Names, months, toilets, and animals!

At work, we go for a coffee break in the mornings (and also once more in the afternoon) and my supervisor and coworkers love telling me about Finnish customs and culture. There is a name celebrated for every day of the calendar year here in Finland. It is customary for someone to bring candies and sweets to share with their peers on their name day. You can find the names in calendars sold in Finland (http://www.behindthename.com/namedays/country/finland is a link for the names celebrated on each day). My coworkers were actually quite astonished to learn that there is no such custom in Canada! It's really cute and a great way to get candy from people!!

Then in the same vein, they started telling me about the months of the year. Each month of the year has the suffix -kuu which means moon and the name of each month describes the period of time encompassed. Lokakuu (October) was interesting because loka was so difficult for them to translate. Apparently, loka is a mixture of snow and sand with a bit of water in it. I just found it pretty amazing that they have such a specialised word because I am not aware of any one English word for that type of... substance. I guess, we'd call it... slush or maybe muddy slush? Actually, I could probably use my handy-dandy Finnish-English dictionary to look up loka. Ugh, utter disappointment, it just translates loka as mud. But their explaining of the meaning behind each month was nice because it made me realise that I took my months for granted and never actually went looking for the meaning behind their names.

Also, all the washrooms here usually come with an extra showerhead and a tap. There is one in both washrooms of my flat and in every washroom of my workplace (even those for guests). I had a small feeling that it was for keeping oneself fresh downstairs, but I couldn't find the right time to ask my coworkers. But my room-mate asked his and confirmed my suspicions. So yeah, you are apparently supposed to use it over the toilet! Ooh, sort of like a handheld bidet.

And there is a drain under the sink. But I think you're still supposed to do your cleaning over the toilet.

And I've also seen different little animals around the city that I wouldn't see often back in Toronto. I have seen a hare poking around a construction site. I was really excited about it and mentioned it to my coworkers (cause, you know, first hare sighted in Finland and all) but they told me that they're pests and aren't really something they would get excited about! Haha, oh well, I hardly ever see hares in Toronto. I've only ever seen a small rabbit close to Yonge and Steeles. There are a lot of mourning doves and seagulls here but I don't think I've seen a pigeon yet. I have, however, seen a lot of crows. They're big and waddle around. Kinda cute.

The crow.

The seagull.

And the hare... it's there, I promise. See that stack of stuff in the middle of the picture? It's crouched near the right side by the bundle of strings closest to the right.