Take some coffee

I can imagine that you must get a little tired of me talking about all the differences between the food back home and here in Finland. So I thought just switch to a thing everyone loves. And when I talk about everyone, I mean everyone except me. 

The thing I am talking about is the love of some peoples life (a lot of people), the one thing that they can't live without. Coffee. I am talking about the worst drink ever, coffee. 

Maybe it's not the most common culture difference, but here in Finland is coffee a big part of the Finnish culture. The Fins drink coffee a lot. All day, everyday. 

The first time I heard about the Finnish love for coffee was while I was listening to a presentation about Finland in the introduction week of college. They told us that the Fins drink a lot of coffee. Some people even drink it when they wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe it's not that polite, but I was just thinking 'You must be so crazy if you are doing that?!'. They even told us that it was kind of rude when you would say no if someone offers you a cup of coffee. So basically I had two options: 

1. Pretend I like coffee and just drink it (by this thought I already feel sick to my stomach...)

2. Just be a very rude person all day. 

So when they were telling us this fact about coffee, I couldn't imagine that it would be such a big part of the day. 

Man oh man, what was I wrong....

This week I started my first clinical practice in the hospital, at the women's clinic. 

I was there right on time and waited for my mentor. She took me to the staff room, where everybody was sitting. With a cup of coffee. She asked me if I wanted some coffee too. And at that point I chose to be a rude person, and said no to the coffee. Then she asked me if I drank coffee at all. 

Quickly I made the decision to be just honest with her, and told her I didn't like coffee at all.

Her response to this statement was 'You are getting a rough time in here, 'cause we have a lot of coffee breaks.'

And she was right.... They have a lot of coffee breaks. Arriving at work? Grab a cup of coffee. Just had the team meeting? Grab some coffee. A break between patients? Grab some coffee. Lunch break? Just take some more coffee. 

I am wondering if those people can fall a sleep at night. 

So besides of all the coffee breaks at my practical, it's a very nice ward and there are a lot of differences with my previous practical back home, but I will come back to that in a next post! 

Nähdään!

Aniek

P.S. If you are craving some coffee after reading this post, don't worry, I won't judge you.