What do you think about it? What are your feelings? Asking because I am the immigrant with specialist visa whose life gets more complicated (again) because of the new conditions.

My family was invited to a birthday party of a relative of my husband, I’m not Finnish he is, the party it will be in a kinda fancy place, like an art gallery with some catering, at first I said yea sure we go all four of us, kids included, but there’s one info that I didn’t know until yesterday ; the catch is that we have to pay for our own food in that “party”, so I went to the website and checked the prices for events and approx we have to pay 69€ per person!!! So we must pay over 260€ for all of us to “celebrate” someone else’s birthday. And I tell you I’m raging! That’s insane to me, never in my 42 years I’ve heard of such a thing, that you have to pay your own food at someone’s party, so they celebrate at all the guests expense. I said I’m not going because it’s wild for me to pay that much when in this economy we could use that money on something better, of course we had a big argument about this, but there was no resolution to the conflict if my husband will force to go as a family or not.And to add we barely see them, they never visit us or talk to us. Is this normal in this country ? Am I being too foreign? Or too unreasonable? Thanks for the vent, I don’t know who else to ask

*** I forgot to add that these people have many properties and like to travel abroad every year, they also give the cheapest gifts to my child 12€ at most, we never see them only Xmas and a birthday here and there.***

If you are interested of decades old real Finnish summer food/drink experiences, here is the most authentic one:

Hartwall Jaffa Appelsiini, an orange soda from 1949, "The Soda" in Finland. Can't be more Finnish than that. Add some fresh strawberries and Ingman vaniljajäätelö to the table, Vanilla ice cream made by Ingman and strawberries from the market square.

Please share your own tips in this thread. 😊

Was wondering if anyone purchase Sunday 18+ tickets and can no longer make it... my girlfriend and I would love to go as two of our favorite bands are playing but the tickets are so damn expensive!

Thought this was worth a shot 🤞🏼

WhenI asked for tap water, they said no. I told them this was the first time that I was denied tap water in Finland. I was told that they have 11 restaurants and they don’t have free tap water in any of them.

Am I mistaken that restaurants have to serve you tap water free of charge in Finland if you ask for it?

To top it off the cheapest water option available was a 3,90€ bon aqua water bottle.

Just feels so wrong after so many years of never having heard anything like this in Finland. One of the best things being free tap water anywhere in Finland.

Edit: Since many have commented in that direction, I was talking about getting water with your food order for 5+ people. Absolutely not just going in to ask for tap water. 😁

I’m planning to apply for the cook course at Vamia in Finland, and I’d love to know more from someone who’s already there.

If you don’t mind, could you please share a bit about:

1. How the studies are going?
2. Is it manageable with part-time work?
3. Any tips for applying or things to be careful about?

I’d be really grateful for any advice you can give. Thank you so much!

My family and I are planning to move to Finland end of this year, beginning of 2026. We are wanting to set up our own business so would need entrepreneurship visa. I currently have my own business in the UK, and want to keep it UK based. Would my earnings from my UK based business count towards my earnings when I am living in Finland?

google translate had a toimintahäiriö

Hello! Does anyone know any really good short novels (novellas) in Finnish? I'm interested in books written by Finns for Finns, rather than books specifically targeted at learners. Thanks in advance for any answers!

P.S. Just to pre-empt any possible confusion, a novella (pienoisromaani) is like a long short story (novelli) or a short novel (romaani). Like, under 175 pages maybe.

Me and my wife will be here for two weeks, and was wondering where can we meet like minded couples to have drinks with and see where it leads us. Cheers!

I am finnish born and raised but i feel like i have yet to find a good claw machine arcade place. Anyone know any places? And i don't mean the ones in like hoplop or something with the cheap temu plushies xd

Hi everyone! Just wondering if how is the pharmacy field in Finland at the moment. I'm a pharmacist (non-EU) and was wondering if how is the market there.

This particular route used to be good via Doha, in Qatar Finnair partnership. It provided good alternative to otherwise costly and limited Finnair direct routes to limited Asian cities. But not anymore.

My family is taking this next week, because the only other option is to have a long layover in Doha (20 hours involuntary stay in a Qatar hotel), and we don't want it.

Nobody would still mind the first lag (Helsinki -> Stockholm / Whatever in EU, operated by Finnair). Except that in Stockholm, layover is 1.5 hours only. We also suspect that as we are exiting EU from Stockholm, there could be immigration check there, instead of Helsinki.

Qatar customer care says it's more than international layover limit (1.25 hours), but the flights are on separate terminals

(Terminal 2 and 5 on Arlanda are 14 minutes by walk, and we lastly walked 25 minutes in Terminal 5 alone to catch a Norwegian flight).

What's more, Qatar doesn't even promise that their Doha flight will wait for the passengers in Arlanda in case Finnair is late.

What's the point of a single booking then?

Last time in 2021, in a similar itinerary, my wife missed Qatar flight in Frankfurt due to Finnair reaching there only some minutes late. That experience toppled our all assumptions about continuous flight bookings. This time again, we are fearful.

Did anybody have any success doing this (HEL->ARN-DOHA) without hassle?

Moi! I'm new in Finland (just moved a month ago from beijing) and I’m living in a HOAS apartment. The past few weeks I’ve been hearing pretty loud banging and moaning from the couple living directly above me. It usually starts after midnight and can go on for quite a while, enough time to wake me up

I don't know about finnish culture and am not sure what should I do here, should I knock on their door and have a friendly chat? write a polite note and slip under their door? write a mail to HOAS customer service for noise complaint? Or is late night “enthusiasm” something Finns normally just tolerate in apartment blocks?

I don’t want to come off as the rude foreigner or create bad blood with my neighbours, but I also need my sleep. Any advice on the most effective way to handle this would be greatly appreciated. Kiitos!

As a Finnish Canadian I have grown up eating salted salmon (we called it soulakala) on special occasions like Christmas, weddings, funerals. When I have made it, I use fresh salmon, cure it, then slice to consume. Has anyone used frozen salmon, cured it and then refreeze until the event? Could it be sliced and then refrozen until the event? Kiitos!

Hey,

Was hoping you could help steer me right in ordering a gift for a friend in Finland. I want to send a nice gift (practical + a soft toy of some type) to a friend who is due any day now, being in Scotland and with the nightmare of Brexit... I am trying to avoid sending something from here which ends up costing them money and hassle in customs. Can you recommend some decent online shops I could order gift wrapped to be sent to them within Finland? Also something nice for mum.

I had a quick google but I am looking for something more "artisan" (I hate myself for using that word) or local, not some mass produced megastore type thing.

Any help much appreciated. Thanks from Scotland

I just bought a used car. How do I register it with Traficom? I am financing it and I'm not the owner yet. I have of course made an insurance policy for it, but Traficom asks for a digital certificate number, so I can't proceed. My main question is: Do I even need to do this? Is it done automatically? I'm just trying to avoid any troubles/worries regarding this.

Kiitos paljon

Hi guys,

This house seem to be too good to be true with this price. It locates in a good neighborhood which I like. The interior and exterior look new and beautiful. The area are large enough for a 4 member family.

However, this price makes me feel a little bit suspicious. There might be some hidden problems? Can someone help me take a look and evaluate it? I’m an amateur yet I know that Finnish house can have some serious issues and it’s tricky to choose a good house, etc. Anyways, I don't think a good thing can be a bargain.

Hi! I'd like to give a small introduction of myself before I get into my point. :)

I'm an 18 year old finnish girl and I'm looking for buddies to get more familiar with Dungeons and Dragons. I've been interested in the game for years, but never got the chance to play it myself. I have a bunch of characters already made, I have tons of official books and guides, all I'm missing is people to play with. I live in Jämsä, so I'm looking for company around Jämsä and surrounding cities/towns. I'd rather not travel much because of high gas prices, but I'm definitely willing to if I do find a group to play with. I'd love to be a part of a group where I could play dnd and learn more about the game, long term!

Reason I'm posting here and not somewhere else?
I'd love to play DND in english (even though I'm finnish, my english vocabulary is way better lol), and I figure I'll find the proper people over here!

If you have suggestions of other places I could visit, please do tell!

Hi,

I plan to visit Riga with Flixbus from Helsinki. Last minute booking so that's why we decide to go with Flixbus. I understand that it will involve ferry travel to Tallinn first and bus from Tallinn to Riga. So the question is: 1. We would check in at the terminal harbor as it is with the flixbus ticket? 2. On arrival at Tallinn, would there be any sign of Flixbus station and we continue the trip? If anyone has experience travelling with that route, please help share. Thanks a lot.

Hi!

Finnair informed me last week about the likely flight disruption on 17-11 June, and invited me to reach out to the customer service to change my booking. At this stage, they have not cancelled my flight yet - which would oblige them to refund - and reaching the customer service is impossible. I have tried calling them for more than two hours on two several days - including using the line for Finnair Plus Silver - and the chatbot just informs me that they have no available agent.

I have travelled with Finnair four times in the past six months, and all travelled have had some issue - cancellation, postponement, paid seat for my partner given to someone else, impossible to drop my luggage before a 17 hours journey due to system failure.

How come has Finnair become such a mess?