Finland Day

Today is our one-year mark of being together in Finland as a family. We decided to start some traditions. Did you ever think when you were a kid that traditions were something that needed to be decided on? I never did. And sometimes they come about organically. But sometimes you decide to start one. Our tradition is that this day is called Finland Day, and on Finland Day, we have an adventure (today it was swimming), make Finnish pancakes, and then go get irtokarkki (choose your own candy from mix-and-match bins). Sterling got his first bag of irtokarkki for the occasion and it was so special. 

(The other suggestion for our tradition was to buy a bottle of licorice sauce, which is a thing that exists here, and pour it on whatever we were having for dinner. This was downgraded to just pouring it on ice cream. But we settled on pannukakku and karkki instead.)

We went outside to the playground to enjoy our snacks and reminisced about what it was like a year ago when we first arrived. The weather was much the same, and they were just as keen to play on the playground that day, too.

All throughout August, I've remarked (sometimes only to my own brain but more often out loud to the family) how nice it is to not be brand-new to this country anymore. To be starting school and know the routine already. To have friends already. To be able to say stuff like, "oh, I remember last year it was like [such and such]." To not feel like you're only barely treading water in this society/language/culture/school, all the time.

I knew our first year here would be a tough one, and it was. But we begin this next year as - well, not experts, exactly, but we're getting there.