Cold Natured

As the days go by, I learn more and more about the Finnish culture. I know that we've lived here for almost 6 months now, but it continues to fascinate me. For one, Finns come alive in the winter. It's like someone flipped a switch and everyone suddenly sprang to life. When the days get down to 20 or below, you can see the smiles on their faces and hear the excitement in their voices. Finally, they say, a proper winter! They use words like fresh to describe freezing temperatures. I guess when winter takes up a majority of the year, you learn to embrace it. No, they don't embrace it, they thrive off it. All year they are waiting until the conditions are right for skiing, ice hockey, skating, ice fishing and all their other favorite winter activities. They will tell you that the best sauna is the one when you can take a break from the heat to roll around in the snow (with no clothes on). Now, I don't want to make any over-generalizations about the entire population. I have met a Finn that wasn't a fan of winter, but I'd say those are few and far between. Most of the time, you will find them enjoying the outdoors during these snow-covered days.

Although I don't know if I quite thrive off these northern temperatures yet, I have learned to embrace them. I get to try so many things that I've never done before, like snowshoeing. The other day a group of us went on a snowshoeing trek on and around a peninsula in Joensuu. It took a little while to get used to waddling like a duck in the shoes, but soon it came naturally. When we got to the lake our guides told us that we were going to cross by walking on the lake. I was a little hesitant at first because I didn't totally trust that the water was frozen and would be able to hold my weight (plus 10 other people), but Finnish people usually know what they're talking about when it comes to nature, so I went for it. In the distance there were people snowmobiling, ice fishing and generally just enjoying an afternoon on the lake. Being completely new to all this cold weather stuff, it was still kind of crazy to think about an entire lake being frozen. Oh, and the sun peeked through the clouds for a couple of minutes. That's enough to lift my spirit for days. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and when I got home I was exhausted. While we were out there I didn't feel like it was strenuous, but I guess 3 hours of snowshoeing will take it out of you.

(I know that everything I write about revolves around it being cold, but that pretty much sums up our lives right now. Cold and winter.)