General Observation: Holland versus Sodankylä

Let me share with you some general observation by my friend who's been living in Holland for 8 years. She's been traveling much around Europe and she's also been to the States a few times. Here are some notes that she told me when she compared Holland, Europe in general, and Sodankylä.

1. For such a small village, Sodankylä has a wide range of products at each supermarket and each supermarket offers many more imported products. The selection of veggies isn't that much compared to Holland, but we've got more fresh veggies compared to Holland. The difference is that in Holland they have many more specialty food stores such as Chinese food stores or Indian food stores.

2. The weather in Sodankylä is drier compared to Holland. My friend can only stand wearing hard lenses for a few hours at a time here in Sodankylä. I just found out that in Holland if she hangs her laundry inside the house, it takes days before they get dry. In Sodankylä, we never hang our laundry outside the house, but most of the time they get dry in 24 hours (except for the collars of some thick sweaters, then it takes longer to get completely dry).

3. Houses don't get dirty easily here in Sodankylä compared to Holland. In Holland it gets dusty more easily. I told my friend that in winter it's easier for houses to stay cleaner 'coz of the snow.



4. The average height for the people here is WAY shorter than that in Holland ha ha ha...

5. In Holland there aren't many buffet lunches being offered by restaurants, whereas in Finland there are plenty of restaurants offering rather cheap buffet lunches (all-you-can-eat buffet) at around €9/person. The prices of food (a la carte menu) and grocery are almost equal to those in Holland.

However, compared to USA (another friend has lived in USA for 10 plus years), Europe is still MUCH more expensive when it comes to food and the selection of food and the portion of food sold in restaurants.

6. The most expensive country she's been in Europe is Norway.



7. My two friends are confused why there are so many darker-skinned non-blonde Finnish people in Lapland compared to Southern Lapland where there are many fair-skinned blonde Finnish.

I've just googled a little to find out about this and let me just copy and paste the possible explanation taken from this site:

All the rest of the countries of Asia are inhabited by the Asiatic race. These people have dusky, yellowish skins, of the color of dried orange-peel, and sometimes of a tawny white. They have coarse, straight, black hair, and small, black eyes. The people in Lapland and Greenland also belong to this race.

Note: The two pics in this post were taken in Arktikum museum in Rovaniemi.

Spring is Near!

Spring is near and it'll soon be time for my in-laws to plant a new batch of potatoes and strawberries. If you live in the USA and you like gardening, do you know that there's a one cent sale and some other fascinating offers from Spring Hill Nursery, Ohio? They have beautiful arrays of bulbs, shrubs, trees, roses, perennials and many more.

If you plan on going somewhere on a vacation, you should also consider checking out the many fascinating offers from Travelocity. For example, you can get up to $20 discount if you rent a car on a weekend and there's also a one-way flight to Europe starting from $200 from different cities in USA.

And if you need to buy a digital camera before you go on your vacation, don't forget to check out special deals from Best Buy, which includes 5-18% off selected digital cameras and free shipping and more discounts.

Well, as you probably know, this spring and summer I'll still be busy with my course, but I'm truly looking forward to picking strawberries in my in-laws' garden again and picking wild berries in the forest.