From the memory archives - Houston like multicolor movie

Before starting to catch up on the travel experiences and related posts, had to put out the thoughts triggered by the below peculiar article. It is amusing to read how American journalist considered a group of Finnish immigrant men in New York during the 1800.

Today I find the below article even more amusing than I did some months ago. This is simply due to the current situation in Europe and some of the comments, which one gets to read about in Finnish media or social media. It is too hilarious to read how Finnish men in New York were considered as undersized albinos. They were strange, standing out from the crowd.

This article and the current situation in Europe, made me think back to my adventures around Asia, Kenya, Russia and in Mexico. There would be many stories about those but one lesson, which is one of the most valuable lesson I got to learn:
It is very healthy and humbling experience to be THE minority, be the one who stands out.

Among many other great memories, I remember trying to shop in Changshu, China. It was an activity always coated with mixed feelings. Sales clerks shadowing me through the shop and giggling.
People in the grocery store taking items out of my shopping basket, while I was holding to it still and looking at what the "white devil" is buying and then putting it back.
Children staring at me and then looking at their parents with the look "Mom, dad...what is that?!" The smaller children just started crying because of being scared of the sight of my blond hair and blue eyes.

In Kenya some of the children we met just wanted to stroke my skin, cause it was so different. Also the way I dressed or wore my hair was very different compared to the local females.

I did not always feel comfortable and often hoped that I could blend in better. Not much one can do about that when blending in would mean changing eye or skin color or one's size/height. Hair one could dye black but it would not serve the purpose, as the white skin would stand out even more. Very soon I turned the experience around and took the positive out of it. After being the minority, the stranger, I learned to understand how other people must feel when they enter a country, where they stand out of the crowd.

How does that all relate to my settling in Houston?
After my adventures in the previously mentioned places, settling in to Houston has been very easy and comfortable. Yes, I stand out with my accent and sometimes with my lighter than average appearance. Thanks though to the long and prosperous history of immigrants coming to US, I can also be just one among the many.

My accent is not familiar and only twice the shop owner knew to link my accent & appearance with Finland. Mostly the guess is...Canada :) Which I do not mind at all either, Canadians are lovely people. Too bad I cannot claim to be one and state that we won all the ice-hockey gold medals last year ;)

Things are not perfect even in US. There is no such place in the world, which would be perfect. Things are different here and everything new takes time to understand and learn. Yet, especially in recent months, I have gained even higher respect than before to how things work in US.
Right now what I am thinking is mainly in the values that people I know have shown: acceptance, kindness, open mind, tolerance and readiness to help. Accepting also that there is no such thing as "one norm" in this country. I still make the error sometimes thinking that this would be a country, rather than remembering that US is more like e.g. Europe. Each state has its history, culture and specific features.

I think the best other example in the diversity, though on a smaller scale is Singapore. Being the melting pot of so many nationalities and religions. So many areas there, where buddhist temple, hindu temple and church are as neighboring buildings in the same street. People greet each other with a friendly smile and respect. One has people of various nationalities and backgrounds living as neighbors. All in peace with each other.

After having been and seen some of the rougher places in the world too, I got absolutely nothing to complain here. What I appreciate in US and in my American family is the open mindedness. They have heightened my appreciation to accepting that there is no one norm to anything, yet from state and nation level one is giving the solid framework & game rules for everyone to follow.

I still remember how it all felt at first.... After having lived 7 years back in Finland, the first weeks in Houston were like someone would have changed the movie from grey & white to full color. Suddenly I was surrounded by wide scale of nationalities, accents, dialects, languages, cultural nuances and food. It was a shock in the beginning, a sensory overload, and required my senses getting used to it. Now it would be tough to imagine living without it.

Come to think of it...my fellow Finnish immigrants from 1638 onwards have helped to build US and bring in their share to the mixed population and skills. Link to: How Finnish Immigrants helped to build America

Below just some good examples of the Finnish influence brought to US with the immigrants from before: log cabin building / log carpentry (in particular the V notching style) and roof construction, John Morton, Eliel Saarinen and Eero Saarinen, Larry Thorne, sauna and few other words.

More details about Finnish Americans and the culture, influence in US: LINK.

The time here has also made me realize; having a mixed influential factors is actually how it should be in the best case scenario. This is how one can develop and learn from life, not just as a person but as a community or nation. Being too homogeneous as environment / population / culture, even as per the laws of biology, is never good. Positive development stops when things get too homogeneous.

One of my dear friend in Finland, who for her research related profession "does cancer and alzheimer". I find it super hilarious the way she initially expressed her nature of work. Common sense, yet funny!
She has said in so many occasions, when we were catching up with the group of girl friends: "Girls bring foreign blood to this country. We are too homogeneous as a nation and thus have increasing amount, among other things, risk to have cancer or high blood pressure due to the homogeneous DNA structure. Go out there and bring foreigners with you! It is healthy for the country and for the next generation!" :)

Immigrant as I am

One of the biggest dangers for securing future development of the human race is the speed in which we tend to forget the history and in worst case, repeat the mistakes made. Thinking that one is somehow better than others...we are all humans and should be all treated as such.

"During the last one hundred years, more than one million Finns have moved abroad, nearly 500,000
of them before and about 730,000 after World War II."

The past days I am failing to understand the rejecting attitude of some Finns, and some Europeans, towards the refugees. I simply cannot understand people, who claim that helping the war refugees will destroy Europe and mess up Finland. That it is not beneficial to help refugees with different religious background.

If one would refresh the memory and look back few generations...to the times of World War II.
During that time, including so many current day welfair countries, were their people as refugees. Refugees of many different religions. Finland was one of those countries. In Finnish one did not use the word refugee but the Finnish word at the time was evakko / mennä evakkoon (to escape/flee more permanently).

Yet, the reasons were the same and among other people, Aili-mummi, one of my grand-mothers, experienced evakko as a child and also later as an adult. Many of the Finns have grand-parents or other relatives, who had to escape and who were provided help then. Had they not received the help...many of us would not exist today. I would be one of those.

Finland lost a whole area, Karelia, to Russia. People were taken their homes and had to escape. Hoping that they get help to start their lives from a scratch. Some of them returned during the between peace (välirauha) to help to rebuild the area but when continuation war (jatkosota) started, lot of houses were burnt and many of the Finns were back to square one....fleeing again, leaving everything behind.

Government at the time of WWII even made the decision to send children (without their parents) to Sweden for safe keeping. Many families escaped, apart from Sweden, to Denmark, Spain and US.
Link to historical statistics in English.

Another reason, why I cannot understand the comments made in the media and social media, is that I am an immigrant. I have been an immigrant for most of my adult life. My reasons for immigration have even been totally selfish. In my mind that gives the receiving countries less a reason to accept me entering their country. I had absolutely no proper reason to immigrate. My reasons were adventure, learning the local language & culture, work and my immigration reason to US was purely because of: TRUE LOVE.

Yes, get this the reason to settle and apply for a Green card in US was nothing more, nothing less than love. My husband, at the time my boyfriend, did not tolerate Finnish winter very well and I cannot blame him for that. Yet that did not stop us from believing that we can build a future together, here in US. There could have been several immigration authorities questioning the whole. Yet, they know better in US. After all, everyone else except the native Americans came from somewhere else for various reasons.

There is a whole American Finns heritage in US, as a result of all those Finns who chose to leave Finland in the hope of better tomorrow. They are very proud of their Finnish roots but they are also proud Americans. They would not be....had US decided not to accept all the immigrants at the time.

Where ever I have chosen to move (Germany, Singapore, Belgium and US) I have always been treated with respect and accepted to enter the country. Even if in Germany I took a seat from a German to do my studies and in Singapore I had no job initially.
In US, even when I was able to transfer within my company...the immigration officers could have questioned my entry, as I was taking a job. A job, which was one job less from an existing American citizen.

My two cents to the topic is: before judging or rejecting the refugees fighting for a better tomorrow right now. Look into the past and see...if not your own relatives were once fleeing or immigrating, I am sure you will find many in your circle of friends or colleagues. Without the help their relatives got at the time, they would not exist or have the life they live today. Refugees have even a better reason to be helped than immigrants like myself...who migrate for selfish reasons. Finns are high in the statistics to practice that kind of migration. There are 1.3 million Finns living outside Finland for various reasons. If you think that whole population of the country is only 5,6 million, it is a big percentage. The latest trends show that numbers for Finns migrating elsewhere are only increasing. Alone during the year 2014, when I migrated to US, in total 15 490 Finns chose to move outside Finland.

We are living right now in a world, where none of us can predict the political or economical turns for certain.
Just taking Finland as an example: Who can possibly know what Putin decides to do next or how long will people endure the economical down hill?
There will be many enough, who will choose to leave the country, in the hope of a better tomorrow. Wouldn't you wish then that those people will be allowed to pursue that hope into reality? Even if they would choose to migrate for selfish reasons?

I would...cause I am one of them, I am an immigrant.

Houston the magical mecca of health care

There is nothing better than to go to a doctor's visit, which you might NOT have been looking forward so much and come out of it totally amazed. Wondering at the same WHY and HOW can you be feeling happy walking out from e.g. dentist. After a full check and tooth fix.

This seem to happen each time when I go to see a doctor in Houston.

My first dentist visit was really a surprise. I was not looking forward to it. I had done several dentist visits in Finland, at a private medical hub, prior to moving to Houston. None of them were pleasant. Also, it was not possible to get everything done in one go. You had to go 2-3 times. First to get initial check done and then separately to get the night guard preparation done (yes, I have inherited my mother's habit to grind teeth while sleeping) and yet another visit to fix one tooth. Though the doctor was generally neutral and in Finnish terms one could call her pleasant, since she was not trying to scold me on what I should or should not do. But each visit there got blood pressure rising and me thinking how amazing place the world would be, if one would never need to visit a dentist...ever.

Yes, it is my hands...I know and I am generally keen to look after the well being of my teeth. But even if one would not need to do anything, one still needs to go once / twice a year for the check-up. Alone the thought of going to a dentist...no matter how routine the visit would be, was unpleasant.

With that background I went for my first dentist visit in Houston. From start to finish I was confused. "Am I really at the dentist or this is a dental day spa?"
Customer service was clearly visible from the moment I stepped through the door. They showed me around the facility and explained the process. Then I was seated in my chair, where there was no bright light shining to my eyes but a TV greeted me. I could watch what ever channel I wanted.

The doctor came to greet me and explained what will happen next. X-rays will be taken to get a thorough view of the teeth and their condition. Then, the hygienist will go through and clean the teeth, checking if any daily mitigation actions can be recommended. After which the doctor has a view of what needs to be done. Only for the X-ray I had to move away from my chair, the rest was me enjoying the comfy chair and the specialists moving from one customer "loft" to another. Before anything was done, it was discussed with me and confirmed that I am okay with it.
One hour and they had done everything within one visit and in a way, making me walk out of the place with this idiotic smile on my face. If I had any stickers to put on my forehead, I would have put one saying:"I do not know how it happened, but I love my dentist!"

The best part was that I paid less for the dentist visit here, than I did initially in Finland. The company health package in Finland covered only part of the dentist visit. Here with the company health care insurance, the coverage is major. From the total bill my share was 1/10 if even that.

I thought that okay...that might have been just beginner's luck. My overly optimist attitude kicking in.
Nope, by now, having visited different doctors, all I can say is that I like going to a doctor nowadays!

Not that each time it would be just good news but how the doctors treat one here is very different than in Finland. I had one excellent doctor in Finland, who I trusted and he always showed that what ever the cause may be, he will do all he can to get to the root of it. In so many other cases, at a private medical hub, I got the response:"Well I do not know what is causing the symptoms, so go home. You can book a new appointment if the pain is still there in a few weeks time".

Doctors here do not solely focus on throwing the medical facts to your face and wishing you a good day. Even when there is tougher news to share with the patient, the doctor understands to take into consideration how the message will be received. They seem to be still human and know how to communicate in such a way that you are not racing out of the clinic in sheer panic.

One is also more cautious here on not starting to speculate anything until they have medical facts to support the thoughts. I prefer that approach. I know from own experience and some friends, who went to doctor in Finland due to some complex symptoms. Walking out of the first visit with the assumption that it may be cancer before any tests were performed! In all the cases cancer was not even close to the rather harmless final result. What that statement caused though was a world collapsing for the patient and huge emotional stress. Normally, what ever you may have right then, major emotional stress is most likely not going to improve the situation.

I had to receive once one of those not-so-pleasant news to share here. This was after the doctor had all the medical facts analyzed and solid proof of the outcome. The doctor sat next to me, we talked. He took a tissue box and put his arm around me, at the same time saying that I would come out of the challenge as a winner and bounce back. He allowed me to cry and showed empathy.

The fact that I got to cry there and then, allowed me to deal with the first shock with a professional right next to me. Once I got home, things did not seem so bad anymore and I had taken already my Finnish SISU out to the full extent and decided that it will all turn out to positive.

What was even more amazing...two weeks later the doctor called and checked how I was doing.
With all that he showed me that he is not just an excellent professional but he truly cares for his patients, not only during the sunny but also during rainy days.

Research makes the difference though. The best approach is to check the pages, which rank the doctors based on customer feedback. Then check if they accept your insurance. If one picks a random doctor from the list without checking the customer feedback, you may get a rather "Finnish experience".

When the power of choosing a doctor is given to the patients, it seems to make the difference.
I can only say: if you need a great doctor or refreshingly pleasant doctor's visit, welcome to Houston! :)

Naming conventions - what's in the name?

Sometimes I get highly confused here in US when e.g. at work someone talks about Zoey or Rory, and in my mind those would be female names (don't ask me why). Then I find out that person in question is male. I also get educated that the name could be a female name too. I was confused in the beginning how one would be allowed to give names which can be given to either or? How would one know which one is in question (male or female)? Simple answer....one necessarily doesn't know based on the name only. That is part of the freedom of expression privilege in US.
After the initial "?" reaction, I found it really fascinating that one has liberated the whole naming convention. Why limit it with borders that names may not have? Instead allow parents to give the child exactly the name they feel that represents the child.

In some cases parents have gotten really creative but then again...so did my mom, even within the limited framework Finland had at the time (read: my grand-mothers resistance to give her grand-child such a crazy name).

In Finland one has to follow a set of framework and the freedom to express the names needs to fit into the legal framework (yes, rather limited freedom here).

Name Law / Nimilaki
Finland might be very gender equal in the cultural habits but what comes to naming a child, there we have actual naming law. One thing the law looks after is that the name is lawful and will not cause problems to the person. They also control that name reflects whether one is male or female. As per that law a person can have 1-3 first names and a last name. This approach follows the German model.
You are allowed to change part of your whole name or full name after turning 16. The changed name will be checked that it fulfills the name law requirements.

I checked that US does have a naming law too but it looks the names more from the perspective that they are not too long. A name can be as per the regulation maximum 26 letters long written in latin alphabetic writing system. It gives the requirement to have at least two names, first and last name. But it allows e.g. Latin American names to be registered, with 2 last names and 2 first names. Which makes things lot easier e.f. for the Hispanic population to continue their naming traditions.

There are certain first and last names, which are prohibited, as well as use of numbers, ideograms and pictograms. In reality though the detailed rules and the practice around naming vary by state. Which reminds me of the good point, I tend to forget...US is not a country. It is continent with many states. It is sometimes tough to remember that closest comparison would be EU.
The US naming law does not seem to take position whether the name should be male or female (based on what I found in internet).

Practice around Finnish First Name(s)
The first name(s) can be hyphenated but they need to be indicating clearly the sex of the person. Also, one of the names need to be identified as the "calling name". It does not need to be the first of the names. The calling name will become the name which school and other places will know to use for the person when addressing him/her.

There is a list of names, which are listed under female names and list of names under male names. The registration of a child's identity will not be accepted by the authorities (church or magistrate) if the paper states that child's sex is let's say female and yet one would wish to name the child e.g. Mika.

Interestingly enough in Finland Mika is a common male name, deriving from Michael. This seem to cause some confusion at times in US and Japan, as in both countries one would consider Mika as a female name. Finnish formula drivers got attention in Japan, not just for their excellent driving but also for their names: Mika Häkkinen and Mika Salo. As one would think they are women.

Many of the Finnish names have their roots elsewhere, they were just "Finninized" during and after the independence. For example the English name George, the Finnish versions are Yrjö or Jyri.

Name Day / Nimipäivä
Finland among 20 other countries (European and Latin American) celebrates name days. Any name, who has more than 1000 bearers will be incorporated to the name day calendar. The name day will mainly be noted by family members, close friends and name sakes. As a child one may have gotten a special treat or a small gift on one's name day.
I grew up without a proper name day since my full first name is one of its kind in the whole country and the name Inna does not have over 1000 living bearers. That never stopped me to celebrate it, I decided to celebrate it on Iina's day. As an adult, after all the years abroad, I stopped celebrating or paying attention to the name day. Especially since none of the friends would anyway pay attention...as it is not in the official name day calendar. The down side of it is that I keep forgetting to pay attention to the name days of family and close friends too. (Sorry to all those dear people for that!)

Practice around Finnish Last Name(s)
Last name comes automatically from the parents unless they do not have a common last name. In that case the parents have to inform, which one of the last names will be transferred to the child. Common habit is to give the father's name. If one fails to inform which of the last name is chosen by the time limit, 2 months from birth, the child gets by law mother's last name.

You cannot either give a last name to be a first name of the child, nor can you change your last name to be one of your first names (e.g. when getting married).

In US it seems to be rather common habit that women drop their original middle name and change their maiden last name as their middle name. Which then allows one to take the husband's last name as their new last name. I like the flexibility to be able to choose the names.

Within the limits, in Finland majority tends to choose the last name of the husband. Other option is to hyphenate husbands last name after one's own last name, e.g. Smith-Meyer. Some keep their own maiden names, especially if the female's maiden last name is unique and she has created a personal brand and network related to that name already.

We have a saying in Finnish:
Ei nimi miestä pahenna, ellei mies nimeä.
The name can't make a man worse, but the man can make his name worse.

If you got interested more information in English:
Most popular names by years in Finland (female / male)

List of most popular names given in US 2014
Wikipedia on Finnish names
Finnish name day calendar
Population service to check how many people exist in Finland with certain name - check if you have name sakes in Finland :)

Ode to Peanut Butter - the national delicacy of US

Prior to moving to Texas, I did not think much about peanut butter. I was probably like most of the Finns, wondering what the fuss is about that sticky paste.... until I tried it on Finnish rye bread and also with banana. My world has not been the same since then!

It is sweet but not really. The taste of a well made peanut butter is a perfect match to a Finnish taste buds (we tend to like sweet & salty and have even salmiakki - salty licorice).

If you are an American and think you have tried peanut butter in all variations and wondering about what the fuss is about; peanut butter and the Finnish rye bread (and possibly asking what that bread even is) :) I can only tell you that until you eat it on either Finnish rye bread (full rye) or Finnish Archipelago bread, you have not gone to the peanut butter 7th heaven. Same goes to all Finns, dare yourselves...try peanut butter on a a toasted Reissumies or Archipelago bread...Yauuuuza!

The only problem is that after that you will want to make sure to have proper peanut butter and proper (read: Finnish) rye bread in the house at all times. If for nothing else, than for the occasions you want to rock your taste buds and make them jump out of joy.

Since this experience, I cannot stop wondering why in Finland peanut butter has never become hit product? Through the appearance of some US import goods in some of the bigger grocery stores, some decent peanut butter has found its way to Finland. Or should have...I cannot say for sure, as I was totally oblivious to the product prior moving to Houston. On the other hand there are a good number of people in Finland with nut allergy. But still the rest of the country would go nuts, if they would get the chance to experience what I did...the peanut butter 7th heaven.


Americans have even national Peanut Butter day on the 24th January. Tells how much this nation adores peanut butter! Would you believe that making peanut butter dates back to aztec times? That is where the initial form of peanut butter found its form. In the more "modern" age, 1895, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented the production process from raw peanuts to peanut butter to help teethless patients to have alternative protein rich source of nutrition. In between the peanut butter making machine was invented, then came chemist Joseph Rosefield, who in 1922 invented a process for making smooth peanut butter that kept the oil from separating by using partially hydrogenated oil. In 1928 he licensed his invention to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter. 

My husband wanted to bring a truly American souvenir to my newphews 2 years ago. It was a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter, the crunchy one. For a while the jar sat in the cupboard pretty much untouched...until I introduced the same thing for them, what I had experienced: peanut butter and rye bread. The next 2 days my older nephew was making my husband and sister-in-law breakfast in bed, with toasted rye bread with peanut butter. My heart was jumping out of joy for the sweet thing he did.

Since then my younger nephew announced to me, when I asked about their birthday present wishes:"I would like to have a BIG jar of Peter Pan. We ate the other one empty already some time ago." Once the present box arrived in Finland, I got a photo in return...showing my younger nephew's happy face, smeared with peanut butter with a bread slice covered under few centimeters of peanut butter. Accompanied with the comment from my brother quoting my younger nephew: "Peter Pan is really good...munch munch...aunt Inna is pretty nice...munch munch.." :) Oh happy days!

After I got into the whole peanut butter and rye bread, I started reading up on peanut butter. Against all the stereotypes I had formed about it, it is actually good source of many necessary nutritions. Taken of course that you buy one that is not on the high end with the sugar amounts.

My American father-in-law eats peanut butter on banana taking double health effect. Eating it with rye bread comes also with the double health effect, protein, iron and fiber combined.

The crunchy peanut butter, which is my favorite has good amount of fiber and is good source of unsaturated fat. Peanut butter also provides protein, vitamins B₃ and E, magnesium, folate, dietary fiber, resveratrol, arginine,and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid.

Those of you, who are nutrition freaks...I admit to be one, you would recognize also arginine. An amino acid, which has been marketed lately in many health products. Depending on the person's nutritional habits arginine may help to boost up the immune system.

It has other good usage too...the day will one day come that I can share the tip with my brother: Peanut butter helps to remove chewing gum from hair. I spy that there will be an event when one of my nephews masters to get it into his hair :)

Fun fact....peanut is not considered as a nut but legumes grown under ground...learning something new every day :)

I do have to admit that even though I miss Kinder Surprise egg during the Easter, the Reese's peanut butter egg, which the "bunny" brought to me in the basket...they are awesome yammi! Again for the simple fact that peanut butter balances the sweetness effect of the chocolate. I bet those cannot be counted healthy but they are healthier than munching big chocolate egg. The other good things about those candies is that you cannot eat too many in one go, due to the sticky nature of the texture. So, a win win deal for anyone, who wants to find a replacement for chocolate hunger :)

So, now I just need to figure out how to get rest of Finland liberated and get people to try the peanut butter 7th heaven: Finnish rye bread and crunchy peanut butter :) Let Peter Pan take over Finland ;)

For those interested: more about history of peanut butter and one of many taste comparison reports.

Easter and The mystery of missing Kinder Surprise Egg

Easter traditions are as colorful as the brightly painted easter eggs.

What I have learned by now from my husband and my American family, their Easter traditions used to include traveling to the family farm (when my husband was still a child) to spend the Easter with grand-parents and the extended family. They would visit the church with the whole family. Easter weekend also included egg hunt and eventually the Easter bunny also came for a visit. Easter bunny comes with a basket filled with hay and hidden Easter goodies.

Egg hunt most often means plastic eggs hidden in different places (to keep the chocolate from melting, especially in the Southern states), inside there are smaller toys, mini Easter eggs and candies. Alternatively painted eggs hidden in the house, garden, beach, etc.

According to some sources I checked, the Easter Bunny (Osterhase), is an interesting mammal...it lays eggs, as well as the hiding of eggs originally landed to US with the German immigrants around 1700. I knew these traditions from my years in Germany and it is really interesting to see how with the immigration so many colorful traditions have found their solid place in the US holiday traditions.

Out of all the egg variation one can find here, there is one major thing missing though...the surprise eggs. My all time favorite, Kinder Surprise Egg, was nowhere to be found in the mainstream grocery stores. Some speciality stores, specialized in import, e.g. Phoenicia or Specs, had some but ran out.

I was wondering why would THE Egg of all Easter Eggs, which is eaten across Europe, be missing from a consumer targeted country like US? After digging into it, I found interesting history.

The story of the Kinder Surprise egg started in 1974 in Italy. Since then the little surprise egg took over the world, one country at the time. Bringing joy to young and young at heart :)
Due to the US Federal Food, drug and cosmetics act dating back to1938 it was not allowed to sell confectionary including a non-food item embedded inside, unless the part had a functional value. Due to missing to read the texts of the age restrictions the egg was banned from US. For a while there was even a fine if anyone tried to bring the Kinder Surprise eggs into the country e.g. in their luggage.
The few cases, where public info exists, fines were between 300 - 2500 $ per egg.

Finally in 2013 the Kinder Surprise Egg was allowed to enter the US market as a result of failed attempt to succeed with the petition with the aim to ban import and sales of Kinder Surprise Eggs. That one luckily never got enough signatures. Thus, now Kinder Surprise Eggs are fully legal in US...but they can for now only be seen at the stores specialized for import goods. Hoping that some years from now they would not be such a rare commodity anymore. Because they are so good!!!

When I was living in Germany (as an young adult) I sometimes bought myself and my friends Kinder Surprise Egg to have it as the dessert after breakfast on Sunday. Just because one should have happy surprises throughout the year. I recall sitting on the beach with a friend on summer weekend, eating our Kinder Surprise eggs and enjoying the day. My mind started racing the path of its own...I started wondering how many engineers they need to design all the toys & games for the eggs and how many test cycles they have to go through to find the right balance for size, safety and not the least excitement. I think I would love to work for the department responsible for creating the surprises and testing them :)

Back from the egg to the....witch! As in Finland the Easter looks little different than in US, or Germany for that matter. Finnish Easter tradition is a mixture of old pagan traditions and the symbolics brought in with the orthodox church. Finland has only about 1% of population belonging to the orthodox church, thus the rest of Easter from religious perspective is mainly Evangelic Lutheran. In Finnish practical terms it means that the role of church is not in the center of the events.

On Palm Sunday the Finnish children dress up as witches and tour around the neighborhood casting the spell to all, who allow them to do so. Prior to that they have decorated several pussy willow branches with colorful decorations (feathers, paper ornaments, etc.). Those are the wands which they do the spell with and leave it to the receiver, in return for candy.
I remember when I moved back to Finland in 2007, all the years from there onwards the door bell rang first time at 10 am (the neighbors' kids knew I was up early during weekends)...and it continued ringing all the way till about 3 pm. As a result I had lovely bouquet of colorful branches and had been thoroughly casted with well being spells.

The Easter weekend itself is also a fun one, cause it is a long weekend. Good Friday (in Finnish Pitkäperjantai "Long Friday") and Easter Monday are public holidays. Most of the shops are closed all 4 days, only the big grocery stores (note big in Finnish context means only grocery stores beyond 400m2 / 4000ft2) are allowed to stay open some hours. I like that limitation, as it calms things down. Lot of people take the time to visit their relatives or many use this opportunity to go for the last ski trip for the season to Finnish Lapland or abroad. Some, like my brother and sister-in-law, use this weekend to prepare their yacht for the summer season. The spring is starting to show and, for most Finns, Easter marks the end to the long dark winter and start of spring season. Some even grow Easter grass (normal garden grass) on a plate or basket and put little chick decoration on it.

Easter weekend dinners are around lamb and vegetables. Some modern cooks might cook wild hare instead of lamb. Dessert is either mämmi, a sweet rye Jell-o like desert, Pasha (from the Russian traditions and more among the orthodox community), dessert made of quark / curd and something fruity to bring the spring colors to the table.

Mämmi is something, which is a must taste for foreigners, at least once. But do not think ALL
Finns love it. My husband got to spend one Easter by himself in Finland, as I was going for a girls trip with one of my good friends to Singapore and Bali. I prepared him for everything, he knew what to do and say when the witches came and he was exploring the Finnish cuisine. When I got home from the trip he proudly announced that he had saved half a box of mämmi for me :) Great! I was busy thinking how to tell him nicely that I do not normally eat mämmi and if I do, maximum one small bowl. He was highly confused...as he had read somewhere that ALL Finns love mämmi. Mämmi is one of those foods that you either love it, or you despise it. Do not judge it though only based on the somewhat enquiring looks of it.

I have been really awed to see how 2nd / 3rd generation American Finns post to Facebook community pictures of home made mämmi. Respect!

Eggs are of course solid part of Finnish Easter too. Kinder Surprise eggs are sold in every Finnish grocery store :) but we have our own speciality egg. Fazer has made a business of reusing empty egg shells from baking to fill them with chocolate. This delicacy is called Mignon egg.

Hyvää pääsiäistä! Glad Påsk! Fröhliche Ostern! Joyeuses pâques! Feliz Pascua! Happy Easter to one and all! May The joy of spring and New beginnings fill this weekend.

Work-life - continental differences

I am commanded by the doctor,  and my husband to bed rest for a week....using this time to catch up on the blog. Thought to write a little about my personal observations about the American work life versus the one in Finland. Like it would make my sick leave feel less...away from work :)

Last year I brought my project with me from Finland. I was pretty much on an one woman assignment, working for client projects based in US and Mexico but for a company, whose headquarters is in Finland. I had been working in few occasions for them and knew the company well. Thus I had rather soft landing. They knew me, I knew them and I was allowed to focus on managing the projects.

After that experience it was time for something new and time to get a taste of how it feels to be part of a bigger team. It rarely happens in the US that you find a project locally, at the time when you are looking for one. This time I got lucky though and managed to join a local project. It has been a learning experience. I hardly knew anyone, even from my team colleagues. The few ones I kind of knew, was virtually. I have learned a lot since, both from my own company and the client's. Yet I have also the feeling that due to my colorful background and having done projects in so many countries, I can contribute knowledge which is a rare trade here.

The business has been booming here so well the past years that most of my colleagues have been working only in the US. Also, the size of the population makes one's career take a totally different path than what my career experiences were in Finland. In US you can afford to specialize in a certain area. In Finland we never had that luxury; there, if you just show an open mind and willingness, you end up being thrown in into all kinds of fun stuff. Everything from your "normal work" to selling, negotiating and writing contracts or even jumping in as the client account partner. Lot of this happened of course also because I had a manager, who knew she could throw me into any challenge and I would be able to turn it around. Whether it was troubled project , impossible deal or difficult client.
Here one tends to limit the activities only to the "normal work" border lines and it is very tightly defined at which level you get to do what. Suddenly I am the same seniority level as before but the scale of my work activities has narrowed down greatly. The only way to get to do the things, which I have already done, is to get level higher.

I still remember when I asked my mentor if he thought that I could have a chance to build a career in our company but in US...he laughed. The reason he laughed was that he knew already what I have now learned. Senior resource, which was fostered and matured in Europe will be of good value here.
The diversity of skills and experience, which I or any of my European peers have versus the same level of our US colleagues; there is a difference. Lessons learned from that, a European resource with wide skill set and international experiences should never hesitate checking the possibilities in US.

I have had the luxury, within my current employer, to have a great manager when I needed one. I would say it becomes more important the further one goes, as one has matured professionally and created a solid set of work ethics and values. Having a manager who fits within that framework has big impact to the motivation level. I got lucky here in US, my manager is from UK. He understands how it feels first to dive into the US work life and learn to find your way.
I have also been lucky to have a few great mentors, some who know me from years ago and some from the time I have been in US. All of their support has been important. I am trying to pay it forward and have been mentoring for some years now. Now I have few mentees in US too. I am enjoying that relationship a lot!

But it did feel funny in the beginning....you stay at the same company, basic processes stay the same but the scale of everything changed. Suddenly instead of having overall company size of 1500 people...alone one practice area had 2000 people. Not to mention the overall size of the company here in US! The amount of things we do as a company has only become clear during the time here. Finland was too far and too small to get concrete grip of some of the ground breaking and trend setting activities that we do. I felt like I was, after 9 years with the company, suddenly a beginner. Learning so much new each day.

Some things, which are dear to me changed, not necessarily to better. I valued highly being a manager, whom my team knew well and whom they knew to trust with anything. I had the same relationship with my own manager in Finland. It was coaching relationship on top of managing.
Here developing such relationship takes lot longer, as everything is virtual. I have been working with my current manager for over a year now and have not seen him in person, not even once. It took me some time to warm up to the virtual working environment. Eventually I got there. Personally I think that it would have been easier journey if one would have had chances to meet in person.

In Finland we got excellent work life balance and employees are well protected to allow to have that balance. In US it depends a lot on the company you work for. My company is from the better end but even then work weeks are longer and everything is more about work.

It does not mean to say that one would necessarily work more quantitively (accomplishments) but the amount of hours spent working is higher to start with. The border line between work time and out of office time is more vague. Even some of my mentees, who are at the beginning of their career, shared with me that they feel the need to check e-mails on Sunday. After some lessons learned along the way I am not willing to go down that path anymore.

In some ways it is a bittersweet feeling, as by this time of my career I have gone through hell and high water, been on the edge of burn out once and learned a lot from all of it. I have learned how to work hard but how to keep the balance. Most of all I have learned to prioritize my personal health and well being. Then suddenly I am in an environment where even talking about work life balance is considered as rather a weird topic. Though US, in general, is admired for a lot and the mentality is that hard work is the only way. I respect that but I think that it would be time for the employers and government to look around and realize that there are also other options to achieve high results.

It seems that generally respect towards hierarchy sits tighter in the work culture here than what it does in Finland. I am of course totally oblivious to it and to me CEO is a person like any other.
Have noticed though from some colleagues; how they talk about some senior colleagues or leadership, it sounds as if they were next from god. Internally I can just chuckle, as that is such a foreign concept in work-life to me. Not that in Finland we would not respect the senior colleagues but we do not put them automatically on the high chair. They are considered still equal and easy to approach, to discuss anything.

What took me by surprise was the sick leave behavior. In Finland, in general, if you get sick, you stay home because you do NOT want to get all your colleagues sick and you tend to heal faster when you get the appropriate rest. You get the paper from doctor, which allows you to stay home and you do not need to worry about anything.
Here the work ethic is to work, no matter what. There are companies, which give you a maximum amount of sick days. If you go over that, you get fired. Regardless of whether you had a doctor's note or not. I am lucky not to work for one of those companies, yet I am surrounded by colleagues who have grown up with the traditional US work ethic.

This means it being totally normal and acceptable to have 1/3 of the office sneezing and coughing one week. The next week another 1/3 and so on. The pharmaceutical industry loves this trend and it means lot of customer for them. Buying high volumes of pills to keep everyone going through the work week.

I know that this trend has set into Finland as well to some companies, who are all about high performance. I think from all countries, Japan has the right behavioral model in place already for years. In Japan if you have flu symptoms, yet you choose to go to work, you at least wear a protection mask to prevent your colleagues from getting the virus.

Talking about vacations, in Finland you get, by law, a minimum 27 days of vacation per year. Depending on the industry, Saturdays may or may not count if you take Mon-Fri off. Which I admit, makes no sense in the modern world. Finland has only 13 public holidays left. If they hit Saturday or Sunday, they will not result to additional day off during the weekdays.

In US vacation comes along one's the loyalty to the company. If you start in a new company you get 10 - 15 days and need to work several years to increase the amount of vacation days. There are, depending the company and industry,  6 - 12 public holidays. Depending on the company and industry, some of those may be fixed ones e.g. 4th July and some are floating ones. Means you can take them when it suits you best from work perspective. Also, if the public holiday hits Sunday you get the following day off and if it hits Saturday, you get the Friday off.

In my case, as I was able to keep my seniority, I have actually slightly more vacation in practical terms than what I had in Finland, as the floating public holidays can be linked to vacation.

Before I moved lot of Finns kept saying "In US you will not have the same health care benefits and everything will be so expensive". Well, I think that is not a fair statement at least when one works. The health care benefits do often come with better benefits than what one could ever get in Finland. If you do not work, then you do have an issue. As a foreigner there is little business to be here unless you work anyways. The system here drives to get people to work.

Which I cannot say that Finnish system is so good about. Too many people stay unemployed because they get better money that way than going to work. There is no real thrive to ensure that everyone has work. Here the rules of the game are lot harder. Everything depends on having work and being employed.
Regardless of the background, nationality or last name, with hard work and good network, one can change the stars. Here one is very open minded to hire foreigners and give them the same benefits as for an American citizen. Our household happens to be having equality when it comes to career. Which means that first time in life I see in practice that there is such things as: no difference between female or male career opportunities or income.
Not to mention the difference in the taxes one pays in Texas versus Finland, but I will get back to that in a different post.

Summa summarum, there is no better or worse in this are. I find it more educating to learn the different ways and see the impacts of those. Hoping that with the open mind some of us travel through the world, our leaders would do the same and have the courage to change things for the better. It all starts with me making the best of each situation I get. So far it has worked.

Living abroad in today's world

Finns living in the US or Americans living in Finland, which ever way....one can gripe all one wants about missing something back home but the truth is...life is good!

With the globalization immigration to a different country is comfortable compared to e.g. the Finns, who took the journey to come to US during the Great Migration (1860 - 1930) in the search after a better life. I could think that anyone from US, who would have decided to immigrate to Finland during that time...would have been ultimately noted as a lunatic back in US.

Nowadays Finland's strengths have reached global media and the number of Americans living in Finland has been steadily rising. In 1987 there were 333 daring Americans living in Finland. In 2009 that number rose to 3907 Americans, who called Finland their home. Today that number is even higher. In 2013 there were in total 15 570 people living in Finland, whose mother tongue is English. This includes also Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and other countries in addition to the US.
Regardless, quite an improvement.

On this side of the globe, keeping up with the latest and the greatest from Finland is easier now than ever before. I browse the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper every day. Even this morning I was enjoying a quiet morning with my cup of green tea and reading the latest news from the web version of Helsingin Sanomat.

Side note: when there is no paper involved...for an ex-paper industry professional, it feels funny to still call a newspaper. I have yet to find a better way to describe it.

In Facebook there are great communities, where Finns and fellow Nordics post information or share knowledge about how to convert the Finnish recipes to the US environment. We exchange knowledge about which ingredient to use to replace some traditional Finnish ingredient, which is not available directly in the US.

The Finnish and Nordic community in Houston (as well as wider Texas) sticks together nicely. One gets to keep up the Finnish and Swedish language on a regular basis and spend nice times together, sharing the latest events about Life in Texas.

Also there are Facebook,  Facetime,  Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Twitter, etc. which help to stay in touch with friends all over the world. Back in 1996 when I moved to Germany, I was communicating by good old letters, FAX (!!!!) and sometimes even by phone with friends and family back in Finland.

At least a few times a month there is a Facetime session with my brother and his family. My nephews know how to dial me via Facetime, which was the key reason they inherited my old iPad. It is so different to catch up with them, when they can see how life is here and they can show their drawings and latest lego creations. Especially with them it does make a difference, as they would not have the patience to just talk. Those discussions would stay rather one-sided and VERY short :))))

Then there are all these great internet shops, where one can get the necessary things. The few Finnish things that I cannot live without are proper rye bread, Fazer chocolate, proper loose green tea, Moomin mugs and Xylitol chewing gum. All of those are in one way or another accessible via internet shopping.
With good bribing and begging, friends and family in Finland have eventually also started sending occasional care packages. Yeiiii!

I do consider myself lucky that I have the luxury of learning about the US culture and life, and at the same time being able to keep my roots strong. That is a dream; a dream which the Finns, who left Finland during the Great Migration would not even dare to think of as a possibility.

The descendants of those brave Finns now number around 700 000 Finnish Americans living in the US. It is inspiring to see in the Finnish American Facebook page how proud they are of their Finnish roots, even if they would go a few generations back.  With some, the knowledge of Finnish language is limited to a few sayings, which their grandparents used to say. Yet, you can see that in their hearts....they are still Finns.

Who knows, maybe a few generations from now the descendants of the Americans immigrated to Finland will face the same situation. Hilarious thought, but everything is possible.

A best thank you very much EVER!

,

Less is more....
This is very much the Finnish thinking. In particular when it comes to compliments or feedback. At work we used to joke that "no feedback is positive feedback".

Which of course is the complete opposite of American approach. The two extremes have caused interesting situations in my every day life in US. Below just few examples from the many :)

I noticed a difference during a restaurant visit when my husband talks e.g. to the restaurant staff compared to when I answer to their questions about if everything is satisfactory.
My answer would be something like:"Everything is good, thank you." Which seemed to cause a twitch in their facial expression. Like the waiter had just swallowed a lemon or was about to get an allergic reaction.
At first I did not understand the reason to this. I thought maybe my English was the reason. Thinking that the way I pronounce somethings was about to cause a laugh attack which the waiter tried to hide.
For those who do not know me, my husband describes me as highly fluent in American English without a regional dialect.

I love making own research and doing unannounced psychological tests (do not tell this to my husband, he has not yet figured this out)....when we were asked the question next time in a restaurant, I kept silent and waited my husband to respond. With high interest I observed the reaction of the waiter.
My husband responded something like:" Yes, everything is great. Thank you very much!"
The waiter walked away with a smile....NO face twitching.

HA!!! I nailed it....Simple sincere "thank you" or even the expression:"everything is good" is simply not enough here.

I can only wonder why though....
Those are positive expressions and it should be more than plenty to show that one is satisfied. Or is it that people say those simplest forms of gratitude because they do not dare to express being unhappy? US is THE country of unlimited return policies and flexible customer service "customer is the King". Which means that saying out loud honest opinion about food being too salty or too greasy should be totally ok. It should result to being able to get another portion or discount at least.

In Finland if one gives the direct feedback of e.g. food being too salty, it is often received in a constructive manner, yet it does not mean that you get a new portion or your money back. Regardless we do say our honest opinion, especially as customers. That is the only way to make things better, keep making our world a better place.

Back to my way of showing I am content....
To proof my hypothesis I tested myself the reaction if I answered like my husband does. I did not get
any facial twitching reaction. Nobody swallowed lemons or got any other sudden allergic reactions.

Still if I am generally just happy and thankful, I will continue say "thank you" and "good". With the risk of getting twitch reaction on the waiter's face.
The logic is simple...at my work, which is also at customer service related industry, I do not get anything else either for an average performance.  Average is actually not really preferred by my employer.
When I do my work well it means that I need to be one step ahead of my client and be able to be proactive instead of reactive. It does not matter what time the work day ends if my client needs me, I am there. I need to spot their needs before they ask for it. The same I expect from the waiter before I say "great" "thank you so much".

Same goes for the hotels. I do not leave tips to get better service. I leave tips IF I get better service or I leave a positive written feedback. Finns in general leave tips e.g. for restaurant staff if they think service was good. At hotel one would generally never leave tip for cleaning, as one pays for that already in the room price. If the room cleaning service was great, one would leave few dollars.

It is the simple thinking again, the money needs to be earned. Somehow in US the consumers seem to have forgotten it. How does one help anyone to improve their performance by leaving money in advance in the hope of getting better service? That trains the whole service industry to get reactive instead of proactive. Also, leaving the money before one has seen any results means that one is throwing money out of the window. As the fact is...how can you ever really compare if you actually got any better service?
I have tested this scenario in all possible forms as well during my lengthy stays at certain Hilton...and guess what? Spoiler alert: It made no difference whether I left the tip on day one or at the last day or did not leave tip at all. The room was in the same condition each time.

We Finns generally say what we think but not more than that. We have the joke that on the second day of the relationship the Finnish male says "I love you and I let you know if it changes".
Which brings me to one slang expression that keeps wiping me off my feet: "best XXX ever!"

I asked one evening from my husband what does it literally mean. Simply because I had the feeling that I might not understand its full meaning. To me the magnitude of the expression and how carelessly it is being spread around created a contradiction.

To me it sounded like it would mean that e.g. "best cocktail ever!"
(please do not hang yourself to the cocktail...just wanted to come up with something neutral and something you could relate to) would mean that:
A) one is comparing to all "cocktails" one has drank previously (which in all cases would not be valid...as sometimes one seem to state this slang saying about first time objects / experiences)
B) the "cocktail" one is now enjoying is better than ALL the previous cocktails. If it was cocktails my Finnish sense of humor wants to ask:"Would you even remember how each one of them tasted?" ;)

Little did I know...this one goes even further, which knocked my socks off totally. Apparently in the full meaning of the saying one is not only stating this comparing one's own previous experiences but everyone else's...int the whole world. As a Finn....I can only say: :"No huh huh! Holy smokes!"

I consider it as hard work and true accomplishment if I am able to rank my life time experiences. I find it so hard to rank e.g. the cities I have lived; best to least liked or top 3. Not to mention that I would consider overruling everyone else's opinions and experiences. No way....I respect their opinion, experiences and feelings too much. We Finns tend to be modest anyway on the "tuuletus" front. We say one is "airing" when one is boasting or expressive about something positive.

Which means that you can probably forget about hearing this expression from my mouth.

I know it is probably one woman mission but I am going to continue my way to show that even small positive expressions are POSITIVE. Thank you! :)

The roots behind the saying "less is more":
http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/lessismore/ls_s_mor.html

Family planning - Finnish "nature child" style meets American $ analysis

When one forms a family with different cultural backgrounds, there are lot of peculiar things...which for couples / families of same cultural heritage, would not even come to discussion. All cases result to laughter, sooner or later :)

During my journey in settling to US it has been really interesting to learn how family planning differs in US versus to what I have learned previously from my close friends and family in Finland.
It may be that my perception from how things work in Finland may not be completely accurate, since I have actually not been doing any family planning while I was living in Finland. It was a dream...but for me it meant first things first, to find a partner for life :)
While waiting for my partner for life to "show up", I was focusing on my career, being a great aunt to my nephews and appreciating the time with my friends. As well as being active in sports.

Yet I do trust that having lived the pregnancies of my close friends and my sister-in-law and daily life of my god-daughters and nephews...my perception and opinion formed based on those experience is not completely "bumping into the pine tree" (Finnish saying when something goes wrong, "mennä päin mäntyä").

Family planning, as I see it from my perspective, in the very simple Finnish style is:
Do we want to have kids?
Yes...okay, then we shall have kids.
- End of planning-

See the visualization to the right - example of key things in a Finnish adult's perspective, e.g. myself. Key area, which need to be checked and balanced throughout the journey of adulthood.

Sometimes kids also just happen, despite one trying to delay the timing...which makes the previous planning part part non-existent. Sometimes they may make the parents wait for a while till the child shows up. That is the magical world of mother nature.

Statistically in Finland this means two kids in average per household. There are of course exceptions, families with 1 child or families with 3 children. In most cases, 3 children family is considered "big".

I have never heard, nor thought myself, that money would relate to the decision of whether or not to have a family in any possible way.
Generally the thinking among my friends and family have been that if one wants to have kids, one will have kids. What comes to money, one will always manage. One way or the other. But money has never been the influence factor for the decision making.

It is more about whether both parties are ready to tie themselves to the kid(s) and adjust their whole life. Also one tends to be thinking more how to balance work and family, especially if support network is not existing close by. This depends case by case, if both parents have a job where they need to travel or do shift work, one starts planning how to organize that after maternity leave / parenting / care taking leave.

Yes, we actually have maternity leave in Finland...and it is not called disability leave, like in US. It is really pure maternity leave. It lasts 105 work days, after which one can take parenting leave, after which you can take care taking leave...pretty much up till the point, when the child is 3 years old.

So, summarizing my view: there are bunch of things one may think through but money is not on the list as decision making factor, nor when one wants to retire.

So, how did the family planning go here in US.....
Luckily my husband is the finance minister of the family. He just loves doing the financial planning, which I am very happy about. Based on my observation so far, in most US families and during one's education, microeconomics seems to be common subject to select and practice.

I had my financial excel sheet too but it was nothing compared to the tools and reports my husband prepares on regular basis. I gladly took the role of Secretary of State of our family, and gave the Finance minister role to my more mathematical half.

So, one weekend (of torture) all the finances were pulled together. As-is situation was prepared by my husband and then he made an estimate, what it would mean if we have kids. Bottom line us living on one salary for a while.
That was a tough weekend for me....my brain could not bend to understand why are even considering the finances as the baseline for any decision when it has to do with whether or not we want to start trying to have kids.

It was really valuable cultural experience though. I learned to understand how many people view the decision of having kids. Through the process and number twisting I got educated that for some people retiring early weighs more on the scale when one gets to the point in relationship, when discussing whether or not to have children.

In Finland the factors, which influence decision making are everything else but that, based on the knowledge I have from the circle of my friends (see the first picture). So, during that weekend it was great experience for both of us. My husband learned about my (very Finnish) approach and I learned how some people may approach the planning in US.

After recovering from the shock, the result of the estimation: we will be "poor" when we have kids. I started to understand the benefits of such exercise. We know exactly what will be the monthly budget and what kind of changes it means compared to the situation we have today. We identified also the concrete areas, which are the ones, where the changes should occur. Which helped us already to start getting to the right mindset.

Luckily, my husband being with his behavior and thinking very much like a Finn....to conclusion of the exercise was: agree to live with the knowledge that we will be "poor" from financial perspective for some years but emotionally rich, when having a family. Pheeewwwww......... :)

The little Finnish things in Houston

I have noticed since moving to Houston a funny behavior in myself. It seems that when ever I live outside Finland the Finn in me raises its head more than during the years when I have lived in Finland. I lived, before moving here, 7 years in Finland and prior to that 12 years abroad (Germany, Singapore and Belgium). 

I guess in Finland all that "Finnishness" is part of daily life and getting the typical Finnish products e.g. rye bread, nobody thinks twice about those, as you can get those anywhere. Even the smallest village shop is well stocked with dozen different fresh rye bread brands. Same goes for sauna, everyone has sauna and it is part of the daily life (I will blog more about that separately). 

When you move abroad, suddenly the whole daily life gets extreme make over. One needs to rethink what one can find and where. Weeks were spent, this time around with the help of my American family and husband, to find what my husband calls my "comfort foods". In my case it helped that my husband lived in Finland for a while and a year with me. He knows exactly what Finnish daily life looks like.

It has been a positive experience though. In my opinion everyone should move abroad at least once in their life. For me it has been each time rewarding experience, even though the beginning is always tough to find ones way around in the new place.

What it has done to me though;

I have stopped taking things or people for granted and learned to appreciate things in Finland, which I did not even pay attention before. On the other hand from each country I have lived, I have taken new ideas and habits with me, able to recognize that there are some things which we are way behind in Finland or able to see things here in US, which would be in need of checking how other countries are doing it. I consider it a richness to be able to get deep into foreign countries' culture and melt as part of the local culture with my Finnish & international quirks :)

There are certain things though, which I try to keep with me, no matter where I live. Wanted to list some of them below and also tips or places in Houston / Internet, which help to keep the Finn in me content :) Maybe other Finns around Houston find these useful too.

Finnish Hairdresser / http://www.mikkosalons.com/

Might sound silly but most Finns (and Swedes too) have very different hair type than e.g. Germans, Belgians, Asians or Americans. It is thin but there is plenty of it and it bends / curls all directions.

When I moved here I was lucky enough to hear through a friend that there is a Finnish hairdresser in Springs, Mikko. Here some people might wonder, why on earth would I drive all the way to Springs for hair cut (it means about 45 - 60 min drive one way). I do it gladly when I know that my hair is cut by someone who know exactly how to cut it. My mother was hard core professional hair dresser and taught me to be picky about my hair. Plus now the hair cut is not just a hair cut, it gives a chance to speak Finnish and compare experiences in US. Mikko has lived here 12 years and has given me lot of good tips along the way.

Xylitol Chewing Gum

Having grown up in environment, where xylitol is part of daily life since child and importance of dental care starts from early years.

It was a relief to notice that Americans have actually gotten away from the sugar chewing gums and more sugar free chewing gum exists, which have xylitol. One can find main brands in any grocery store. My issue with some of main stream brands was though that I got some kind of allergic reaction.

After searching for a while I noticed that health food stores sell xylitol products, which do not cause any reactions. One good one is Spry, several flavors and available in most health food stores, as well as online.

I still remember when living in Singapore, where chewing gum in general is banned from being sold commercially. I had to "smuggle"boxes of chewing gum from each trip to Finland. That lead often to interesting discussions with customs. "Mam, you are certain that these 10 boxes of chewing gum are for your personal use only?" Luckily each time I was able to convince them that I really am "addicted to xylitol chewing gum".

Rye Bread

I have not found anything even close to my favorite rye bread, Reissumies. Yet there are luckily good selection of German rye breads (Thanks to all the German communities in town...Danke!!!).

Best places to find rye bread, which actually is rye bread (several US produces claim something to be rye bread, yet rye is the last ingredient on the list):

- Fun fact for those who did not know it from before, the ingredients are listed in the descending order of how much of that ingredient is in the product -

Phoenicia has good selection of German rye bread and dried rye bread (näkkileipä in Finnish).

Following chains have generally good selections:

Trader Joe's

Specs

Whole Foods

Ikea

But like said, one cannot get the Finnish rye bread like bread. Thus I decided to bake Finnish Archipelago bread. In Finland this would be nothing no big news. Here getting all the ingredients together was the most exhausting part. Kroger, Whole Foods and Central Market have good quality rye flour. The trickies one was finding malted rye and it took us few weeks to find a place....as we had to go to a hobby beer brewing shop to get it :)
Defalgo's has German malted rye, which is very close to Finnish malted rye.

I found this recipe, which helped me to find local equivalent to the ingredients, which one would use in Finland: Finnish Archipelago Bread

Those living Houston, happy to make some extra ones in my lil' home bakery when ever I bake, if I know that there would be demand for some.

Cheese

Finnish Edam cheese is not yet available here but Valio does have a daughter company in US, Finlandia Cheese.

One can find Finlandia's cheese in most of the chains listed above. Houston being international hub, decent cheese selections are available in most stores (also at HEB, Fiesta and Walmart). In most places cheese costs as much as it does in Finland...unfortunately.

Maybe Finlandia would start producing Edam if they get enough requests.

For many foreigners Finnish Edam may, with its taste, reflect the nature of most Finns, silent and does not say much. But that cheese goes with anything :)

So far the only way to get Edam cheese is to fill the suitcase with Valio Edam and stock them in the freezer. If I only would not forget the cheese pile to my brother's fridge....which happened during last trip. FOUR kilos of Edam cheese, which I forgot to pack when heading to airport in the crack of dawn.

Finnish Goodies

I have found Panda liquorice in Fiesta.

World Market has Haribo selections and other salmiak (salty liquorice) similar products. My advice is though to stay away though from the Dutch Salty Liquorice products....they are nothing but salt.

Fazer chocolate.... there would be huge market for it here. Fazer chocolate is refreshingly different compared to any US, Belgian, German or Swiss chocolate. It is not as thick and the different flavors are yammi. Right now only places one can get them here are internet stores:

Willy's Products

Suomikauppa

FinnStyle

Some of those stores run out the best products fast and prices reflect that you are buying luxury import goods. But definitely worth buying!!! It takes your tongue with it (Finnish saying), so smooth and yammi.

We were lucky to get from ex-project colleagues at Fazer 16 kilos of chocolate for our wedding, as their wedding present to us. The whole 16 kilos was eaten too! What stayed over from wedding disappeared during mid-summer with the core family. The whole American side of the family fell in love with Fazer chocolates :)

Vihi vihi vihi and greetings to family and friends back in Finland or who have access to Reissumies rye bread and Fazer Chocolate...do not hesitate if you ever want to surprise me with a survival package ;))))

Happy to hear from the other Finns in Houston if there are some other good places to get our comfort foods.