moment you were having ... you wake up the next morning with a pounding headache and realize that the trail of pistachio shells on your hotel room floor leads directly from the minibar to your bed and that the noise you are hearing is the television that has been on all night, you notice that you fell asleep fully clothed including your jacket and that for some reason every single light in your room is on...
No, my friends, Finland is not for the faint of heart or for the faint of
liver - but for those of you that do venture to this strange land of the towheaded verbally-impaired, be prepared for an unforgettable time- actually I guess that would depend on how much Jager you actually drink...
(Salmiakki Koskenkorva- the icky Jaeger stuff!)
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