(Editor’s note: Hanna Laukkanen is a winter-spring intern at San Diego Community Newspaper Group. Her email is [email protected].) I want to present you my home country Finland, because it’s an awesome and beautiful place! I recommend a holiday in Finland to everybody, because it’s a quite exotic place with northern lights, midnight sun, cross-country skiing and of course, sauna. Our summer is really light. Because we are at the North Pole, in June and July we have 18 to 24 hours of sun. The summer temperature is 77 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s the most fun to cycle around the streets on a warm summer night and have a swim in a beautiful, clean-water lake while birds are singing quietly. At winter it usually snows heavily. That enables us to downhill ski and cross-country ski. We also are crazy about ice hockey and skating and are pretty good at it. At winter time, the temperature varies from 41 to -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the cold wintertime, we love sauna (a really hot steam room) and fireplaces. When we really do something crazy, we go to a really hot sauna and after that we roll in the snow or go to hole in the ice to swim. During our free time we have a lot of hobbies like music, arts, cooking, and sports. Finnish baseball is our national sport. A Finnish man named Tahko Pihkala came to the United States in the 1920s and saw a baseball game. He went back home and made a game, that is almost the same as baseball, but with a little bit different rules, and the field is bigger and differently shaped. Finnish people are really honest and you can easily trust Finn. We do the things we promise and expect people to do the same thing. Our trust is quite hard to earn, but once you’ve earned it, you have it for a lifetime; unless you do something that makes a Finn think differently. We value education and knowledge and most of our university graduates have earned their masters after their bachelors. Education is free of charge and our high level of knowledge is noted around the world. We love our tourists and take good care of them. Most of Finns speak English very well and are really friendly. A perfect place for a Finnish holiday is a summer cottage by the clear-water lake. You can swim in the lake, catch our beautiful and tasty fishes, and grill sausage in light summer night. But don’t forget your mosquito spray! Tervetuloa Suomeen! = Welcome to Finland! Finland facts
– Second most northern country in Europe, next to Russia, Norway and Sweden;
– 5,5 million citizens;
– Republic, whose president is Sauli Niinistö;
– Finland has Euro and is a member of European Union;
– Capital is Helsinki;
– Acreage is 130 670 square miles;
– Finland has thousands of lakes, that total 13,339 square miles;
– Two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Most of citizens speak English well;
– Four different seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall. Temperatures between -31 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit; and – A great place to hike, ski, fish, hunt, shop and admire exotic nature and eat excellent food.