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August 14, 2004
In The Land Of The Midnight Sun
Today, Todd and I are in Finland, land of the midnight sun. I've never been to Scandinavia, and thought it would be fun to experience it. So, we're here for ten days, part of which we'll be in Helsinki, and partly, we will be in Stockholm. I've been looking forward to this trip for a while, and it seems a bit surreal that I'm actually here now. Of course, I'm probably feeling spaced out because I arrived in Helsinki this morning, via a red-eye flight connecting through Copenhagen. So far, I've gotten about three hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. Helsinki is actually a bit colder that I thought it would be, temperature-wise, and I'm glad I brought jackets and sweaters.
Every time I travel internationally, I feel bad that I can't speak the language of the country I'm in and end up having to resort to using English. I'm never sure how the native people I'm talking to view this, and I wonder if this isn't part of why the world sees us Americans as being assuming and arrogant. But, there's nothing I can really do about it. It's just too hard to learn so many languages. Before Finland, I thought German words can be really long. For example, the Germans will piece together several words to form another noun. Well, it seems to me like the Finns take that to an extreme. This is especially noticeable when I'm looking at a street map and trying to figure out where Mannerheimint is, and finding Mannerheimvagen and having to look back to the original source address to make sure it does indeed say 'Mannerheimint" and not "Mannerheimvagen". I will do this for multiple pairs of streets in downtown Helsinki.
Since today wasn't a full day in Helsinki, we didn't do a whole lot. We did manage to get dinner at a nice restaurant that specialized in Lapland cuisine. Tomorrow, I think I will try out the hotel sauna.
Posted by Kathy at August 14, 2004 11:50 PM