Adventures in Finland, part 2: The Middle Of Nowhere

There were trees. Lots of trees.

Fairly early in our trip, we decided to book a small house in Finland for the third week in August. We thought we'd probably be sick of camping by then, ready for a break from constant travelling, and that it would be a good opportunity to start school. Oh, and there was a washing machine, which is a non-negligible advantage.

The spot we chose was in Utajärvi, which is, in theory, under an hour from Oulu, a fairly large city. Not that we necessarily had anything to do in Utajärvi, you understand, but it wasn't too far off our route.

Cultural misunderstanding time: the address was not in Utajärvi itself, but in Utajärvi municipality. It was, in fact, over 90 minutes from Oulu.

Over the course of the week, we discovered that the neighboring town of Puolanka (20 minutes away, home of the nearest supermarket) is the self-proclaimed European capital of pessimism. It's also the centre of continental Finland.

The Pessimism Centre. Actually had quite good cheesecake.

Over the course of the week, we...

• Started school

  
  

• Went on a long walk, got a bit lost, played forest ninjas, found some moose tracks but no moose, eventually got to the waterfall we'd initially set off to see, and encountered some MASSIVE ant hills

  
  

• Spent an inordinate amount of time in the sauna (because Finland): my Anglo-French brain told me that saunas are not suitable for children, so I looked up the recommendations. Finnish advice: possibly not before the age of 4 months, but if your newborn seems happy with it, then go for it. The small Pradys approved. There are photos, but I am not sharing them here. Fun fact: traditionally, Finnish women gave birth in saunas (WITHOUT the fire lit) because they're easy to clean. The heat means that they're relatively sterile, so in the period before germ theory, Finnish neonatal and postpartum maternal death rates were some of the lowest in the world. Clever, clever people.

• Got quite bored and did several jigsaws. There was a surreal moment where we looked up local attractions on TripAdvisor, and number 5 within a one-hour radius of our location was... drumroll... the supermarket. (Number 1 was the waterfall we visited. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 were winter-only).

• Managed not to run over any reindeer on the road to the supermarket.

  
  

• Discovered Elk Lice, which we could honestly have done without. The first time, we thought it was a giant ant trying to climb into Sophie's belly button. Then we found one in her hair. We tried to kill it. We stomped on it. We squished it. It WOULD NOT die. Eventually, Ze Husband threw it onto the kitchen hotplate, which was on at the time. That did the trick.

Finally, the answer to last week's cliffhanger question: "Puolanka" sounds like "half a duck" in Finnish, and the pessimism people took that idea and ran with it.

I like the way these people think.

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