This post’s title is a reference to the So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish post I wrote the day we left Finland. That post title in turn was a pretty obvious — at least I think — reference to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Right. Now that we have covered all the various references made here and there, let’s get to the point of this particular post. Which should also be pretty obvious at this point but lest it isn’t, I will simply state it here. I miss — amongst other things — Salty Liquorice, a lot.
When it became apparent that we were going to move, sans employment as well as sans accommodation I didn’t really consider what I might miss. There were other more urgent matters to attend to and for most of the first month of our being here I didn’t give it much thought either. But now, things have settled in much more. Certain things have become more routine — good routine, not boring routine for now — which means I’ve had some time to think about what I might miss and/or how England compares to Finland.
I’m hoping beije will feel compelled to add Sweden to this “list” and who knows, maybe one day we’ll have a searchable database that can answer those of life’s most pressing questions such as “Which country has the best meat-to-other-stuff ratio in their sausage?”. And in honour of that I came up with this idea first we shall call this website/database “Yeahbut”. Don’t worry, when “60 Minutes” interviews me I’ll be sure to mention the idea behind the concept and how I desperately one Wednesday evening was trying to think of crap to write for my blog and as always settled for the “blurting out paragraph after paragraph until some of it makes sense” -technique. Oh, don’t look so chocked. I’ve been doing it for over three years now. You should have caught on by now.
Anyway.
Since — coincidently — my sister challenged me in her blog to write a “Top 10 Things I Really Love At The Moment” I am going to accept that challenge.
Well… kind of accept I suppose since I am also going to change it to “Top 10 Things I Kind Of Miss From Finland But Not Enough To Move Back, But Possible Enough To Import Them At Some Point”. So yeah, I accept her challenge in the same way a gentleman accepts a duel to the death by going home to drink some tea. In other words, not at all.
So here’s my list of “Top 10 Things I Kind Of Miss From Finland But Not Enough To Move Back, But Possible Enough To Import Them At Some Point” in no particular order, other than how I remembered them.
- Salty Liquorice
- Crisp Bread
- Dark Rye Bread
- Wide(er) sidewalks
- District heating
- Gaming + drinking nights with friends (incl. singing with/against Maria)
- Coffees with Beije (less the beverage, more the talking)
- Unlimited internet usage with non-ridiculous prices
- The Finnish summer sun
- Torkskåp, Drying cabinet for dishes
I might think of more things I miss sometime in the future but for now, this is a pretty good list. I would kill someone’s grandma for some Salty Liquorice right now, maybe some Tyrkisk Peber. Do you have any?