The People

Yesterday I walked the 40 minutes from home into the city centre to do some shopping and explore a little. This gave me plenty of time to reflect upon the Finns themselves. I have drawn 3 main categories the people I could see would fit into:

• Metal heads, Goths or similar - there were a vast number of teenagers with badly dyed black or bright hair in black clothes with big boots. Took me back to my more Gothic days and I enjoyed visiting Underground, a punky shop full of black clothes
• Nordic Walkers/ athletic types - these are people who go out trussed up like their on the slopes and 'power walk' with those two sticks skiers use to help them move and change direction. This is a stereotype I was told about and it's amazing how many there were out on a hot day, as if they were in the depths of winter. The athletic types were all the joggers who passed me, trying to look hardcore with their little MP3 players clutched in one hand and their clenched faces. 
• Stylish well dressed snooty people - like the Swedes you see on TV there were loads of people who could only be described as well dressed - let us not forget how expensive Finnish produce is and the amount of stuff that must be designer is pretty high. These people also had that snooty air of being rich and successful. I chatted with my host mum about the British class system recently, and she said that if you earn a lot of money regardless of your background, you automatically become revered and on level with the upper classes or upper middle classes in the UK.

I should also mention the sheer number of people on bicycles of all ages. There is a bridge you cross to get into Jyväskylä and it was full of joggers and people on bikes. Oh and the occasional punk rocker dude with a blank expression on his face.


From where I live you have to walk a good distance to get anywhere apart from the local park and it gave me a good opportunity to observe the landscape. I passed a park exclusively for dogs - just a quick side note here. No cats have I seen here, not one. Loads of people walking their dogs and these are almost always little dogs like pugs. Handbag pooches. I saw a greyhound and a mini greyhound plus what looked like a rather Lappish hound but mostly little dogs. Very odd - and a fair few roads with massive pavements and two zebra crossings on one road. But you know you're not in England because aside from all the space and general cleanliness, there is plenty of forest creeping in at the edges. As you get over the bridge and are still buzzing from the breath-taking view, you can walk right along the edge of a beautiful lake (yes the one you just crossed). The sun was shining, making the water sparkle and there were loads of boats just waiting, tethered along little wooden jetties. It was gorgeous.