Culturally yours

Many people who actually managed to drag themselves outside Europe, you now... willing to express REAL cultural differences, are keeping far more interesting blogs about their strange encounters. I however keep noticing similarities and would like to take a moment to report on those. Maybe I've mentioned some of them before already, but hey! "repetition is the mother of learning". Firstly Czech (and okay also Slovak) people are totally fanatic about ice hockey. This is one of the rare Central/Eastern European hockey countries. Well there might be a team from like Ukraine in the world championships, but these are always just among the appeticers for the real games during the final week of the tournament. Czech and Slovak teams, or usually at least one of them, go to the final six. Relating to ice hockey, I was told that the Czech ice hockey dudes usually date the beauty queen chicks, something which also is an interesting similarity (there are a lot of these "Miss this and that" contests here, again another common feature).

Another very common interest between the Finns and the Czechs is (aber natuerlich!) beer. Finns just don't know how to make it, whereas the Czechs seem to master the art perfectly. This is unfortunately also noticed by my belly as well... (It is growing… damn!)

Czechs are real outdoor people. Virtually almost everyone owns a tent and other sort of camping gear. In the city there are always many people who look like they are either coming or going to some outdoor activity. There are many very nice hiking routes, and what is striking to me is that one can quite easily hike from a village to another in just a few minutes. In a vast land like Finland, it is hardly possible. Hiking routes are also excellent for biking. The locals seem to love it. Where I am used to using a bike as a cheap and healthy means of transport, here you actually take the bike (+ your nice professional looking biking outfit) and perform an activity called biking in the nature. Back home, you already are in the nature and just bike along without any fancy gear. Anyway, the love for nature and outdoor activities is common for us, never mind the little differences in environment and habits.