Not Quite Finnished

Deciding it was about time that we experienced true Finnish fast food, we caught a bus downtown this afternoon to our local Hesburger. We ordered in partial Finnish, and the cashiers seemed to think it was kind of cute that we tried. Elizabeth got an oblong but otherwise fairly normal chicken sandwich; Jaime got a Greek salad with some unexpected (but good) sundried tomatoes and the ubiquitous clone feta cubes, reminiscent of the ubiquitous clone meatballs. Also, Elizabeth tried to use the ketchup machine, but it popped and spurted air at her so she (probably wisely) slowly backed away and left it alone.

After feeling a little more Finnish, being full of Finnish fast food, we headed to the Sokos, our local department store, to find the really cute little reflectors that we've seen around. Thanks to a little Wikipedia research, we have discovered that these reflectors, about the size of a large keychain and typically attached to one's jacket with a safety pin and string, are, in fact, a purely Finnish invention. They were created by a farmer with the intent of protecting his horses, and are now a pedestrian safety-device-slash-fashion-statement, coming in fun shapes and colors such as Elizabeth's pretty little blue-striped butterfly and Jaime's cute little silver ghost.

But the Sokos is a very large department store, with 3 floors and departments ranging from a little cafe to a large magazine section, and unfortunately we had no idea where to go about looking for these reflectors. We've had a little (this is an understatement) difficulty with getting directions within the Sokos in the past, but eventually we decided to give in and ask the very-nice-but-slightly-directionally-challenged cashiers to point us toward the reflectors anyway. The first cashier Elizabeth asked seemed helpful, and directed us to the third floor. However, when we got there, we were promptly directed down to the first floor. Had this been an isolated incident, we probably wouldn't have taken much notice, but we think from now on we're just going to go the opposite direction of where they point us.

Anyway, as for the reflectors, according to the packaging, they're worn on the right side at about mid-thigh level. We have clipped them on at the appropriate locations and we are now both safe and Finnish-fashion-forward.

We also were able to get some new makeup for ourselves. Jaime was super excited that not only did they have makeup that matched her skin tone, which is unusual, since she's very fair but olive-skinned, but it was even not the lightest shade available! The colors out on display included just about every shade of "really pale" in existence, with soothing names like "Vanilla," "Milk," "Cream," "Neutral," and our shade, "Honey Beige." (We say "our" shade because, to both of our surprise, Elizabeth ended up being the same color too... though we've both noted that we're at our palest, and will probably be on completely opposite ends of the fairly-light-skin color spectrum come August.)

So, total Being Finnish Score? 3 out of 4. We are now reflectored, pale, and full of Hesburger... now if only we could actually pronounce Finnish words.