One Foot

part ten

The Republic of Finland has never actually been at war.

Technically, in 1809, Russia warred with Sweden over Finland and the history books call it the "Finnish War" but really, Finland is hardly worth fighting over. Even Russia knew it; when Finland asked for its independence in 1917, Russia just shrugged and let them have it.

I've never really wanted to go to India or France but I've always wanted to go to Finland. As it turns out, the reason why I wanted to go was much more interesting to me than the actual country.

My grandma and I used to play word games. This was her solution for me when I didn't want to be at the beach or the park or outside in the sun, but we were there anyway because it was a Saturday and my sister was bored, so she'd let me sit in the shade and say, "A! My name is Amanda and I'm going to Alaska and I'm bringing apples!"

And she'd say, "B my name is Billy and I'm going to Bermuda and I'm bringing boats!"

We'd go back and forth through the whole game and then we'd make up new games until we were laughing too hard to speak.

One time we were at the beach and my sister was playing in the surf with my step-grandpa and Grandma and I only made it to letter F before we stopped, because we'd already been through the alphabet game once and couldn't think of a country besides France that started with F.

"F! My name is Frida and I'm going to...um..."

"What country starts with F?"

"Um...well, I'm bringing...fish."

"I can't think of any others..."

"And I'm going to...um...Oh! I'm going to FINLAND!"

The tour guide in Helsinki very proudly told us how safe it is to live in Finland. She flipped her hair and grinned at those of us sitting in the front of the bus and said that the people of Finland would never dream of dropping their kids off at school, even the little ones walk by themselves. Which makes sense for a country that rents out patches of land for people to grow flowers on and prints every street sign and public notice in at least two languages to cater to anyone whose mother tongue isn't Finnish.

We went to a park in Helsinki and I took pictures of the cloudy sky and dew-soaked trees and a little green bench off by itself. I imagined growing up in Finland and sitting on that bench with Grandma. We'd play the alphabet game (in multiple languages because every Finnish child is required to learn at least three in school) and we wouldn't be able to come up with a country that started with U, and finally I'd shout "USA!" because that would sound just as funny to us as "Finland" did when we were at the beach.

Finland's Wikipedia page tries really hard to include itself in major wars of the last few centuries, but the reality is that Finland is just a quiet place known for its safety and lack of invasions. The most exciting thing I learned while there was that a fire destroyed all the wooden houses in Helsinki in the early 1800s, but even then, the tour guide glossed over the gory details in favor of detailing the eleven month maternity leave granted to each mother and the fact that college students don't have to pay taxes.

Grandma and I went to Finland together. It's important to both of us that we can say that now, and maybe I don’t want to live in Helsinki and maybe I loved London and Gothenburg and Tallinn more but what matters is that we were both there, together.