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! :)

Houston Health Care Mecca part II - Experiencing the hospital in the American way

Now that I am on sick leave and in strict bed rest, I will have time to finish all the blog drafts I have have stored for the day when I have time :)
But first, let me share with you how I got to this point. I will spare you from details but my very first hospital experience ever is definitely worth sharing. As it was great!

I am having the private project called pregnancy in progress. The ride has been bit bumpy but more of that, and pregnancy, in my other blog I will start writing (LINK).

So few weeks back my project manager's mind & body was in the mode of trying to accelerate things. In project environment any kind of acceleration is good and I am professionally known to turn the toughest projects around and bring them to goal in schedule. Which often means motivating the team to push hard and find the means to accelerate where ever possible. But as everyone with common sense knows, acceleration does not work well for pregnancies. Which meant that my doctor, Dr Michael Piegari, wanted to check me in to the hospital for expert team check and second opinion on what the options are to secure the rest of the pregnancy.

I thought I was going just for a quick check to the Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital but little did I know. I was informed while waiting for my doctors orders to have reached the hospital that at minimum I would stay over the night.

I was brought to my room....Yes, I got my very own room!
I have not been myself in hospital ever before but have visited plenty of friends and family in Finnish hospitals. Unless you are in the intense care unit, you normally do not get your own room. In the best case you are sharing it with 8 - 10 people. Which can be good from social perspective but in such cases you also share the tv and do not really have much control of the noise level. So, getting my own room was surprising me totally.

I got settled to my hospital gown and to my bed, which felt comfy enough. My doctor came to check that everything is okay with me and guided me little bit about the expert team and their way of working. Again, having a doctor that actually shows that he cares for his patients...priceless! After the talks with him I was pretty much in the relax mode, ready to experience my very first time in the hospital.

Next scene could have been directly from the Dr House tv series. I got the expert team and all the residents (medical students) taking over my room and surrounding my bed. There were 7 of them in total, which made me smile. As I was just thinking:"If there are those seven plus my doctor taking care of getting my body out of the acceleration mode....yeah, it will well taken care of." Just like in Dr House they asked all kinds of questions and I explained what I think had happened and what I had sensed.

What I liked about this whole thing was that everyone was very clear in communication. Things were explained thoroughly, I was given the understanding of the options and why something was considered a better option than another. I was asked 100 times if I had any questions, nobody was in a rush to get out of my room. All that left me pretty much with no other choice than relax and take it easy.

I got really funny reaction from the expert team 2 days later, when they asked if all is okay and I have been taken care by the nurses and gotten food. I shared that on top of everything else, I was excited that one can order the meals from a room service and the food was actually good. The look on their face was worth seeing. I could see that one of them was checking if I was still having any of the Magnesium Sulfate drops coming through the IV (makes you super relaxed) or I really coherently meant what I said. I mean...room service in a hospital! It is a small thing but makes the experience again so much more personalized.

Some of my friends in Europe commented, when I shared with them about where I had been past few days:"Oh, you must have been so stressed and in panic about having to go to hospital!"
Yes, had I been anywhere else than in Houston, where I was in one of the leading hospitals for risk pregnancies...I sure would have. But like said, this experience was very positive. The staff around me (my doctor, the hospital's expert team, the nurses) were all very professional and treated me like a human. The night nurse, while starting the medication during the first night and needing to monitor for the rest of the shift gave great advice on how to prepare to tolerate the pain during labor without extra medication. She was definitely making me feel like I was in good hands and I did not mind getting injection at 1 am or staying awake for monitoring.

Two weeks later...I am spending my days on the couch or in bed but so far with success. The body has gotten off from the acceleration mode. I take each day with gratitude, as that is one day more for the baby to "bake in the oven" and increasing the chance for a good start.

Since this pregnancy was determined to be a bumpy ride in a very literal meaning, I sure am happy to go through it in Houston. Surrounded by the top hospital and medical experts. As my doctor put it well: "Taking care of the mother is still easier, even in risk situations. As adult body gives more time to react. Taking care of premature infant or infant at risk....then it is down to handful of minutes to react and take the right actions."

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.