Fun Nordic Facts

- topics that have come up during lab coffee breaks

Snow. Mikko told me that it has snowed approximately 40-50 cm so far this winter. The ground has been covered with a permanent layer of snow for over a month now.

Equinox: a country of extremes. With all this wintry darkness, I think we tend to forget that Finland also has some of the brightest of days. By the equinox (March 23rd), Finland will again have longer days than most of the rest of the world. I tried to represent the changing length of day in this doodle.


"Ass washer": best Finnish inventions. That's exactly what a man in my lab called it. I've always wondered what those little hoses, commonly found beside sinks in private and public bathrooms alike, were for, and now I know. That must be why all the public bathroom stalls here are actual doors that go all the way to the floor.


The drying cupboard is another great Finnish invention. It's easy to use, saves tons of space, and just makes so much sense! I'm definitely going to have one built into my future house.


Polar bears in Norway... ... are dangerous. When scientists go to the research stations in northern Norway, the first thing they are handed is a gun, and their first lesson is on how to shot down a polar bear. The sad thing is that polar bears will sometimes drift on ice sheets - broken off as a result of global warming - to places where they don't normally exist. Then they have to be shot and killed, because otherwise they will disturb that particular ecosystem.

Also, despite being carnivores, polar bears don't eat penguins, because penguins only live in the South Pole.

Viili: the mother of all yogurts. You always hear about live cultures in bacteria (and how wonderful they are), but with villi, I can actually believe it. Of a fantastically gooey substance, this almost tasteless snack is normally eaten with some sort of jam and/or fruit. I think it's somewhat of an acquired taste, though. I'm trying to acquire it because villi is supposed to be quite good for you, but I still have to eat it with an enormous blob of strawberry jam to stomach it. This is also specifically Finnish, though the other Nordic countries have their own versions, as well.