Given that there are many Finns on these forums I thought I'd ask the question. What is, in your opinion, the worst thing about living in Finland?
You see, my wife (she's a Finn but hasn't lived there for 40 odd years!) and I are going to retire to Finland in the near future and although we've visited many times you never get to REALLY know a country until you've lived there for quite some time.
I know about the weather: Winter is the best time for snow imo
I know about the difficult language: I know quite a bit of Finnish and expect to get better at it. But at a push many Finns speak English to a higher standard than many Englishmen!
What else?

Quote from Doorman :

What is, in your opinion, the worst thing about living in Finland?

Niko lives there.

And Batterypark :P

And JTbo

It could be worse though...

DK

Alcohol is very expensive, I've heard.

You have to order all your stuff from the web. Stores sell cheap crap for sunday consumers. If you know anything about anything, you have to order it from the web.

I can't think of anything else.

Quote from pine-fin :

You have to order all your stuff from the web. Stores sell cheap crap for sunday consumers. If you know anything about anything, you have to order it from the web.

I can't think of anything else.

Hey! Shaping up real well.

Quote from hrtburnout :

Alcohol is very expensive, I've heard.

Gotta do better than 'I've heard'.

Finns drink a lot. :drunk:

They are good rally drivers

Quote from Doorman :

Gotta do better than 'I've heard'.

Anywhere's better than Chelmsford! I'm in Southend and I reside in Coventry for uni - both total dumps!

It was my dream to move away from the UK and into Scandanavia. The thought of Finland really appealed to me. The finn's i've met online have always been very nice to get along with.
Unfortunately I don't have any useful information. Although I do want the know the answer like you!

My best freind studied in finland for half a year and she said the two things which sucked the moste were:

1) The short days in Winter, really making you depressed.
2) Allthough the people are nice, they are not very emotional and rather on the "cool" side of things, making it quite hard to find friends.

I have friends living near Helsinki and went to stay with them for two weeks a few years ago.

Its gorgeous there. The main thing I noticed is you don't get any scallies at all. I didn't see one. My friends live in an estate that's made up of about 6 or 7 10 floor blocks of flats. In the UK you wouldn't be able to leave your home after dark for fear of something happening, but their estate has almost a Butlins-kind of atmosphere. I think I saw one peice of graffiti in the entire estate.

Lovely country, at least the bit I saw.

Well, I couldn't find many things but at least few.
1) Anything that is considered hitech, like hi-end stereo equipment, or anything like that, is very expensive in Finland and almost always you can easily save a lot by ordering stuff abroad. Cars and fuel are very expensive too and you can't rely on public transportation unless you live in a city
3) Sometimes things can get into real byroctratic hell
4) alcohol is very expensive
5) not much daylight on winter, just like 5 or 6 hours or so. But there are no nights on summer, at least if you go north enough
6) Tv generally sucks. If you like to watch tv a lot you may want to invest into satellite dish or something. And you need to pay a license to watch tv (220€ per year or so).
7) the number two was missing
8) no polar bears

Welcome to Finland

Hard to say really. Haven't really seen the world and it's hard to see the trees from all the forest some time. If you don't mind the dark winter, and some cold temperatures every now and then, I guess it's not that bad. People are a bit different than Englishmen I'd say, cultural differences you always get when changing country. People don't really talk much, silence is a blessing and empty talk is for the empty headed. But of course, we've moved to the more central European direction and we are actually having small-talk nowdays. Although, the difference might be that when a finn asks "how are you doing?" it might actually mean, how you really are doing and if everything alright. I'm not really sure about it though.

What else. Well, cars are ridiculously expensive, houses are small, and people drink.

And btw, shouldn't it be "the worst thing" not "worse".

Quote from Kalev EST :

Finns drink a lot. :drunk:

So do I. I'll fit in.

I've noticed none of them can spell "Hamilton". And they get really grumpy about people misspelling Räïķķķōőŏńņʼnêëňň.

Every house has a sauna, that's the other wierd thing I rememeber. A house won't sell in Finland without a sauna apparently, they have them just like we'd be expected to have a bathroom.

And I'm told it's pronounced 'sow-na' with the 'sow-' part sounding like 'sound', not 'saw-na'.

Yes, it's funny you see because you people can't spell Räikkönen or Kovalainen and we can't spell Blotton, Humdton, or Cultard. What a coincidence I say!

Quote from Hyperactive :

Well, I couldn't find many things but at least few.
1) Anything that is considered hitech, like hi-end stereo equipment, or anything like that, is very expensive in Finland and almost always you can easily save a lot by ordering stuff abroad. Cars and fuel are very expensive too and you can't rely on public transportation unless you live in a city. I'm past worrying about cars and fuel is now 1,47€ a litre in UK
3) Sometimes things can get into real bureaucratic hell. No change there then
4) alcohol is very expensive. As it is in UK
5) not much daylight on winter, just like 5 or 6 hours or so. But there are no nights on summer, at least if you go north enough. You think the sun shines here all year round?
6) Tv generally sucks. If you like to watch tv a lot you may want to invest into satellite dish or something. And you need to pay a license to watch tv (220€ per year or so). Making me feel at home already
7) the number two was missing. I've never found number two all that useful
8) no polar bears. Bugger!

Welcome to Finland

Kiitoksia paljon.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Every house has a sauna, that's the other wierd thing I rememeber. A house won't sell in Finland without a sauna apparently, they have them just like we'd be expected to have a bathroom.

And I'm told it's pronounced 'sow-na' with the 'sow-' part sounding like 'sound', not 'saw-na'.

I have a sauna in my house now and y'know what? It wont sell unless I take it out!. The English don't know what they're missing with sauna.
Irriatates the hell out of me when people say saw-na........then giggle.

Quote from Blackout :

Yes, it's funny you see because you people can't spell Räikkönen

I'll spell it Raikkonen, but it's not an error, it's just an approximation due to keyboard limits and a bit of lazyness.

And all the Giuseppe (Joseph) of the world will be grateful if they won't be called Guiseppe any longer.

(I mean, I wouldn't eat at Guiseppe's Grill or Poverino's. You have to know your stuff - and a bit of Italian - to pretend to be Italian...)

Nah, there's no bad things in Finland. Well okay, this can be an expensive country to live in. Weather is just good, I love warm 30 celcius days on summer and those days in winter when I can drive in very snowy roads. Sauna and few beers after that, great!

And btw, finns don't actually drink that much. We just are different with using alcohol, we usually don't drink on every day, we drink on weekends only. The thing is, when we don't drink on week, we drink more on weekends, that all alcohol stuffs on one day, so it looks much because expecially on fridays very much drunken people. But I myself love to get bit drunk with good friends, not too drunk though.

Oh and, car keeping is expensive, we have car taxes and very expensive insurances. And politicians think that they can rescue the world by flaming people who drive old and fast cars, they pollute so it is bad sin in many eyes of "world-rescuer". But I don't mind, I still love to have these old RWD-Fords.

Quote from Doorman :

I have a sauna in my house now and y'know what? It wont sell unless I take it out!. The English don't know what they're missing with sauna.
Irriatates the hell out of me when people say saw-na........then giggle.

Funny how your talking about pronouncing sauna, Jonesy_'s first name is Joona and after me calling him "Joona" he has taught me how to so Yaw-Na which is how you pronounce his name, so it seems that all Finns are pretty damn specific about there language!

Quote from Bawbag :

......so it seems that all Finns are pretty damn specific about there language!

It's a pity that a lot of us are not so specific about ours eh?

Finns good on English? Haha.. listen to Häkkinen and Räikkönen (who imo imitates the previous). Häkkinen is ofcourse an extreme example, but still.. .
And yes, the language is much much harder than English.
Bawbag gave an example.