Finnish Parks

Park Culture

Oh my gosh you must be so sick of me talking about parks.  I’m sorry.  But I also can’t help it.  They are just so cool here.  And they are everywhere, and everyone uses them.  And they are safe.  And clean.  Like clean clean clean.  An apple falls on the ground and you turn your back and when you look a minute later its gone.

We’ve talked about some of our favorites already, but I wanted to mention a few from neighborhoods we won’t get to on this blog.  Because certain marital relations have suggested that I may be going a bit too far already with number of and length of posts. 

Almost every day (especially towards the end of our trip) we go to Otter Park, which is just across the road near Alexanderinkirkko.  It’s right next to a school, and can get a bit busy.  It has a zip line that Milo loves and Oscar was super stoked to try until he had a gnarly wipe out that scarred him for life.

There’s a really cool one way out East at the Kavella stop.  It was a neighborhood of apartments built in the 1950s.  It has a park that is officially called otter park.  But we call the park at Aleksanderinkirkko "otter park."  So we call this fake otter park "second park."  Milo came up with the name and it’s super meta.  It’s second park because it’s the second otter park (it has a fountain statue of an otter) and also because it has two parks.  

There’s a little kid park, and a second park that Milo calls adventure park.  

Between the two is a nature walkway with some of the prettiest views in the city.

Out at Hippos there are a few parks, including a kids traffic park with working stop lights and traffic circles.  These are actually pretty popular throughout Finland.  In the summer time they rent bikes and scooters to ride around, but we had just missed it.  You can still ride your own bikes, but we never found a spot to rent them.

In the middle of town is Sorin Aukio.  It is a smaller park but has a chain pulley contraption that the kids love.  They are pretty popular here in Finland.  The kids entertained themselves for nearly an hour loading rotten crab apples into the rusty bucket and hoisting them to the top just to spill them out.  It’s probably the most authentically Eastern European experience we’ve had on the trip.

There a couple of things that stood out to us about Finnish parks.  First, each had the exact same gate, but each had a totally different latching mechanism.  For a people who pride themselves on standardization and efficiency that seemed strange.  Second, they all had signs that said that parents weren’t allowed to lift kids onto the equipment.  That seemed weird, until Amy (who did I mention is a doctor and specialist in child development) explained that it was probably to encourage the natural development of children.  That way they will only go up on the equipment if they are capable of getting down.  Like a cat making sure its body can fit through an opening by testing its whiskers.

Thirdly, the parks are impressive with a proliferation of creative playground equipment integrated with trees and other natural landscape.  Many of the parks have combination basketball hoops/soccer goals, and there is usually a free ball lying around that anyone can play with.  Most parks also have free exercise/weight machines as well.

Finally, it feels like kids stay kids much longer here.  I was surprised how many kids who I would estimate to be fifteen or sixteen were still playing on the climbers and swingsets.  Kids who in America might be on their phones, or vaping in a corner in the park.  In America kids that age play as adults.  Here it felt like they were more comfortable and encouraged to still be kids.

One of the coolest moments early in our trip happened when a Finnish girl came up and asked Milo to play with her.  She spoke in Finnish at first, and when Milo sheepishly said “Englanti” she switched seamlessly to English.  She was older – I’d estimate twelve or thirteen.  It was exactly the sort of older girl attention that I remember feeling really, really good when I was Milo’s age.  He said that he wanted to play, and they went over to the merry-go-round.  She asked if he was okay being spun fast, and he nodded excitedly.  I took out my phone to record.

And then she spun him as fast as she possibly could.  I managed to snap one photo before he flew off and landed with a thud.  She's the one in the red.

She ran over to check on him, hands covering her mouth.  She said she was so sorry and asked if Milo still wanted to play.  He said “maybe later” and then slunk off to the other side of the playground to preserve his dignity and bodily integrity.

It’s too bad.  It was a promising start, and it was the first time a Finnish kid asked to play.  She was very kind, and nice.  It could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.  Maybe even something more than that.  They had the potential for a special connection.

Until she tried to murder him.

Hei Hei