Your countries typical breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner -
Breakfast: Well you can make rye bread or white bread, put cucumber, tomato, cheese or meats on top, yogurt, cereal, or oatmeal etc. Some people might have leftover pizza or croissants, or go to their neares pub for a cider and cigarettes etc. It really varies on lifestyle, background and social factors. Most people drink a lot of coffee. Also alcohol drinking is a problem.
Lunch: Could be a salad, noodles, more bread, a mini version of a dinner...something from the microwave.. snacks maybe potato chips, candy, ice cream, carbonated drinks, Karelian pies or fruits, apples, banana, berries... some make smoothies or have jam on pancakes etc
Dinner: could be lingonberry jam with pan fried reindeer and mashed potato,or tortillas, soups, macaroni and minced meat casserole, spaghetti, in summer newly raised potato from the ground cooked with dill and butter melting on top and baltic herring..
People can have dinner from 4-5 pm so not very late usually
Describe your grocery stores -
First you probably see all the bright packaging and candy aisles colors, how much empty some packaging have, what is marked as price is what you will actually pay at the register, it's pretty clean and there's quite much variety and you can ask them if you want to buy specific items so they'll order that for you for when you come back later
Schools and education system,
BEST in the world perhaps... free school food, during breaks you have to go outside even if it's freezing. Not so much homework.
banks, offices, hospitals etc in your country -
very clinical. Modern. Not dirty. Best brain surgeons opinions still can be ignored by insurance companies doctors who've never seen the patient.
Also, mental hospitals? Cold facilities. so much history on treating patients with from lobotomy to electric shocks etc that the main mental hospital has a graveyard haunted by them
Modes of transport -
trains tend to be late sometimes, buses go rarely to remote towns, in my city they're building a tram..
Vacation places -
swimming halls and spa's, for children there are activity parks, you can just walk in nature and unless you're in someone's yard in front of their window, it's free to pick up berries or set up camp ("every man's rights")
Holidays -
Christmas is big and all those "sales" days before it advertised stuff everywhere. But if you're with family it's all good if you have that safety net you don't have to drown your sorrows in alcohol. Sometimes Christmas we have snow, sometimes it's a black Christmas.. we have Midsummer Eve (juhannus) and vappu (1st of May) you really need to google those they're fun holidays in summer when the sun doesn't set at night etc
Cuisine, food, hotels, cafes -
You need to try the donuts in my city, they're the best in Nordic countries. They sell it now in the central square cafe but before you had to climb a hill to the sighseeing tower of Pyynikki... my city also has it's black blood sausage with lingonbery jam "mustamakkara". We don't have Starbucks but yeah filtered at home coffee is something better
Attire - Fashion always comes years later here.
Farming - Animals have more space and freedom and are not stuck into small spaces for all their lives. Cows go outside on pastures in summer, pigs can socialise, it's very countryside
Current issues -
Festivals
some music festivals. I only was in Ruisrock in 2006 summer. Never again. saw the the Rasmus, Lordi, etc..
- Roads, buildings and parks -
Lots of roads connecting places, not enough police there so rally drivers and F1 drivers have it easy to train here. We have so much forest, lakes, etc. Sure in the capital city there are some landmarks. Tampere or Turku aren't that far off from being cities themselves... but we are only 100 years old country "so young"
Sports and other recreational activities -
badminton, salibandy (floorball)
ice-hockey, skating, Nordic walking.
swimming, track and field...
People of the country, habits, etc in general -
shy or quiet, but once you get to know them they warm up
Usually kind to strangers. Prompt. Fair. Often anonymous cyberbullies in secret. Complain. Live in a Finnish media bubble if you buy the newspapers. I don't...
Languages and dialects -
Not ambiguous at all. Mean what they say. There are differences in speech depending on the area you live.
Minä, I, can be "mää", can be "mie" or "mä" etc and some words have different meaning in different places like "kehdata" means you are embarrassed to do something or you are too lazy to do it for example. "En mä nyt kehtaa." I'm too embarrassed right now...
Famous brands of clothes, foods, etc -
Nokia. Marimekko. Sibelius. Sauna. Angry Birds. the diswasher cabinet above your kitchen sink was invented by Finns.
Lifestyle
Free motherhood package for the baby when you give birth. Social security system is pretty good. People in charge tend to cut back from the poorest whenever they screw up. Menthol cigarettes won't be sold after May this year. regulations, bureacracy, paper work, the EU standards etc to follow. Moonshine and mead. Roots grow deeper here. We used to get this thing called ice age and there's stones and rock formations here too but not so much any higher ground.
bears, wolves. lynx, wolverine, swans.
