Perks of living abroad - Part I

* What I call the "Cool Factor",  i.e. people (youngsters especially) thinking you´re cool just because you´re a foreigner. A great conversation starter, although it can occasionally backfire and then you end up having to listen to a stranger (sometimes the stranger will be drunk; this is Finland, after all) telling you all about the school trip to Paris they took when they were 13, or about their great-aunt on their mother´s side who was half French, supposedly anyway.

* When you live abroad, going to the supermarket is an adventure, the first few times especially. So many labels you can´t decipher, so many mysterious items... said items might look like food but then it turns out they aren´t, or vice versa. There are some life-changing discoveries, too, like industrial vispipuuro which I eat unreasonable amounts of.

More specifically, this one

* In fact, everything is a discovery when you live abroad! Things that are everyday objects in your host country may be totally unknown to you (the juustohöylä is a good example). You will find yourself having to constantly ask "what´s this?" or "how does this work?" to the people around you and you will feel a bit silly at first, but you will eventually take pride in mastering the object in question. When I arrived in Finland, I had no idea of how the Moccamaster coffee machine you find in every workplace worked, but I´ve since become an expert at using it.

A very familiar feature of my life in Finland

* When the street salesperson you´ve been trying to avoid (no, I don´t need a new phone plan, thank you) inevitably notices you and marches up to you to try and convince you to buy X item, you can still whip up the "sorry, I´m a tourist" argument (use English for an even better effect). This technique can also be applied to overzealous christians who feel it is their duty to convert you while you´re waiting for your bus, for example.

And in case you are wondering... yes, this is all personal experience!