Independent

I came to work this morning and put on the Independence Day Ball happening back in Helsinki. It was nice to see some old familiar faces - I used to go to school with the guy who was interviewing the president... Otherwise I notice that after almost ten years living abroad, the only politicians I notice are the old ones. I follow so little of Finnish politics nowadays, the only news I really get are the ones where my colleagues come and tell me smirking that our president looks like Conan O'Brien or that our prime minister apparently is the sexiest man in Finland and dumped his girlfriend by text message (so the announcers made a point of saying several times that he was at the Ball by himself). Yeah, that's it, those are the things Finland is really known for...

It's true I feel more like a Finn away from Finland. I don't do it that much anymore, but for years I think I started a sentence with "In Finland we..." probably pretty much daily, it's really that deep in you. Happy independence day, fatherland.

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