Good Things Finland

As with all good things, our trip came to an end and so must the blogs about it. So, with fond farewell to Finland, here are some things we love about it . . . 

Mass transit (Jon had me in all the pictures that were memories of when I lived there). Not unique to Finland, but we made good use of it and it was so nice not to have to stress about driving! . . . 

Stockmanns (to be posh, say it with a Valley Girl accent "Stocka"), where at a "dear" price, you can get all sorts of goodies (we never came out of there empty handed, as you can see). . . 
One of the things I remembered most about Stocka, was pear ice cream, which they still have. WHY don't we have more pear things here?!  I loved that Jon's love of it was almost more than mine! (This is such an attractive picture) . . . 
This might just look like a rock by some apartment buildings . . . actually it is, BUT there are hand holds on there for getting a little rock climbing in while you wait for your bus (which we were) . . . 
AAAAHHHhhhhhh . . . the Arabia Factory Outlet . . . where you can find all the gorgeous Finnish designs at a discount price. To quote Jarna, "the Finnish economy thanks us" . . .
I just love seeing a known book in another language and even different pictures. Collin thought it was GREAT . . .
Ok, I'm not a big candy person. But I guess because when we lived here I was 14 and had a huge sweet tooth, a lot of my memories are of the candy and gum. Let's just say that my 14 year-old sweet tooth came out of hiding with a vengeance! We came home with about 20 pounds of Fazer chocolates and Jenkki (xylitol sweetened gum, with flavors like pear and salt licorice) products. Our fav? Fazer blue (milk choc.) with licorice bits in it and the Functional Pastilles (just breath mints but I love the English translation).
Licorice ice cream. Finland is a licorice lovers dream . . . It's also a lactose intolerant persons dream -  you can find everything in "low lactose", including all ice cream flavors . . . 
AAAAaahhhhh . . . Aarikka . . . even their store signs were pretty. Again, the Finnish economy thanks us . . . 
For a little Finnish trivia, there are 5.2 million Finns and over 2 million Saunas (pronounced sow-nah). Usually apartment buildings have a sauna in the basement and every "flat" has its scheduled sauna time. Jarna has a town house, so they had their very own sauna which we used almost every night. . . 
Jon wants to build one in our house . . . In Houston . . . 
Unfortunately some of the things we love are some that I can't share:

The tastes of Finland: chewy black bread, salt licorice, pear, berries. 

The sound of Finnish being spoken. I think it's beautiful!

The smells of Finland: coffee, forest, freshness . . . 

We can't wait to go there again . . .