MY FRIEND FROM FINLAND

This isn’t a real story…

… but I’d like that it had been

Last summer, in the beach, I met a Finnish boy called Kimi. He has blonde hair

and blue eyes, like most people in Finland.

Now he is my best friend.

He speaks Finnish and Swedish because they are the national languages of Finland. He speaks English too.

I told Kimi that I only knew that Finland is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the West, Norway in the North and Russia in the East. He told me that around 5,5 million people live in Finland. It is the

eighth largest country in Europe (Total area: 338,424 Km2).

My parents and his parents are friends too. They invited us to visit Finland.

At the airport we saw a big flag of Finland.

Finland is a Parliamentary Republic vith a central government in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities. The President is Tarja Halonen.

We didn’t need to change our money because they have the Same currency of Spain, the Euro. Before 1999 they used its own monetary unit of Markka.

MarkkaEuro

It was very cold. Kimi told us that Finland has a , characterized by warm

summers and freezing winters. The snow typically covers the land. The coldest winter days of

southern Finland are usually under −20 °C, and the warmest days of July and August can be as high as 30 °C.

We decided to visit the city of Helsinki.

We visited The Market Square, The Fortress of Helsinki,

The Senate Square, but the monument which I liked best

was the Lutheran Cathedral, a big white building.

Kimi told me that he is Lutheran.

There are many free ice skating rinks. We had fun skating on the ice.

Sport is considered a national pastime in and many Finns visit different sporting events regularly. Kimi practise ice-hockey, Nordic walking, skiing and fishing.

We went to Kimi’s home. We ate salmon, reindeer’s meat with cloudberries jam and for dessert a cinnamon roll cake. All was delicious!

Kimi told us that the principal tourist elements in Finland are the Natural Parks and Lakes.

We visit the Natural Park of Salamajärvi. There we rowed in a canoe.

Kimi’s mum told us that lakes are the most

important hydrographical element

of Finland and so it’s known as ‘The country of

thousands lakes’. It’s the country with the

highest percentage of lake area, more than 9,4% of the total land

area is covered by water. There are over 190.000

lakes of all sizes all over the country.

Kimi’s mum told us that the main

economic resources of

Finland are the wood industry and technology.

Kimi realized that my mobile phone was a Nokia, a Finnish mark. He showed me in his mobile (was a Nokia too) photos of his school.

He explained me that Finland is the country with the best education

system in Europe and one of the most peaceful countries in the world.

Another day we went to Rovaniemi, near Polar Artic Circle

and there we saw the toys factory of Santa Claus.

We ride on sled leaded by Huskies.

It was very funny!!

We saw a group of people wearing very estrange clothes and

Kimi’s dad explained us that the Samis were an

Indian tribe in the Nordic countries.

In the evening we saw a very extraordinary thing in the sky: we saw the Northern Lights.

At night, to relax, we

bathed in a sauna. They told us that most Finns have one in their home.

The day we come back to Spain, Kimi gave me a present: a book of the Finnish writer Mika Waltari (Sinhoue the Egyptian)

a CD by Jean Sibelius (a classic music composer) …

…and another CD by the group Lordi (a heavy-metal group

which won Eurovision Song Contest in 2006).

I really enjoyed this trip. I hope that Kimi comes to Spain next summer, and I would like to visit Finland again.

by

Blanca Pérez García

1ºESO A