I got back from Turku, Finland on Sunday evening. I notice that travelling long distances seems easier in Europe. Of course a direct flight to Vancouver would be easier, but to go between countries and switch planes was pretty seamless here. There wasn't the same hassle at airport security. Or maybe it was just that the airports were smaller. I dunno.
In any case, Turku was neat. As soon as I got there I felt like I was in a small Canadian city on the edge of the boreal forest. Think Sudbury or Quebec City: big enough for a theatre and concert hall, but only a few kilometers from endless pine trees. On arrival and departure, our turboprop was the only plane on the tarmac. This makes it easier to find your luggage (there's only one baggage carousell!).
 |
| Turku airport |
|
 |
| The emptiest airport. |
 |
| Turku's cathedral is the oldest in Finland. Aura river in foreground. | |
Some unusual facts about Finland:
- Many (most?) Finns are lactose-intolerant, and all the coffee-creamers are lactose-free.
- Much of what is now Finland was controlled (or was technically part of) Sweden. So Swedish is a sort of second language. The university in Turku is a Swedish-language institution.
- Although a free and democratic country for most of the 20th century, Finland was careful to be friendly with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.
- The Finnish language is unlike any other, and bears only structural similarities with Korean and Hungarian. So all Finns under retirement age also speak English (perfectly).
- In Finnish, there are 15 different ways of saying "the". That is really silly because "the" is not an interesting word. I can understand that the Inuit have 15 words for "snow". Or the Australians have 15 words for "vomit". But what's with all the "the"s?
- Vladimir Lenin lived in Turku for a while, while plotting the overthrow of the Tsars.
 |
| Comrades |
Also, Turku is the "European Capital of Culture" for 2011. I am pretty sure that this is just a marketing ploy that Brussels cooked up to help down-and-out cities make a few bucks off of tourism. What is central government (supposed to be) for anyways except to spread the largesse? There were many public sculptures around, including a series of seals.
 |
| Seal eating fish |
1 comment:
Well, not all or not even most of Finns are lactose intolerant. In my family no one is. More correctly, Finnish milk products have higher doses of lactose because of fodder cows are eating, which makes people think they are lactose intolerant, when they are actually just intolerant for high lactosic milk products. If they are consuming products made of Italian milk for example they do fine.
And about word "the".. finns have no such word at all, however we have 15 articles at the end of the word. Article decides words relations.
talo = a house
talon = the house's
talolta = from the house
talolle = to the house
talossa = in the house
talosta = from inside the house
taloon = into the house
talot = houses
talojen = houses'
taloilta = from the houses
taloille = to the houses
taloissa = in the houses
taloista = from inside the houses
taloihin = into the houses
;)
Great article though!
Post a Comment