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Escapades: A Trip to Finland
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Tervetuloa ! Welcome !

Hello guys, this is my first post in this blog. My name is Maureen, and I am a designer in Edward Suhadi Productions. Today, I want to share my recent travel adventure to the country of thousand lakes and island, Finland.
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Finland is one of the Nordic country in Europe, and it’s still, somehow uncommon for us Indonesians. I’ve found that not too many Indonesian people are interested going there, maybe because it’s so far-far away.

Fun fact: Believe it or not, not all travel agencies here in Indonesia know exactly where Finland is… I’ve asked some travel agencies to get some information and some of them don’t even know it’s in Europe.

I traveled alone with three transits in between, with the end point Helsinki, the capital of Finland. This was the first time ever in my life I traveled alone to a really far place, so it’s a new experience for me. I was scared, thrilled, happy and excited at the same time.

Arrived after a painful 15 hours flight and found from my plane window that Helsinki have more trees and greenery than buildings.

The Finns (Finnish people) really love nature and preserve their nature so nicely; buildings there are not too tall, and you can see trees everywhere you go. Parks and lakes scattered everywhere in the city; there’s a lot open-air museums and untouched-natural islands. The Finns love to hang out in nature, even if it’s just walking in the park.

The city itself is really modern, although it might not look so because almost all of the buildings still preserve their traditional look.

In Helsinki, the transportation system that interest me most are The Metro (underground trains). I found it interesting to go to the stations and see various people doing their business.

Museums are abundant, one of the famous open-air museums is the Seurasaari (saari means island). It’s an island full of many old traditional Finnish farm buildings. Beaches surround the island, although don’t imagine them like the ones in Indonesia, it’s more like stony than sandy. The water? Well, it’s warm for the Finnish standard but for me, it’s really icy-cold even in the summer. Hietaniemi beach is the popular beach here, and it’s really full of people in summer time. Finland have a really long winter, so no wonder why they love summer season a lot there.


I dropped by the Sibelius monument, dedicated to Sibelius the famous composer from Finland. The monument is made from strange looking steel pipes that seems like they’re floatingin the air. Here’s a picture taken from below the pipes:

The second big city after Helsinki is Tampere. There I visited Finland’s famous cartoon icon museum, The Moomins. It’s the most popular icon in here for children even adults. It’s so popular that they made the island’s theme: The Moominland in Naantali.

Fun fact: The Moomins are not hippos, they’re trolls.

Oh, by the way if you visit Tampere, don’t forget to try their local delicacy the mustamakkara (Finnish blood sausage).

For this journey, I’m so lucky to be invited to stay in the Finnish traditional farmhouse in Kihniö by the Alkkiomäki’s family. Nowadays not many Finns live in this kinda traditional farmhouse anymore, they choose to live in the more modern houses.

Fun fact: If you wonder where does the term ‘sauna’ come (where you get inside a really hot-wooden-room, usually in a gym or spa in Indonesia) well, you can trace it backto the Finns. Sauna (and the word itself) originally came from Finland and it’s common there to have sauna room inside the house.

Well that’s just a little story I can share with you guys for now, it’ll took forever to describe how beautiful this country is. The best way to get it of course by paying them a visit and experience it yourself.

Hauskaa päivän jatkoa! Have a nice day!
Maureen

PS: thanks to the Alkkiomäki’s family who invited me and let me stayed and bother them so much. Kiitos! 😀