Payment method cocktail in US

Local payment method and banking activities are a cocktail of checks, cash, credit cards, drive-through banking and paypal.

When I moved over  here, I moved with my habit of never having cash in my wallet. As there had been no reason for it, one can pay by card anywhere in Finland. If needed ATM is normally close by or one can ask for cash in store, which is then charged to the card. Using checks is something my mother's generation did in Finland but since then a vanished payment method. Any banking matters can be pretty much taken care through internet, even applying for a loan or sending an international transfer.

My husband has gotten good chuckle several times about me still not knowing the habit of carrying cash. Some old habits die hard :) Luckily so far we did not have to ever stay washing dishes or cleaning the taxi (or something similar) to be able to settle the bill. In the worst case, few times I have sent the check by mail afterwards for the service or goods.

Yes, checks are still in use here. I would not call it an active payment method but they are used occasionally. Trend is decreasing though. It was a humorous moment though when I realized that check is still in use. Had a flashback of early childhood memories from the time my mother would pay by check something.

Credit card is pretty much the thing here as a payment method.  For one it offers in general good security against fraud or theft. That requires of course that one can get a credit card. For a foreigner it means in most cases that one has to live first 6 months in the country and have account history for the same period. In some cases banks approve the application due to employer's reference or for a low credit limit and  with a slightly higher interest rate. One good banks to start accumulating the credit history is People's Trust FCU bank. They give credit card with low credit limit also to foreigners without prior 6 month credit record and they do not try to rip one off. There are several places, who are more than keen to smack huge interest rate to the credit card.

Having credit history plays a big role here. It impacts in the future what kind of credit offers one gets. Meaning what kind of interest rate or credit limit one will get, that depends on the credit score. Credit score is totally based on the credit history and represents the creditworthiness of the person. The higher the number, the better. Means that before taking a loan, one should have had a credit card for a while and pay pretty much everything with it to accumulate transactions to contribute to the credit score.

Making international transfer requires going to the bank in person at most banks. Normally it gets taken care though rather fast and with pleasant customer service. So, all together the customer experience is made worth showing up your face in the bank. Also, when keeping in mind that in US banks need for security reasons follow the monetary flows, I do not feel annoyed visiting the bank occasionally for that.

Internet banking services are growing but I think it will take some more years till they reach e.g. the level of what internet banking offers in Finland. Security plays a whole different role here. By that I do not mean just data security for the customers but banks are keen to secure their side of business in the transactions and make sure that what ever transactions are done, one is not giving loop holes for illegal transactions. As at the end the bank would carry at least partial responsibility.

Couple of neat services that are actively in use here and were new to me: drive-through bank and paypal.

One can get most of the regular banking activities done at the drive-through, even doing a deposit of a check. Since one goes to most places by car here, drive-through service can be applied pretty much to anything :)

Paypal is also widely in use, which is really handy. Lot of the 2nd hand trading takes place nowadays in the internet and paypal is used often as a payment method related to those transactions. Even buying from one person company (e.g. Etsy) / service provider is done often via paypal. It makes trading so easy! Also, again security is a great bonus in this case. One does not need to be surrendering the credit card details in such situation.

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.

House hunting and selling in Houston

Depending on country, era and target...hunting style is always unique. That applies also to house hunting.

The Finnish style of reading the Sunday newspaper and checking which of the houses are having open house or browsing the main national pages for available rentals or property for sale and then going either for open house or agreeing a showing time with realtor (who represents the seller). The buyer would never have separately a realtor and the buyer has to do whole lot of the work by themselves.
Often it means that someone, who the buyer knows and who has more experience in buying a house e.g. father, brother or brothers best friend, will come and check the place before the final decision.
If you get lucky the seller is so advanced that they have ordered already the objective house inspection and have the report to show when one is viewing the place. This is though a luxury and happens once every blue moon.

After I returned to Finland in 2007, after 12 years abroad...I was dying to get my OWN place. I was on final assignment in Asia-Pacific, 3 months non-stop. I had sent though all my belongings already to Finland from Belgium to wait for my arrival. Parallel I had browsed the internet page with all the properties for sale and had daily notification activated for the houses I considered as suitable candidates. After arrival I went to see 2 houses and bought the latter one. I moved in 1.5 weeks after I arrived back to Finland...chop chop chop.

How is the whole house hunt in US then? Below some notes from my experiences in 2014, when we were momentarily looking for a house:
Well, first of all, you normally find a hunting buddy i.e. real estate agent to present yourself and help you to find & see the places you consider as possible candidates. Apparently only foreigners go see the places without their own realtor and that gets the local realtor professionals always wonder "why would anyone do that?"
Houston has a great real estate page HAR.com, where all properties for sale and rentals are listed.

I must say, I do like the US way - having your own realtor, especially as foreigner, has been a great help.
First one meets to discuss what are the things we would be after. Where we noticed with my husband that what he wants and what I want....well, we were still in different worlds back then, apart from few foundational things.
Hubby - city living, space, modern & simple style
Me - garden, space, modern & simple style, close to park or outdoor opportunities
--> Comment of the current status: Our preferences are slowly getting more common ground after some grinding time together and with the change of becoming 3 in the near future :)

We drove few weekends on our own to check the open houses in the city. Pretty fast we realized that our need for big rooms, modern style and space vs city living....beaucoup bucks.

Slowly my husband gave in, little by little, towards the idea of living in the suburbs.
Once we had bit more idea of what we want we prepared a list to to the realtor. Based on that he suggested bunch of places to see. We pre-checked the list and took out the ones, which we immediately "No Way".
That sounds all nice and easy, doesn't it? If it only was so easy.
The photos and how the representation is done here...that is vicious. The first few times we went to check the houses. Based on the photos and adds I had already the pre-hype: "house XYZ will be our new home! It looked perfect for us!"

Only to find out on-site that e.g. rooms were way smaller than what was the feeling from the photos. Also most of the time they, intentionally, do not attach the picture of the floor plan. So, the only way to get grasp of that...is to go and see the place.
There have been cases were we all thought that we found the dream place, walked in to find that there was water damage, which clearly had brewing time on the floor / ceiling.

In Finland, one has to do more work by oneself but the pictures are closer to reality, plus there is nearly always the floor plan in the internet with the square meters (square footage) for each room. Here you only see photos but will not have the information of the layout or the size of the rooms.

Which sometimes leads to what was my biggest burden: the emotional ups and downs and to remind oneself that you cannot trust anything you see in the internet. Here apparently too many realtors ensure that photoshopping and mega wide lens photos are taken to make the place look better.

Which is why at some point I needed a break from it. I could not deal traveling whole week for work, come back Thursday late evening. Friday work and get the household in shape, during weekend go for house hunting ...ending up emotionally totally deflated and Monday at 5 am head to the airport again.

After several weeks of break we went again one weekend. I got such headache during the house hunt, not sure if it was from hope vs preparing myself for disappointment. So it happened that the last house, which my husband had forgotten to send in the prep list to my e-mail. Means, I had no expectations, had not seen any photos or details of the house.
We walked in....and yes, it needs work but it was the first house, where me and my husband could agree on. We both had positive thoughts about seeing us living there. But he house was wayyyyy overpriced and at the end our level vs the level, what the owners expected to get were too far apart.

After that experience I was just not into it...spending the weekend while driving around looking for places with a realtor, who was scolding us each time that we had not even limited our area to a specific one. That was not what I wanted after long work week. I mean, how could we we limit if we first wanted to get the feel of what all is out there? There is the great Finnish saying: Do not buy pig in a sack. Means that one should be aware of what one gets before agreeing to buy anything. In this case to get to that state, it will not happen over night.

Especially when here you are not just buying a house. You a buying the neighborhood. That means that you need to check the neighborhood and their reputation. You need to check the schools in the area and their scoring, etc. etc. You should check the "coms" aka comparison data for the past 6 months to see if the current sales value is in line. But you need to see at the same how the market has changed, whether prices have gone up, stayed the same or gone down. All of that will impact to how bank will value the property and how that property's value may develop in the future. There is lot of investigation work that goes into understanding the ins-and-the-outs of the potential candidate house before making a decision or making an offer.

So, we decided to shift the focus first on selling our place and then see what comes. We agreed that even renting a place in between would be an option. Would help us to get more ideas of the different areas. Before that came holiday season and we took a break from everything :)

How do you sell your apartment/house in Houston?
For selling the place, which we finally decided to get rolling during first quarter of 2015 we hired a realtor, who is THE expert for downtown real estate. After meeting him my husband and myself really felt good about the coming co-operation. And we were so right!
Terry Stanfield is THE guy to contact if you are planning to sell or buy in downtown Houston.

He got our place photographed and I was pleasantly surprised that his team took photos, which truly represented our place and were very realistic. The photos did not make the rooms look bigger or more pretty. We kept our own furniture for the showings. There is an option here that you can stage your place. Which means that realtor helps to rent furniture to the place to help to create better vision for the buyers. Our combined furniture was modern and so was our place, so it was a good match. We just decluttered the place a little...and otherwise it was ready to sell.

We decided to allow automatically showings on any weekday during our office hours. There is a centralized realtor booking service, where realtors can book showings. With our automatic allowance it means that as long as the showing fell within the category we had set, we would get only text message sharing that there will be showing (with details of the time). During weekends we would get a call from the centralized booking team to ask if they can book showing for a certain time, before confirming it to the potential buyer's realtor. The other neat thing is that they use key boxes i.e. electronic lock boxes. The selling real estate agent puts the apartment key into that and when the centralized booking team confirms the showing, they send the electronic code to the showing agent (i.e. potential buyer's agent). He/she has usually a remote, which adopts the code and is able to open the lock box. Safe and no hassle with the key.

3 months and 3 offers later, we got it sold exactly to the price we had set as the expectation price. This was mixture of my husband's careful background work in forming realistic understanding of current price level for similar lofts and Terry's, our realtor's, guidance.
Terry and his team did excellent job. One of the team members joined the showing (even if it is not mandatory) when they saw from the booking information that realtor, who has booked the showing, was not from downtown. That way they were able to really give the insights to the building's history and idea about the downtown lifestyle.

Between getting the offer, back & fort price / moving time negotiation, accepting the offer and finally doing the "closing" i.e. handing over the property and in return getting the payment for it...it may weeks easily few weeks or more. As after the offer is accepted final inspection is done. Here inspectors tend to aim to get some money back for the buyers. Means that some of them list even the most irrelevant things and it is depending on the buyer, whether they point that out or not. In our case we had just refreshed the place, changed flooring to both bedrooms and painted the walls. So, very little was pointed out in the previous offer we got. We had fixed those, so for the final offer we got there was nothing standing out from the inspection.
After that the buyer's bank (if they choose to take a loan) will do property evaluation, including the whole building or house / area / apartment / etc. This will dictate how the bank will value the property and what kind of loan offer the bank will make to the buyer.

Also, here the interest rate you get is not the same for everyone. It depends on your credit history. If you have "accrued" good credit history, which results to good score. In that case you get better interest rate than if you have either no previous credit history or low score.
Just in comparison - in Finland interest rate is set by bank and is valid for all. Bank does background check and decides whether they give you the loan or not, but interest rate is the one, which the bank has generally listed at the time.

The sale of our apartment was taken care so smoothly by Terry and his team, that very little was left for us to do, other than moving out in agreed time frame. We live now on west side of Houston in a rental, exploring different area and at some point we will start looking for our house. Next time lot wiser than last time, when we were house hunting and we have a great contact now to ask for reference to find someone, who is a match for us showing some potential houses. I got my faith back, thanks to Terry, that selling / buying a house or an apartment can be a pleasant experience, even in Houston.
Right now, we are just gonna relax and enjoy Houston from different perspective! :)

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.

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.