I have some strange obsession with Finland and would LOVE to go there - have any of you been there? If so, what were the people like? Was it very expensive? Easy to get around? Boring? Fun? I'd love to hear any stories or knowledge about this country..thanx!

I was in Finland about May last year. I had a nightstop in a town in the far North (forget the name),then Rovaniemi (the home of Santa Claus) and finally Helsinki.

Helsinki is a beautiful city (in party because it is very pedestrianised, with restrictions on the traffic that enters the main streests) with good looking and funky residents.
It was an expensive country but cheap compared to the rest of Scandinavia as Finland is on the Euro.

I can't really comment on the public transport as I was on a bus tour at the time. Having a guess I would say it may be challenging as the towns don't seem to be that big the further North you travel.

Don't forget to have a sauna!

ev

urOz, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. Finland is his summer home.

Was that a Freudian slip???

My visit to Finland was even briefer than urOZm8's! I stopped in Helsinkin for one day on a Baltic cruise. I liked it, though, as he says, great for walking.

When I lived on the kibbutz in Israel, we had a Finnish volunteer group come. So, I hung out with them a few months and thought they were a great bunch of people. Their language is one bizarre-sounding tongue, though! There was one kibbutz resident who spoke 6 languages and she couldn't believe how weird Finnish was. I think about the only language it's related to is Hungarian, believe it or not, and perhaps one of the Baltic ones (Estonian...I forget?).

Anyway, I recommend it highly.

worldwidemike

Yes, Estonian. I understand from Estonians/Finns I've met that Estonians can mostly understand Finns, but Finns can't mostly understand Estonian. And it's related to Hungarian, but not at all similar. (They're both Finno-Ugric). Like Russian and French are both Indo-European, but not mutually comprehensible. Okay, linguistic classes are cancelled for the summer. ;)