San Diego and Finland’s capital Helsinki have one thing in common: the ocean and the sea have made them big. Helsinki wouldn’t be the biggest city in Finland if it wasn’t located at the coast of the Baltic Sea. The busiest trading has always happened at the coastline and people have travelled along the coast to see new places. Also, the beaches of the Baltic Sea attract tourists, and it is a convenient place for naval base.
All of those things are valid also in San Diego. I think, that San Diego wouldn’t be as populated if it wasn’t located at a beautiful coastline of Pacific Ocean. Tourists from all over the world want to feel the ocean breeze and enjoy the waves of Pacific Ocean. The scenery is amazing with the most beautiful sunset in the world. The ocean also makes food: fresh fish and other seafoods are delicious at coastal cities. The Naval Base in San Diego consists of 50 ships and more than 120 tenant command and the total on-base population is 20,000 military personnel and 6,000 civilians. So the ocean has a huge role in employment in San Diego.
Despite all the great things the ocean offers for Helsinki and San Diego, the residents don’t appreciate it so much that they would stop littering and leaving dog poop on the streets. Baltic Sea is quite polluted because of Finland, Sweden and Russia, which are the neighboring countries on the Baltic Sea. The situation is the same here, where sea animals, fish and humans suffer from a polluted ocean. Luckily, the Baltic Sea has been less polluted past 10 years because of strict protection laws. Now the sea has hope of getting cleaner every year.
Ocean keeps us alive so in return we have to keep it alive. (I’m Hanna Laukkanen, a 26-year-old journalist, who moved from Finland to San Diego for an internship in San Diego Community Newspaper Group. In this blog I will compare Finnish and American lifestyles and try to find out a lot more about the Californian way of living. Please send me feedback at [email protected].)