Everything about Finland for foreigners

Finland belongs to the East European Time EET timezone which is GMT +2 hours. It means that Finland is one hour ahead compared to the majority of Europe that live in Central European Time CET. CET is GMT +1. Finnish time zone has some practical influences on business and work in Finland: Finland based employees can have virtual meetings with Asian and US colleagues at the same working day. If Finnish employees start they day 8-9, which is normal in Finland, they still have few common hours with their Asian colleagues or customers for virtual meetings. Later in the afternoon US colleagues or customers start their working day when Finnish employees are leaving the office but it's still possible to schedule meetings late in the Finnish afternoon or early evening so that US colleagues attend. From Finland it's easy to fly to Central Europe for meeting in the morning. The one hour advance makes it possible to take early flight from Helsinki and arrive in Central Europe around 9

Thursday 6.12.2012 is Independence Day in Finland. Independence Day is national holiday in Finland and almost all shops will be closed. Only few grocery stores in Helsinki center (for example K-Market Kamppi and S-Market Rautatientori) are open on Indepencence Day. Also some restaurants will be closed but many of them are open.

Today Helsingin Sanomat, the major newspaper in Finland, announced that they will make their website www.hs.fi a paysite. Few months earlier the major financial newspaper Kauppalehti changed their website also only for paying customers.

The Finnish National Icehockey team won the 2011 world championship and the celebration of this gold medal has been very much like a carneval in Helsinki. Second coach of the national hockey team Pasi Nurminen has become very famous because it seems that has partied gold medals too hard. When the winning team arrived at Helsinki Airport Pasi Nurminen fell at the red carpet.

Tomorrow evening 15.5.2011 will be a very special evening in Finland when our national ice hockey team is playing in the ice hockey world championship final agains Sweden. Every sports pub will be crowded tomorrow and if Finland wins the game there will be a huge party evening at least in the biggest cities.

If you want to go to the barber who speaks fluent english there is one excellent place to visit. The Barber Shop is owned and operated by english gentleman who serves his customers in english at Punavuori (Fredrikinkatu 19). More about The Barber Shop can be found here in the parturi helsinki -website.