re: #104 Randall Gross

It’s a strange place - highly innovative (back in the 90’s you could buy a soda from a vending machine with your phone,) but also highly protective of consumers and their privacy (Finland has the strongest consumer data protection on laws on the books anywhere.)

The society and culture have a lot going for them, and that is what I like about visiting there along with the nature, but it is mostly the extremes of light and dark that I could not endure.

The temperatures I could probably put up with, having grown up in the Midwest, but Moscow in the winter was bad enough and that is further south than even Southern Finland. Right now I live right abouve 50° N and I struggle through the otherwise mild winters.

And the alcohol. I have little use for it to begin with, but alcoholic excess is just a social and cultural norm there that I don’t enjoy at all. I hate hangovers, Finns just plan them in as part of their weekly schedule.