“An introverted Finn looks at his shoes when talking to you.
An extroverted Finn looks at your shoes”.
While stereotype jokes are not entirely reliable, I'd say this one is pretty right on. After our Star Wars conversation at the hotel, we didn't exchange more than a dozen words with anybody.
I am not saying that the Finns aren't nice people. I don't actually know. Finns are so reserved they make north Germans seem raucous. Even walking down a road in the forest in the middle of nowhere, the people we came across didn't make eye contact.
To help rank and label people (another fun use of stereotypes, which we know are always accurate), here is my continuum of friendliness to strangers by nationality, at least for the places I have visited:
Friendliness index
We arrived at our little ski resort, Vuokatti, with hopes of dusting off my cross country skis that were still in their wrapper since we moved to Hannover. Brian was going to rent skis too and learn how, and we would swish and swoosh out the door of our little cabin into a winter wonderland.
Except this has been basically the warmest December in history and we were lucky there was snow at all, even this far north (Vuokatti is on the same latitude as Reykjavik, Iceland). Our dreams of Nordic paradise had not been squashed - people were walking around in ski boots and carrying snow boards on their cars. There was skiing to do somewhere. So we went to the ski shop, where I was sure they guys at the rental desk could advise us on where to go.
Brian had taught himself to say "I don't speak Finnish" in Finnish. He tried that line out of the first ski bum, who pointed at the next ski bum and said "talk to him." Brian asked for Nordic skis and ski bum number 2 nodded. "What's your shoe size?" he asked. Those were half of the words he would utter in the whole interaction. A few minutes later, he grabbed skis and poles and shoved them in Brian's direction. When I asked about good places to ski and where to find trails, the girl at the counter just handed me a map. When I asked further, she said that people at Vuokattinhoviholli could tell me where to go. As if I knew where that place was, or even how to spell it. It just sounded like what the Swedish chef says as he's preparing to boil some rubber chickens. I could have pressed her for more information, but I was already painfully aware of making her say - in English - more than she was comfortable saying.
So Brian and I hiked it back to our cabin and decided to try out the skis there. Nordic paradise it was not. The snow was too thin, so the trails had not been groomed. Under a fluffy layer of snow lurked ice and rocks, ready to sabotage us. It was not a good place for Brian to learn to ski or for me to remember how to ski. We figured out, through some map-reading, a little internet searching and exploration on foot, that the groomed trails were a 40 minute walk from our cabin. They are actually just around the corner from the ski shop, where I had asked about finding a good place to ski.
After our first day at Vuokatti, I decided that the beaten path is well-beaten for a reason. When skiing in rural Finland you should just stay on it unless you want to scratch the hell out of your skis. Brian decided that learning to ski is still a good idea but that this was not the place to do it. On day two, I set out to ski the beaten path.
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