End of an era

Nut Island's Peace has been up and running for almost a year now, I started the blog in early December last year. So almost a full year of Finnish traditions and habits are now behind.

I've decided to put the blog on hold. I feel like currently I don't have enough things to say nor enough time to write. I won't delete the blog, it will remain here in Blogger as inactive - in case somebody visiting Finland finds this useful. But there won't be anymore posts, at least for now. I will continue in my good old handicraft blog, in Finnish though.

Thank you, dear readers! And let's be careful out there.

Blogging my way through the winter

Nut Island's Peace has now been up and running for 3 months. It has been fun, I had almost forgotten how much I used to enjoy writing back in high school. Writing in English is of course a bit challenging, and I often feel like a verbal handicap - but that's the way it goes, imperfection hurts.

When I started the blog, one of my goals was to write about Finland in a different way than tourist guides do - to focus more on the everyday life and ordinary phenomena. I think all of the topics have somehow managed to touch Finland or life in Finland. Another goal was to prove the True Finns wrong: I've wanted to give an example that most Finns don't see things as the True Finns do. And ta-daa, the support for the True Finns has been dropping. Although my blog can't probably take all the credits for that.

It's been relatively easy to come up with topics, and my colleagues and friends have been suggesting great topic ideas; thanks guys. What I've been most surprised about is the frequency of the updates. On the other hand, maybe this has been my way of surviving the dark, cold and snowy winter. I'm pretty sure that along the spring the pace won't remain the same as it has been during the first three months. However, there are still plenty of good topics that I haven't had time to write about: summer cabins, Angry birds, different colors of milk, lactose intolerance, recipes for many Finnish dishes, to mention few.

So the story continues!

Why Nut Island's Peace?

Finland is quite of an ok country. Finland is my home country. I've never been to passionate about my home land or being a Finn, but right now I feel I must write about it.

I'm working in an international company in Finland. I have many great colleagues and friends who have moved into Finland from another country. Many of my colleagues who live and work in other countries need to visit Finland quite often. In that context I think Finland shows quite flat image of itself. With this blog I want to do my share of unflatting the image.

Another reason for setting up this blog is the Finnish society and the politics. I'm quite uncomfortable with all the True Finns phenomenon. I'm tired of listening the one-sided politic talk about immigration, especially when we're running out of working-age people in this society. I hate to see the Finnish society snuggling down. That's not my Finland.

My third driver for this blog is to practice English.

Let's see how this blog turns out to be.

BR,
Katri


P.S. The name of the blog refers to Treaty of Nöteborg, which sort of defined the early Finnish border lines. Nut Island's Peace is a direct translation of Pähkinäsaaren rauha from Finnish to English.