Hetvägg (”hot wall”). With marzipan. Just like it used to be for hundreds of years. While most people in Finland prefer their bun dry in hand, mine definitely likes hot milk better.
This is what people relish in the Nordic countries on Shrove Tuesday (called Fat Tuesday in Swedish). In Finland the day is “laskiainen”, an untranslatable “sliding day”. Not only because one begins the slide towards Easter and spring, but quite literally because one is supposed to rush down snowy hills with one’s behind seated on a coaster or in a plastic sled, regardless of one’s age and bone health.
Therefore, a Finnish or Swedish Shrove Tuesday is also celebrated with hot pea soup – and possibly a sip of arrack punch.
(Helsinki, Finland; March 2019)
Freezing cold Helsinki is quite different from spring in Denmark. But it is a pretty place in sunlight! On top the Bank of Finland and the Cathedral; below the House of the Estates.
(Helsinki, Finland; March 2019)
This little town has many great picnic spots. I cannot wait for warmer weather and lazy days on the grass with a good book, or in good company. The Danes do not seem to enjoy the great outdoors much, unless they are into mountain biking or have a dog that needs to attend to its business. Most evenings the gravel and forest trails are empty, save for those few dog walkers, and me and about three other runners. On Sundays the busiest time is before 2 pm, when families go for a leisurely stroll (even without dogs). And what is nearly unthinkable here in the dark Nordic winter: all gravel walks and trails are without artificial lighting, so enjoying the outdoors after dark is quite unpleasant.
(Brande, Denmark; February 2019)
Spring arrived too early. So early, that the first leaves faced mid-February night frosts and the finches and flycatchers had to desperately look for food: for those brave winter-bearing insects staggering out of their hiding places into the warm sunlight of a few noon-hours of the day.
(Brande, Denmark; February 2019)
The moor looks dramatic in winter, and it is not a landscape I feel at home in. I am used to sea, lakes, and thickets where you need violence or a machete to stumble through – not these open windswept landscapes with heather and farm animals.
If one lives on a mountaintop, one sees more of morning sunlight. The days are shorter in the valleys. So which one will you choose? Sheltered still shorter days; or wild windy longer ones? And what about the days of your life?
Today I am consciously enjoying the longer midwinter daylight in Denmark compared to dark Finland. And the fact that I am no longer an “illegal immigrant” but actually have a registered Danish address and social security number. After six months of drifting I have bureaucratic roots again. And as I am (unfortunately?) a human conditioned to like modern society, bureaucratic roots help generate the sense of individual roots and foothold.
(Silkeborg, Denmark; February 2019)
Denmark in deep winter means some ice and snow. But not much. And some light. But not as little as in Finland. On the first of February the light was blue and on its way out by the time I arrived. On that day I thought this would be my last visit and I took two photos, to remember. I sat in silence for a long time, pondering over how unpredictable and out of control life is, and how all we can do is try to hang on from the edge and insist that we have some sort of assertiveness over where we go. Because if we don’t try to assert control we do not assert ownership of our actions. A pond is a good place for pondering.
(Brande, Denmark; February and March, 2019)
The low, early January sun found its way in through the dining room window just so. It hit the crystal chandelier and exploded into hundreds of little rainbows, all over the walls and the ceiling and the fireplace. For a long while the dining room became a crystal palace.
(Loviisa, Finland; January 2019)
While the polar vortex spun around northern North America, snow settled in Europe, including Finland. These photos are from late December and a week ago, in early February, my mother described that the heaps of snow blowing against the house now reach half-way up the wall. Imagine that. I am trying. 
(Helsinki, Finland; December 2018)
This blue marble 