I Love Suomi

Sono daccordo con te.

Hei Claudio,

I am a US citizen who married a Finnish national. I am living in Finland with my wife and kids now, but I have to say, I did not have the same experiences as you have. I am currently in Leppävaara and from what I have gathered since I've lived here are a lot of prideful and very independent people. Maybe it's because I'm an American, or maybe because I am an Asian-American. To say the least, my experiences have shown me that Finnish people don't preach values and morals to their children well.

Multiple times, I have gone to shopping centers with my son when he was 2 in a stroller. Upon leaving the store, someone would cut in front of me to open the door and get out first, without holding the door for me to get the stroller through. Sometimes, they open the door wide enough for me to hold it open with the stroller, but someone from behind would cut in front of me again and make their way through the door, closing it on me again.

Also, I have seen numerous times (at shopping centers, my son's daycare, etc) where parents would allow their kids to curse, swear, and bad mouth them. The parents would laugh at the children while the children are screaming, hitting them, throwing gloves and shoes at them.

There are plenty of things that I've seen and dealt with since I've been here and I don't agree with your opinion 100%. I'm glad you haven't experienced what I have so far and I hope your future travels bring you great experiences.

per tua informazione ci sono degli errori fessi fessi, prova a correggerli ;)

Ciao Claudio, mi sono messo a leggere il tuo blog in italiano negli anni che andavano dal 2000 al 2001. Che nostalgia di quei tempi...... Ti ringrazio perchè mi hai fatto rivivere emozioni e sensazioni di quegli anni che non credevo avrei potuto rivivere. Anche io stavo a Roma (sono di Roma) ed ero felicissimamente fidanzato!!!! Vabbè in bocca al lupo per tutto!!!
Patrizio

Hi Claudio, I was looking for some finnish lessons and I came into your blog (I dont know why). I have to say that I am completely in agreement with the first comment. I dont understand why you keep saying that Finnish are the best people, may be you don't go out really often. One time my car stopped on the motorway to helsinki and I call the service, the guy asked me 50 euro in black money. (Finnish are so honest !!). I was talking with my girlfriend in one bar and a drunk guy came to me and said that I was from Irak and I was a terrorist. Of course I have also good experiences, I'd like to say that there is almost no difference between people, in every place there are bad and good people. One other thing, why you keep saying that you are a not so tipical italian guy. I know many italians here in Finland and they are all not tipical italians, eheheh. Is common to say that in Italy?

Good that we have different experiences then. I had my bad experiences too in here but this doesn't mean that I don't like living in Finland and of course I still think this is a wonderful place to live.

Maybe I don't go out so often, I doubt that but it could be. Or maybe I just know the best people, lucky me! And I don't even have a car, so it will never stop on the motorway.

Of course in every place there are bad and good people, and Finland is not a paradise. Just a place where I feel home and where I love to live my life.

I could tell you many reasons why I am not typical italian. Non liking football is one, not living with my family is another one, not believing in god another one, not having a car. I don't know if it's common, you tell me what is common and what is not, you seem to go out often and you might know people better then I do

Hi Claudio, I also would like to stay here all my life, I love Finland but also a lot of other countries. I really see that you don't travel so much in Finland. Do you know how much is a train Turku-Helsiki? Do you know how much gasoline it takes a car to do the same trip? (half price). Do you know that in other countries it works in a different way?like you save money if you travel by train? Do you know how many italians are in Italy? In my experience all my italian friends dont like football and they live alone. Do you know how many people study at university in Italy and they stay out of the family? Also without kela founding ? If you read some news you will read that there is a great increase of cars in Finland, the inflation is 4%, the taxation is one point more than Italy. In France we have even less and in Italy also. You don't believe in god and you are not tipical italian? This is really the most original story that I have ever heard about. Last of all you say that you are running, I have run together with many italians, do you remember all the italian champion: baldini, Cova, bordin, antibo,pizzolato.
Italians are french friends, stop saying that one country is better than one another, stop with this hatred culture, stop saying : "i am better that one other people"
Thanks

Please read also an article that a finnish friend gave me.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Finnish+social+benefits+lowest+in+Nordic+Countries+average+for+EU/1135236074594

You don't know but you like to judge. I travel quite much and I can tell you almost any price about train in Finland. And of course you can't compare how much gas it costs with the train ticket..you should add there the insurance plus the car itself. Plus of course driving there. And train is way more ecological than car

I know how many italians are in Italy and I can see that you don't know very well how things work there

I studied at the university myself and people that study in italy, they simply don't work, parents pay the university, till they are 30. If you read news...you see, you just like to judge

Nobody said I'm better than other people, you are saying that, and if you have some problems in life I'm sorry but it's not my fault.

Claudio, if you are jocking tell me because you start to offend my intelligence. You say that I like to judge but i did not open a blog to write "Italians travel with a different spirit. They are terrible tourist. They don't travel to know more, they travel sort of conquering the world again ;) Looking for italian food, italian restaurant, italian people to talk with.
We go on holiday in places where you can find lot of other italians and we rarely travel alone (I use we instead of Italians...the sense is 99% of the italians ;)"
You wrote that remember? From the beginning. I just crash into your site because i was looking for finnish lessons. I am not judging you, I am commenting your post, that is what you do when you open a blog,you have to accept also comments that you dont like. An other thing: of course you can have opinions, but a different thing is when you write a document like you wrote and also you wanted to be it public, it means that you wanted that everybody knew about your statements. My comments are not about you of course, are about what you write. Usually in France we use to jocke about italians and italians use to jocke about french people at the end are just jockes, but what you wrote can be really bad to hear but even worse to read. You see the difference? I dont judge you because i dont say you are a bad person,of course, this is just a comment dont take it personally.
On the other hand i thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment here. I see that you want your words to be public, so I will help you.

No I am not jocking, I just found the discussion not so interesting. I accept critics, they are good stuff to work on to get better but it seems that you didn't get the pictures and you are talking about me telling stuff about me that you actually don't know very well.

The pictures I wrote about italian I think it's still truth, italians don't know very well how to travel, not anymore.

i agree with you.
i see myself in your words. i'm italian like u,... hate italian's way to approach world. if u are not selfish, and u look around, u'll find good and evil in everything. u have to use "wit" and u'll be right with everything.

take care and don't stop to be curious.
that keeps u alive

emm.. good one )

Hey Claudio,

thanks for your blog. I came here clicking in the web world here and there (free hugs video I found), when I am in Finland and missing people and places from abroad (done that since I was first time abroad, maybe as 5 years old, don`t know).

Your Italian humor and nice attitudes can be found in your texts. I really like them. It would be nice to be a part of a society, that consists of people with many cultures. Just here, where I live, there are mainly refugees from African/Asian countries. Europeans are a bit rare.

Good luck with your Finnish studying and life wherever and whenever. I don`t speak Italian, but I like Italian music, people and the food. Like I like, too many people and things! Liked your web page as well.

If you meet Finns and you get friends with them, please try to keep the friendship up. Nothing is more dull, when you are a Finn and you get international friends and then suddenly they forget about you or are not able to keep straight in contact. As we are so north and far from everything, we need all the friends that we manage to get.

Because only being curious is not enough. I have done that here, but every one needs some feedback. One sided friendship is one way ticket to nowhere. Maybe as a stronger foreigner in Finland it helps, but not forever. I think you Italians may have the warm spirit that some of us cannot create and then we are in troubles again.

Hi everyone.
Claudio, I understand what you say. And for anybody else reading, I'll tell you: what Claudio says about Italians is sadly true. Claude, I see your point in some things, but I definately think that an Italian person will always know more about Italian people than you will ever do. Because we were born and grew up among them, because we are part of them, because we know. You are French, and I'm telling you that the people you met do not sound typical Italians. that means they are not like MOST of the people who live here. Claudio is not either, in his behaviour. The matter actually interests me a lot, because I'm tired of people thinking I someway deny my country or I'm biting the hand that feeds me. It's not really that, because I know and recognize the many pros there are in Italy, just, they don't fit with me. I can't live like that, it doesn't match my personality, it doesn't make me feel at home. But I am still an Italian and will never deny it or be something different. I am passionate for food, I can cook pretty well, but sorry I don't like pasta and think there are no blasfemities in food, because food is not a religion. So I can spot a true italian espresso, but I can drink starbucks aswell. I won't talk for a week about the pinapple on my pizza, I'll just taste it and don't eat it if I don't like it. Matter finished. Because I have other things to do and talk about. I can also tell you I know reasonably well and absolutely appreciate our literature and traditions. And you know what? I do it in my diversity. Come and make a survey here and we'll see how far you can go conversing about italian fine literature with people in the street. Your friends are probably Italians who live abroad: there are many of them and many of them are interesting people. And what a casuality, they moved out. Some of the italians abroad are there because they wanted to, some are part of a phenomenon called "fuga di cervelli". I'm sure that since you read a lot the newspapers you know what I'm talking about. Basically, people who have a vocation for research or academic work and decide to move away instead of staying and STARVING with the salary they'd get here. If your friends are italians living in Italy, either you've been very lucky or you don't know them well, or you have some love for Italy that prevents you from having an "objective" points of view about the matter. I respect any of the hypothesis. Because, sorry, Italians are terrible tourists, with many glorious exceptions. Adalberto Buzzin is an example. But still they ARE. Not only, they are EMBARASSING. I was in the kauppatori in Helsinki and I wanted to make disappear a 15 group of italians from Neaples or nearby screaming all around the place, then trying to get 2 things for the price of 1 from a girl that was selling handcraft wooden boxes and swearing at her in italian because she didnt allow them to. When they were gone I went to her and apologized for them. They were disgusting.
Look, I am a girl, I'm 20, I am 100% Italian, from a 1000 people village in the province of Vicenza. I am 20 years and 1 month old. I study Russian and English to become an Interpreter. I've done quite a lot of travelling so far and all of this was by myself and paid by me, babysitting and giving private lessons in the winter. When I was 14 my parents wanted to send me to England with the teachers of my school. I refused. I wanted to go alone. They said no, i stayed home. Since the following year, so when I was 15, I've been spending at least 1 month a year in England travelling with ryanair 0,1 euro flights and staying in friends' houses, or couchsurfing. I travelled the same way everyway I went. Now I'm alone in Sankt-Petersburg for a month. In a house. When I arrived I wasn't able to say to the lady what time I wanted my breakfast. And going around alone, the most amazing things happened to me. I've had an american boyfriend for 3 years, many trials with Italian man/guys from different parts of the country and I'm actually dating a Finnish guy living in Oslo (that I hope with all my heart will become my man). In italy, you are asked out by 34 year old guys, you wake up in the morning and ask "where's your laundry machine?" and you discover they bring their dirty panties to mom's for her to wash and iron and i'm not listing all the other stuff because i could vomit straight away. And you may think they are exceptions but those are not. there's the less worse, but the culture is like that and you can deny it 'till your death but you just can't know, you didn't live it. I could go on forever with examples. I moved to Milan the day after i turned 18 and in the house a flatmate is 25. Her morning alarm is her mom's call and she phones her family, from Apulia, minimum 20 times a day. No joke cause i counted them. I know. I live there. She has been living in milan for 5 years in a college and didnt know how to turn the laundy on, where to put the detergent and how much of it. I found her crying when i came home because the phone was not working. I'll force myself to shorten it up: I am no better nor worse, but I am different. it's undeniable that I am. And this doesnt make me happy in italy. It makes me LONELY.
I am treated differently. Some people think I'm a kind of a hero, some people think I consider myself better than them. Either side they are, it's not important. The fact they have a reaction and feel they have to side is the problem. The fact they consider things I've done so uncommon they urge to have a view on it is the problem. Because I've done no damn uncommon thing according to my mentality: I chose a path and I'm walking it. I chose to learn russian, so I packed and went. that simple.

Claudio, sorry for such a river of words. But this is a topic I feel really close to me. Best of luck in Finland and if you want we can keep in touch, I'm moving there also, but in a few years.