Sounds and sensations

During my cosmopolitan years, I forgot many of the sounds, odours, and other sensations familiar to Finland. What a great feeling to rediscover them again and the reminiscences they bring to my mind.

In the autumn, it was the wonderful scent of fallen leaves. Wading through the piles of colourful leaves and kicking them in the air, feeling like a child again. All the memories of the starting of the school year came to my mind, something new and exciting. I couldn't stop breathing in the autumnal parfum with long inhales.

In the beginning of the winter, it was the sight from the window of everything being covered in white one morning. The snow made the sounds softer and the city life seemed to decelerate. I had forgotten the ability to balance my walk on the icy street but the skill of guiding a sled downhill hadn't disappeared anywhere.

Now, as the winter is discreetly turning into spring (at least, in my hopes), I'm rediscovering the sound of drops as melting snow is running down the rain pipes. Tip, tip, tip! Every day is longer than the previous one. The forgotten brightness of the sun getting more strength from the icy sea and the snow-coated fields dazzles the eyes.

The snow piles in the shadowy sides of the streets look like everlasting, they will be there for another month probably. They are dirty; the exhaust fumes, city's pollution and sand have been accumulating there for the past two months. The melting snow is creating brown channels in the streets.

Soon, the snow will give way to the spring, to the smell of decomposing organic life. The lovely feeling of first unzipping the winter coat, getting rid off the thick gloves, and the gradual undressing until the Midsummer, a process unfamiliar to the Southern countries where the change is faster and less striking.

No wonder, the Finns are among the happiest people in Europe (after the Danish). Only after the dark, long and cold winter can one appreciate life as we do. The Finnish winter offers us an opportunity for a collective survival. The affordable winter holidays in Thailand must be hampering the social cohesion in Finland...

P.S. The two bears in the Helsinki zoo woke up after their 4 months of winter sleep. Lucky bastards - but oh so cute!

Welcome Spring, Welcome Bare Legs

When I complain about cold weather people always remind me that, as a Finn, I should be used to it. Well, I know what is cold weather and I know it can even get colder but being born in a cold country doesn’t make me somehow immune to cold. I guess Darwinism doesn’t apply to this case or it’s just that our efficient insulation of buildings has helped those who would have otherwise naturally been eliminated survive the cold winters – so despite the Northern climate even the weakest of us have survived.

However, the Americans seem to have gone through some kind of cold-immunity selection. There is some evidence that this might be even a larger-scale Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. This was especially visible in Florence where the American exchange students wearing flip flops during the most of the year could easily be identified. While their mini-shorts were tacky and inelegant, it didn't seem to bother the Italian men that the streets were suddenly crowded with half-naked American and English tourists when the Florentines were still using their black full-body uniform. I encountered the most extreme case of this phenomenon in Perito Moreno, a glacier in Argentina, where an Australian guy was admiring the sound of falling ice in his flip flops. I’ve never really understood the continuous use of Havaianas as they are ugly, uncomfortable and made for a Brazilian beach party. But the Americans love them and their use is not compromised by winter: you can see people using any kind of sandals or ballerinas even when there is five centimetres of snow on the ground. In the other extreme you have those who are wearing their rubber boots in the perfect sunshine. Though I have to admit that my stand on the rubber boots use – black ones only and exclusively for forest use! – was shaken by the rainy season here that pretty much destroyed my Italian leather boots.

The point I am trying to direct myself here is, however, that of the spirit of spring. The adagio of transforming into a lightly clad summer person should not be disregarded. Step-by-step you get rid of the excess of your winter clothes and you adapt to the new season. You need to enjoy the warming spring to its maximum, first just thinking of opening your coat and then a week later actually doing it, taking off your gloves when the snow starts to melt, and radically changing to spring coat when you can smell the nature waking up again. The American process of welcoming the spring is much too quick, jumping immediately from their North Face coats to a mini skirts and bare legs (some people skip even the North Face period). But you need to advance gradually, otherwise you miss that wonderful moment when you’re taking off the stockings in the public toilets and get blisters in your feet by suddenly changing to bare feet and new shoes (happened today) as you don’t fully understand or remember what kind of temperature is +20°C.

For the sake of the American tradition, I have to acknowledge the positive side-effect of their half-nakedness early in the year, and that is of course the greater production of vitamin D as larger parts of their body are exposed to sunlight (if this happens already in February it might increase the risk of a flu however).