What Visitors Think of Seattle – Finland(25 F)

This is the forth in a series of What Visitors Think of Seattle.  We’re big fans of Couchsurfing. We’ve had the pleasure of hosting over 40 visitors from around the US and Internationally.  Visitors always have interesting observations about Seattle and it’s great seeing Seattle through the lens of a fresh pair of eyes. We profile some of our visitors and noted their comments about Seattle, the US and some of our learning about where they’re from.

N (female-25) was from Helsinki, Finland. She only stayed for one night in Seattle. She was just traveling through going from Vancouver to Los Angeles. She got to my place by bus. We talked and got to know each other while we walked my dog around the neighborhood and then stopped off at a grocery store where she picked up ingredients for dinner and dessert, which she prepared as a thank you for hosting her. She’d been in Vancouver for the last 4 months on an exchange program and prior to that lived in Australia for 6 months and South Africa for 2 months. Her plan was to meet her boyfriend from Germany at Seatac the next day, rent a car and go on a road trip down the West Coast, then Utah where her boyfriend would go back to Germany. She will stay in Utah with some Mormon friends she met while they were on a mission in Helsinki. She had previously couchsurfed in London, Cape Town and Israel. 

 N’s Questions/Observations about the US:  

• She asked what she should do in Utah. Told her to check out Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park 
• She asked about NYC. I told her Highline, Central Park, a free ferry ride on Long island Ferry and the names of some speakeasy bars. My personal opinion was to pass on Empire State Building and Times Square. 
• Asked for a typical “American” breakfast the next morning so I made eggs, bacon, hash browns and OJ.  

N’s Questions/Observations about Seattle:  

• A nice Seattle story: I instructed her to reach my place via bus from downtown, a $2.75 ride. She only had a $20 and asked the bus driver for change like back home in Finland and the driver said, “Are you serious?” A passenger overheard the conversation and tried to pay the fare for N with her Orca card, but it wasn’t working, so another passenger stepped up and paid with her card and then talked to her while on the bus. When she got off at her stop another rider who also got off walked her to my place to make sure she got there safely, knowing she was a visitor. N said the people here are so nice. I told her I was glad she met some nice people. Way to step up Seattlites! 
• She was surprised by all the homeless people in Seattle since there are no homeless in Finland. 

 My Learnings/Observations from N:  

• I told her how my philosophy has always been that strangers had to “earn” my friendship, but I had just recently changed my philosophy to “you are automatically my friend until you prove otherwise”, which is one of the reasons I started hosting couchsurfers. She said, “I like that! I’m using it too!” 
• I told her a previous couchsurfer told a story of being in Finland and going to a sauna where you beat other people in the sauna with a branch. This couchsurfer told me that a local stranger sharing the sauna space asked him to beat him with the branch and got mad when the couchsurfer didn’t hit him hard enough. I thought he was exaggerating, but N replied, “That sounds so Finnish”, so I guess he wasn’t lying.  
• Apparently, it’s normal to get undressed in front of roommates/ acquaintances since nudity in Finland is not a big deal. So when she started undressing in front of her roommates in Vancouver for the first time, they said, “What are you doing?” and thought she was crazy. 
• University is paid for as long as you pass the entry exam in Finland. N was shocked and curious how college students in the US handle all their student loan debts. 
• All people are proud of their country, but N was especially proud of Finland and considered herself an ambassador. She made a Finnish dinner and dessert(she left me the recipe) and played Finnish music on her computer as she cooked and we ate.  
• Although we spent less than 24 hours together, N was really easy to get along with. We talked about the book, The Alchemist, which is one of my favorites and she pointed out how easy it is to bond when you’re relying on the kindness of a stranger to provide a place to stay on pure faith. She surmised that she probably knows me better in our short time together than the coworker next to me at work, which is probably true.  

• Favorite movies:Notebook. Music:Jack Johnson, Keane, Miles Davis, Damien Rice. Hobbies: cycling 

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