Country of Contradictions

Finland is such a fascinating country, they are so progressive and on top of things in certain areas, but in other areas not at all. I was talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago and they asked me if I’d ever seen someone that was overweight in Finland and at the time I couldn’t think of a single occassion where I had and since we talked about it have been actively looking out for it and have not seen a single pesron who is overweight. Everyone here eats very well, fast food and junk food is all taxed very highly, they are only allowed a certain amount of sugar in products, so my housemate was telling me that the sugary cereal he gets as a treat back in the UK, that same cereal here tastes almost healthy here. They all exercise a lot and walk everywhere, even when it’s -25 there are still people riding their bikes everywhere, even if they are wearing a huge ski mask to do so. Just last night I was at the bus stop and spotted some runners, once they got to the traffic lights and had to wait, without skipping a beat they both just started jumping up and down doing starjumps until the lights changed (people here are also very law abiding, so would never J-walk). Only 15% of their population is considered overweight, where as in Australia 63%.
So in terms of health and fitness, they’re leaps and miles above other countries. But then when it comes to things like alcohol, gambling, and caffeine, it’s a totally different story. This post has become a bit of just googling lots of statistics, so bare with, have to make sure before I make big claims about how a country is, that it’s actually backed up with something other then my own assumptions. So yeah, for gambling Finland comes in at #3 for countries with the worst gambling problem, but guess who sits at #1 leaps and bounds above the rest of the world? Old mate Australia, but at least in Australia we don’t have slot machines at the end of every single supermarket checkout…Although here every second ad on the television is also not about gambling, so balances out I guess. Finland comes in at #5 for most coffee addicted country, Australia and their hipster cafes don’t even make the top 10 #poorform. Alcohol consumption is not as high as I expected, around #15, and actually only a few spots above Australia. Anyway, there are your fun facts for the day! I find it strange though that a country is so switched on with things like health and fitness, but then so addicted to things like caffeine and gambling, but anyway, nobodies perfect!

My latest form of procrastinating is travel planning! The other night when I was meant to be doing an assignment, it very quickly became a night of planning future trips! I am going to Lapland next week for 5 days with some friends, it’s about 11 hours by train north of Helsinki in Rovaniemi AKA santa clauses village. We are staying in such a cute little cottage in the middle of a forest by a lake that we found on airbnb. It has a sauna and fireplace, so looking forward to a nice relaxing trip, and hopefully we will get to see the Northern lights, TBH that is a very large part of why we are venturing so far north in the middle of winter!

I also just booked a one way ticket to Budapest for mid March because I have 2 weeks off, which I can probably extend out to 3 weeks if I miss a class at either end and the flight was only 39 Euros, so super cheap! I’m not sure where I’ll go yet on that trip, depends a lot on budget, but I don’t like to have too much of a solid plan, more fun to just plan as I go once I am there, although do need to book a return flight home, so will end up most likely in Croatia or Italy by the end and I also want to go to Salzburg so I can go on the Sound of Music Tour! But we shall see! Oh and I applied to volunteer at this music festival in Iceland over the summer solstice in June and I got accepted! All my volunteering will be before the festival begins, I am an “art coordintor” so from what it sounds like I get to just paint and decorate things and then I get a free ticket for the festival! Radiohead is playing, along with lots of other bands, so should be fun! Apparently over their summer solstice, the sun never actually sets properly, so should make up for all the sun I haven’t been seeing since I arrived here!

There’s nothing else so exciting happening, just going to uni and hanging out with friends mostly, pretty standard! One of my housemates has moved out, so we are getting some new dude next week….but yeah! That’s really all for now, catcha later!