N Europe Travel

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Scandinavia and Finland Airfare Deals

SAS Airlines has just reduced its fares between certain US cities and the Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Finnish capitals for travel in the month of May 2007. For example, travel from New York, Chicago, or Washington, DC to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo is $498 round trip and to Helsinki $538 round trip. From Seattle you can fly to the Scandinavian capitals for $598 or $658 to Helsinki. Flights to other cities in Scandinavia and Finland are also reduced.

Fly June 1-22 for $40 more to Helsinki and $60 more to the other Scandinavian capitals. The fares don’t include taxes of $80-$120. The fares require a Saturday night stay. Flights will fill up quickly at prices these low. Book online with SAS.

Scandinavia and Finland Hotel Deals

The Nordic-owned Scandic Hotel chain (a Hilton Honors partner – don’t forget to become a member so you can get airline or hotel points!) are offering a 15-30% discount on their regular rates for those booking at least 7 days in advance. These “early” rates range from 62-122 euros in Stockholm; 94-164 euros in Helsinki; 93-190 euros in Copenhagen; 124-187 euros in Gothenborg, Sweden; from 80-110 euros in Malmö and Lund, Sweden,; and 123-155 euros in Oslo. Rates include a breakfast buffet and many of the hotels allow children under age 13 to stay in their parents’ room for free. The Scandic Copenhagen has a spa package for 152 euros/night, which includes a choice of four different spa themes (Finnish sauna, Turkish spa, Roman bath, or Indian Sweat Lodge), an upgrade to a superior double room and a free smoothie.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

May 1 in Finland is known as Vappu Day, a combination of workers’ day and a celebration of spring. While meteorological spring starts on March 21, May 1st is the real start of spring in Finland, when the days are longer, the mercury reliably stays above the freezing mark, and the snow has melted (hopefully). The Vappu-related reverie actually starts on April 30, when students in Helsinki parade through town and spray the naked Havis Amanda statue near Market Square with champagne while perching a white graduation cap on her head. With 16.5 hours of daylight and a 9:30pm sunset, the parks fill up with partiers drinking, playing music, and playing games well into the night.

On May 1 everyone goes outside to spend time eating, drinking, and socializing. Finns don their own white cap with a black brim and an insignia in front from their graduation day, no matter what their age or how long ago they matriculated from school. To this American, it looks like a sea of festive boat captains walking around. In Helsinki’s popular park along the Baltic Sea, Kaivopuisto, people stake out a spot early in the day, pitch a tent and tables to prepare for their day of celebration. Acoutrements and fare range from pickled herring served on fine china under an elegant tent, to beer in a cooler and sausages on the grill, to wandering bands of young revelers eating a sandwich and carrying a 6 pack of Karjala, Lapin Kulta, or some other Finnish brand of beer. The ice cream huts along the water are open, regardless of whether the temperature is 5 degrees or 20 degrees, and people queue up, eating their ice cream and walking along the waterfront.

Vappu falls on a Tuesday this year. It would be fair to predict that fewer people will be going to work on Wednesday May 2, trying to dodge the splatters of aging vomit peppering the sidewalks on their morning commute. There will probably be many people “calling in sick” Wednesday or taking the day as a holiday, since Vappu only comes once a year.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Easter celebrations in Finland tend to be subdued and reserved for families to spend time together, eat sweets, perhaps have an Easter sauna, and enjoy nature. The weather has been uncharacteristically warm lately, with temperatures ranging between 40-50 degrees F (5-13 degrees Celsius), so people are outside enjoying the sunny (albeit windy) weather, sans the snow and ice that normally cover the ground this time of year. Buying ice cream from one of the outdoor stands that have flung open their shutters since the weather turned warm and walking along Helsinki’s seaside is a popular activity for those who have not left town to spend the weekend at their countryside cottages. Business and shops close on Good Friday and stay closed through Easter Monday, although some grocery stores and restaurants open Saturday and or Monday. Unlike in the US and other countries, there are no “Easter sales” in the stores.

Witches and Sweets

On Palm Sunday, the week before Easter Sunday, children dress up as “Easter witches” and go door to door to collect candy. The Fazer Mignon egg, which is a mass of solid chocolate inside a real egg shell, is one of the most popular types of chocolate candy to eat this time of year. Pulla, a sweet, ball shaped pastry filled with cream and fruit jam, start appearing on bakery counters around Easter.

Easter Events

Finland is not a particularly religious country, but all of the churches have an Easter celebrations, whether they are Lutheran (Finland’s official religion), Eastern Rite Orthodox, or Catholic. Helsinki’s outdoor museum, Seurasaari, has an Easter bonfire where children dress up as trolls, sing songs, and recite poems. The Via Crucis dramatization (also known as the Way of the Cross) on Easter Sunday starts from Helsinki’s main church on the Senate Square and continues through downtown Helsinki, to the delight of spectators lining the streets. Over 100 volunteer actors take part. On Suomenlinna, Helsinki’s island fortress, the Toy Museum opens its doors to visitors after being closed all winter. There are thousands of toys on display, with the oldest dating from the 19th century.

Easter in Finland is a good time to relax and enjoy the slow pace.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Long flights in coach class, with cramped seats, surly flight attendants, and (on some airlines) having to pay for a drink of water, can be uncomfortable and trying on your nerves. Business class seats, which can cost four times more than coach seats, not only offer more room to stretch but they have other amenities to make your journey more comfortable. I recently had the opportunity to travel in business class on trans-Atlantic and inter-European flights, which got me thinking – how can I re-create this more civilized travel experience the next time I fly coach?

Goody Bag

Business class travelers get a bag of goodies for the flight, like socks to keep your tootsies warm when they crank up the re-circulated air, travel sized hand lotion, a teeny tooth brush and toothpaste, ear plugs, and eye shades. These things are easy to get before you travel and bring onboard. Besides, at least you’ll get the brands you like. Put the liquids in a clear, plastic bag before you go through the security checkpoint so they don’t end up in the trash bin.

Drinks

You never get enough water in coach class. After the security check, buy two bottles of water (or your drink of choice) to bring with you. I don’t drink on airplanes (who wants to be dehydrated or running to the stinky airplane bathroom anyway?), but you could certainly bring little travel sized bottles of alcohol to make your own rum and coke mid-flight.

Food

Airplane food is disappointing, regardless of the class. It is cooked 24-48 hours in advance and re-heated on the plane so you can’t expect much, regardless of how much you paid for the flight. The business class menu may say steak with béarnaise sauce, but the steak is usually an overcooked piece of shoe leather. Choose the pasta, usually the least offensive option, and know that savvy travelers in business class are doing the same. So what you’re using a plastic fork in coach instead of a metal one in business class?

Attitude

Those who pay seem to get the nicest service. Perhaps it was just the individuals on my flights, but I was surprised at how much nicer the flight attendants treated passengers in business class. Do they adopt a different personality once they get past the business class curtain to treat the coach travelers like the uncouth cattle they think they are? Either way, I try to be polite when flying coach but ignore the attitude.

Seats

There is nothing you can do to about the small coach seats on trans-Atlantic flights that offer little leg room for those of us over 5”4 tall. You can try your luck and call the airline 48 hours before your flight on the off chance you are able to reserve an exit row seat. But, if you are taking a short haul inter-European flight from Copenhagen to Helsinki on SAS Airlines, for example, you’re not missing anything in the spaciousness department. Business class seats on short haul flights don’t have any more room than the coach seats, making the exhorbitant business class fares not worth it at all, in my opinion. Know that your coach experience is virtually the same!

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Copenhagen’s Phoenix Hotel is a good choice for travelers not on a budget looking for comfortable accommodations in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. The hotel is decorated in the neo-classical style, with soft colors, white pointed furniture with gold trim, and watercolors depicting 18th and 19th century Danish life.



Rooms

The rooms are not big but they are elegantly furnished and the beds are comfortable. The rooms have safes and a selection of international TV programming. Soaking in the large bathtub after a long day of sightseeing was just what I needed.



Location

In addition to being a comfortable place to stay, one of the best features of the hotel is the location. Within five minutes, you can walk to Kungens Nytorv square, Nyhavn, Amelienborg Castle, Frederick’s Church, and Stroget (the main shopping street). Design hounds will like the location on Bredgade Street, steps away from the Danish Design Museum and Danish design shops.



Amenities

The Phoenix Hotel has free Internet access and a selection of international newspapers in the lobby. Eating at the breakfast buffet in the hotel’s Restaurant Von Plessen is a wonderful way to start your day, with a selection of eggs, danishes (called wienerbrod in Danish), meats, cheeses, fruits, cereals, and juices/coffee/tea.



Cost

I paid 990 kroner (around 180 USD) for a double room in March. Prices can be higher in the summer months. Check their website for specials, including a Tivoli package (the park opens April 13, 2007), an Opera package, and a romance package.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

This time last year, my husband and I were driving from Helsinki to Lahti, Finland for a weekend of winter sports and saunas. The sun was shining but temperatures were in the 20s (-3 to -6 Celsius) during the day and not much different at night. We had a great weekend navigating snow covered, frozen lakes on nordic skis, walking our dog through snowy forest trails, and taking saunas at night to stay warm. This year, Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo are seeing sunny days, spring-like temperatures in the 40s and 50s, and the snow is virtually gone from the landscape.

Weather is a huge topic of conversation in these parts, mostly because it is so cold for most of the year, and it is incredibly dark for a good three or four months per year. I noticed last year, and I am noticing this year, that when the weather breaks people come out of their shells a bit. Their moods seem lighter, they seem slightly less dour, and people spend more time outside basking in the sunlight. When spring finally descended upon us last year I thought they were making a big deal out of nothing, but this year I totally get it! Four months of darkness was more than enough. While it didn’t snow as much this year as last year, I welcome the warmer temperatures, which melt the ice that stubbornly cling to the sidewalks and parks until normally mid-April, making a walk to the store a treacherous undertaking.

This morning at the dog park I was talking with a fellow dog owner about the wonderful weather we’ve been having. He predicted that winter will try to rear its ugly head one last time, because that’s what always happens whenever spring tries to arrive in March. Last year I spent the mid-April Easter weekend skiing in Lahti, enjoying the sun and the snow. Let’s hope this Easter morning that when I invite friends for brunch, it will be warm enough for us to sit in my glass enclosed balcony with the sun streaming in the windows, listening to the birds sing.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Don’t expect perfect strangers in Finland to be talkative or effusive. In customer service situations, whether in a store, restaurant, or office, there are certain rules most Finns follow when interacting with customers, who are essentially strangers with whom a Finn needs to engage. There are exceptions to every rule, but in my experience the generalizations I make below apply to most customer service interactions in Finland.

.If you are in a Finnish store or an office and you are looking for information, you should know the right question to ask to get the answer you need. Open ended questions generally don’t work so you need to be specific. For example, I once asked a travel agent if she had a phone number of another branch office. She responded “yes.” Full stop. She didn’t volunteer the phone number. I had to ask her if she would please give me the phone number. While this example is extreme and most people are much more helpful than that travel agent, I think it demonstrates a mentality that people in customer service situations can be very literal. People will not freely volunteer information. When I am trying to get an answer to something, I’ve taken to asking, “is there anything else I need to know to get this done/make this work?” Finns don’t view their attitude as being unhelpful, they view it as not interfering or being bossy, so don’t take it personally.

Another obvious difference is that the clerk who is helping you probably won’t make any small talk. If you attempt to engage him /her in a conversation about the weather, whether or not they are having a nice day, or any other seemingly harmless subject, chances are you will make the person very uncomfortable. They’ll likely shoot you a look that I reserve for crazy people.

A benefit of dealing with Finns in customer service situations is that they are generally honest when they are selling you something. They won’t try to talk you into buying a more expensive model of something if it seems to be frivolous, nor will they try to sell you a bunch of unnecessary add-ons to a product or service. Unlike certain stores or restaurants in the US, people don’t jump on you as soon as you walk into a store or interrupt you mid conversation during a meal to ask you if you need anything else.. Sometimes Finnish customer service can be frustrating, but sometimes I welcome their low key approach because it can be unhurried and relaxed.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Every year, the Economist publishes its’ Big Mac index. The philosophy behind the index is that the price of a Big Mac is an equalizer representing the purchasing power of different currencies, including those in Scandinavia. The Economist researched the price of a Big Mac in 46 different countries and compared those prices to the price of a Big Mac in the US.

Not surprisingly, the Icelandic kroner is the most overvalued currency based on this index, which is 131 percent overvalued when compared to the US dollar. The most undervalued currency in the list is the Chinese yuan, at 56% below the dollar. Other Scandinavian countries faired slightly better than Norway, but all of them are overvalued compared to the dollar using this index. In second place out of 46 countries is the Norwegian kroner, at 106% above. Currencies in Denmark and Sweden were slightly less overvalued, at 50% and 43%, respectively. The euro zone amounted to being only 19% overvalued while newer European Union members like Poland and Estonia came in at 29% and 23% undervalued when compared to the US dollar.

What does this mean for the traveler? According to this measuring stick, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland are the more expensive travel destinations in the world. Be prepared for sticker shock for everything from a cup of coffee, to an Icelandic wool sweater, and everything in between. But, you only live once, and seeing the northern lights, staying at the Swedish Icehotel in the Arctic Circle, riding Icelandic horses in Iceland, taking a sauna where they were in invented, and traveling through the majestic fjords of Norway are such unique experiences, so spending a little bit of extra money to do these things is worth it, in my humble opinion.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

Finns are affluent people due to their well developed economy, strong welfare state that virtually prevents the development of an underclass, and excellent education and health care systems. Even with all of this affluence, my opinion is that shopping behavior and consumer spending patterns are different from those in North America. As an American who has lived in Finland for 18 months, I believe that there are fewer opportunities and temptations to spend money in Finland.

Why? It is hard to say for sure. One simplistic reason is that shops are not open very long so you have less time to spend your money. Most shops are open Mon. – Fri. from 10:00 to 6 or 7pm, Sat. from 10-3, and closed on Sunday. This includes grocery stores. During the summer and before Christmas, stores have “Sunday hours,” meaning they open from maybe noon until 6pm.

While there are shopping malls and multinational chain stores, I think there are fewer than in other Western capitals. Finland has a few “big box” stores like IKEA, Bauhaus (hardware chain), and ONOFF (electronics) located in one or two areas outside the city, so it is less convenient to stop by regularly. People usually travel there to get something specific. Also, Finland lacks stores like Target or Wal-Mart, catch all retailers selling a million different things, where it is easy to walk in for some batteries and walk out with $50 of stuff you didn’t even know you wanted or needed before it enticed you with its low price and perceived usefulness.

The larger baby stores in Helsinki pale in comparison to Babies R Us (American chain) in terms of selection, attractiveness of the store, and price variation. While there are sales in Finland, they don’t occur often and my impression is that merchandise does not turn over quickly. Maybe people don’t buy so much may be because many apartments and homes tend to be smaller than those in the US, making it hard to store the 48 rolls of toilet paper you got at a great price from a bulk warehouse.

It is not that people don’t consume or have nice things – look at all of the nice cars driving around Helsinki, the trips to warm weather resorts during the long, bleak winter, or the cell phones glued to the ears of teenagers. It’s just that consumerism is low key and there aren’t flashing neon signs, sale circulars in the newspaper, coupons in the mail, and round the clock shopping opportunities tempting you to buy that bread machine, foot massager, or other item that seemed like a great time saver/life enhancer but eventually sits unused in a closet, collecting dust and creating so much clutter it prompts you to give it away four years later during a fit of organization and streamlined living. But, sometimes you just want to go to a store on Sunday afternoon at 2:30 and have such a wide selection that you stand there, studying the features on different variations of the same product for twenty minutes before heading to the checkout, finding the store club card, and rubbing the coupon with a coin to see if your discount will be 5%, 10%, or 20%.

It’s a cultural difference.

Posted by Lisa Sabol-Sikorski

During my travels and my time living abroad, I try to keep in mind that certain things I take for granted as “normal” are really the result of my cultural upbringing and the accepted norms of the society in which I was raised. Thus, some of the things that strike me as “odd” when I travel or deal with people from other cultures have to be viewed in that context, so if I find something odd from an American prism or point of reference it is possible that it is considered completely normal in another culture.

I have been living in Helsinki, Finland for 18 months and something that I find to be odd, unsettling, and difficult to get used to is the Finnish concept of personal space in public places. On many occasions when I am walking down a busy Helsinki sidewalk in what I consider to be a fairly quick gait, people come up behind me, getting so close to me that I sense their presence and I react by turning around to see who is there and why. They usually don’t see me turn around and as soon as there is room to pass me, the do so. I feel they have invaded my personal space. If I were to pause for even a second, they would collide with me, since there is only 5 inches of space between us. My uncomfortable surprise does not even register with the offending Finn. They don’t look at the situation the same way and they don’t see the look of alarm or irritation on my face. They are merely doing what they need to do to pass me on a busy sidewalk.

The first few times this happened I became angry because I felt the person was rude to me for no reason. Then I noticed this happening often and that these people don’t appear to be exhibiting aggressiveness toward me or others whom they are passing, I came to the conclusion that they aren’t being rude to me. Their behavior is a norm in their society. When I’ve brought this up with Finnish friends, especially those who have traveled to Western Europe or the US, they acknowledge this behavior. They usually say that Finland has traditionally been a rural society and that people aren’t used to dealing with crowds. Or, they’ll tell me that Finns are straightforward when they want something or more trusting of their compatriots, so this behavior is not seen in a negative light.

Whatever the reason, I’ll accept it as a cultural difference instead of a personal affront. But, I’ll admit that I still have a hard time not becoming even slightly irritated when this happens now. No one’s perfect.

For more on this topic, see the Cultural Differences: Consumerism or Cultural Differences: Customer Service blog. Or, read about cultural differences others have experienced or share your own stories in our discussion.