Sunday, March 28, 2010

Finnish Shopping Adventures

Hi all.
Things are really starting to look up. We found a couple of grocery stores and the IKEA, so HURRAY for us!!!!!!!!!!! The good thing is that all Finnish people know how to speak English. The bad news is that all the food in the grocery store is in Finnish. DOH! We've managed to get by, but here are some of my observations so far:
- every single person born in Finland has blonde hair. If they don't, they were immigrated.
- the traffic light turns orange right before it turns green, as if to tell you that it's coming so that you can start revving your engines.
- there are approximately 40 different types of meatballs and sausages that you can purchase at the grocery store. Again, the labels are in Finnish so I'll let you know tomorrow how that turned out...
- the sidewalks are HUGE and very well lit. Europeans apparently take care of their pedestrians, unlike Canada who refuses to make them wide enough for strollers let alone actually light them so that people can use them past 6pm.
- you can't recycle in Finland. Apparently you can take some bottles to IKEA and some large grocery stores to drop them off in bins, otherwise everything goes in the garbage. Everybody leaves large garbage containers at the end of their driveway - I am unsure yet when exactly somebody comes to empty them.

Things that I miss so far....
- My family
- My bed
- President's Choice white cheddar macaroni

On another note, we went to IKEA today and purchased a dining room table, chairs, an end table, a rocking horse for Maddy, and a big girl bed. I am very happy with our purchases. Andrew, on the other hand, is cursing us since everything needs to be assembled....

Signing out,
Kim

5 comments:

  1. Hi Kim! Glad to hear things are looking up. Excellent idea starting a blog. What a great way for us to keep up with your adventures.

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  2. HAHA ... awesome. This blog is such a great idea. I'm totally picturing Andrew sweating over that IKEA furniture ... LOL ... good man! How long until he finds a soccer league out there?

    Oh, and congrats to Maddie and her big girl bed! How exciting ;)

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  3. Thats way too funny! Voin vain kuvan Andrew SUPER pissed off debt että jutut yhteen. Mies on nero, mutta vakuutan teille, hän on pitkä kaksi päivää. Me miss you guys jo, mutta ovat innoissaan siitä, että asiat alkavat etsiä parempi sinulle. Meille, miten allas on ja miten Madison ottaa liikkua. Love you guys

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  4. Hey Lady!

    I am very excited to see you have started a blog. Overall it sounds like things are coming together. YAY for Ikea and reasonably priced furniture. Andrew will be a pro by the end of it :). Here we are missing you guys also, but we talk about you often and wonder how things are going. Thanks for keeping us updated on the progress. I will keep my fingers crossed the container shows up sooner rather than later.

    xoxoxo

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