10 random things I didn’t expect to find in Finland

by Emma Basc (Australia)

I didn't expect to find Australia

1. All the door open the opposite way to at home. I realise how stupid that sounds. Surely which direction a door opens depends what side you are standing on? At home a door opens into the room you are going to enter, so if you are going into a bedroom or a bathroom the door swings into the room. In Finland the doors swing into the hallway which is bad enough when you are just with your family and you open a door and smack someone with it. It is oh so much worse when you are leaving a public toilet and nearly take out a random stranger! This was pretty scary when I was in the boiler room (an amazing room that is about 50℃ and where we have been hanging out snow gear, it dries in minutes). I got stuck in there in thermal gear and could not get the door to open. I started to panic (because 50 degrees for a minute or two when you come out of the snow is lovely but any longer than that is not fun!) and worry no one would hear me banging on the door. Luckily, I banged so hard it pushed the door outward and I remembered the door opens out of the room not into it. Phew. This did not happen once. I got ‘stuck’ in that room multiple times, in fact almost every time I went in there. 2. It’s not only doors that open opposite ways, toilets flush opposite as well. Not the whole clockwise/anticlockwise thing, I’ll be honest I have no idea what direction the water goes. No, instead of pushing the flush you have to pull it up! 3. There are bidet hoses in all toilets. This is a bit funny because when we first arrived in the house where we are staying, one of the bathrooms doesn’t have a showerhead, just the cubicle where the shower should be. My mum thought the bidet hose was the handheld shower head. The head is the size of a 10c piece. It’s going to take a long time to shower with that! 4. Finland is COLD! It was minus 28 on our last night. The houses, shops and restaurants are HOT! Dressing in layers is the only solution to stave off hyperthermia or heat exhaustion. In the house I am living in only long johns and a singlet and when it’s time to go out I lay out all of the clothes. We call a taxi and then quickly pull on regular trousers, snow trousers, regular socks, thermal socks and snow boots. That’s about all I could manage before over heating so I’d pull on a thermal top as I walked outside, then add the thermal jumper, snow jacket, scarf, and beanie and hope I could get them on fast enough before I lost feeling in my hands and could lastly pull on my gloves! 5. Seriously low temperatures seem to have the same effect as dermabrasion. My face is red raw but it’s oh so soft! 6. Balaclavas are your friend! 7. Sledging is darn hard work (My abs are seriously unimpressed!) 8. The eternal gloves vs mittens debate: Gloves offer more dexterity, but mittens keep you warmer. Your fingers snuggle together and share body heat in a warm little sleeping bag. 9. Natures glitter There is a phenomenon where the air glistens. We got to experience that. Basically, there is ice in the air and when light catches it, it glistens. So beautiful, natures glitter! When the car headlights hit it, it sends up massive beam of light up into the sky, sort of like a reverse alien invasion. 10. Snapping cold In Finland they have what is called ‘snapping cold’ basically it gets so cold that the water in the trees freezes, when water freezes it expands so the branches of the trees make cracking and popping noises. Out in a forest in the middle of no where our guide told us if we heard ‘snapping or popping noises don’t be alarmed, it’s just the trees...’ I finished the sentence for her ‘...about to explode, I feel so much better now!’