The Republic of Finland

[Warren]

My dad's going on a business trip to Helsinki, Finland in January, and I'm horribly jealous. Yeah, most people don't dream of going to Finland, but it's one of those beautiful places (that's still very economical) that no one really knows about...except MZGuy. My dad got a travel book on Finland, and I read some of it. It says that Finns are extremely quiet and are depressed during the winter, but during the summer, they go wild with happiness and partying. They had a part in the book about a visitor, and he said that during his 6 month stay, the only thing his Finnish roommate said to him was that it was his turn to buy toilet paper. Is this really that true MZGuy? I mean, I can see that if it's -10 Celsius out, that no one's going to stop on the street and talk, it was -15 Celsius (4 Fahrenheit, the coldest so far this winter) here in Massachusetts today. I guess the reason for depression is the lack of sunlight. Finland, it just sounds so cool, and who would ever think a country no one really knows about would have the world's best wireless cellphone network? And of course hot Finnish blonds .

[NinthOption]

Surfin' ROF Weehoo...

yup scandinivia in general kicks ass. I wouldn't want to live there(a bit too commie for me), but to go, Hot DAMN.

Wait I just thought about my dream job. Finnish Airways male flight attendent. All you'd have to do is dye your hair blond speak in a finnish accent(everyone there speaks english anyways), and mack out with the babes, OH YEAH. Its not like the finny's actually eat shit on flights.

[PDAFantast]

Believe me, you DON'T want to go to Finland.

[NinthOption]

Oh is there some Sweede-Finnish rivalry going down?
I knew it!

[Warren]

[PDAFantast]

There's not rivalry between Swedes and Finnish apart from:

1. Ice hockey. Both parties think they're no.1 in the world and both parties get pissed off when the other one wins in those cases Sweden-Finland eventually meet.

2. Finnish despise Swedes. Mostly because there are Finland-Swedes living in Finland (Linus Torvalds is one of them, btw).

3. Finnish think that all male Swedes are gay. Huge stereotype ofcourse, but widely spread. It's no problem though, because...

4. Swedes think that Finnish are all drunks, sitting in their fancy sauna and bathing all day long.

5. Swedes think that Finnish is a uncomparably hard and ugly language... the opposite applies too, though.

All of this doesn't stop the Swedes taking the Helsinki ferry every weekend and get stoned and heavily drunk, which ofcourse, are joined by Finnish that actually take the Stockholm ferry (same boat) to do exactly the same thing

After all, what unites us is sex and alcohol

That's a rundown of the feelings around here.
My own experience ( and only one) with Finland has been a fine for 300 mark for "disturbing the peace" at 5 AM on one of the above mentioned ferry trips. Not only I had to pay the cash, but I had the honour to accompany the nice Helsinki police in their car to inspect their quarters. And no, I wasn't drunk

[NinthOption]

[MZGuy]

[draklava]

I thought the Canadians were the best hockey players?

[Warren]

I thought Russians were? Well, it's mainly Sweden, Finland, Russia, and many Canada.

My history teacher subbed in French today, and he was asking a million questions to the German exchange student. She doesn't really know much about Germany though...she lives in Frankfurt, she said that drunk driving is bad in the Germany, and that people go around completely drunk all the time. She didn't know about skinheads though, she was like "umm, no, I don't know". She doesn't speak much German (we think she may not even be fluent in it!), not much English, not much French, not much of anything! She looks Turkish though... Oh well, I don't know what I'm getting at. Finland, I just love all countries that end in -land, Finland, Switzerland, Ireland and Scotland (not as good though as the others), Swaziland (coolest, period.), umm, I think that's it. FINLAND! I'll have to visit some time...in the summer .

[draklava]

The Czech's are pretty bad ass at hockey too... I guess every country is good at something from one time or another. Like the US took the gold in hockey in the 80 olympics and the center of the world used to be Rome and now it's Finland!

Ok maybe not on that last bit but you never know - seems like the world is changing quicker than we realize

[Cameron]

[James S]

[Mike Wagstaff]

Yep, it looked beautiful... although it's hard to tell what was computer-generated/enhanced and what wasn't. I can also recommend the Scottish Highlands as being rather nice scenery-wise.

[David Horn]

Dartmoor!