I'm back to my blog in an effort to remember at least some of the stuff I'm reading about Finland. Yep, Leena is taking me home for a visit to Finland with excursions to Estonia, St. Petersburg and ending up in Denmark for a week with Vibeke (Leena's going straight home). And, yep, I am retiring so this will be a longer vacation than ever. We'll see how I do.
See all those lakes? Finland has more lakes than any other country - 10% of the land mass and forest covers nearly 70% of the remainder.
And Finland is big, too ...just slightly smaller than Germany, but the population is 5.35 million (New York City has about 8 million) with a population density smaller than any other country in the EU at 17 people per square kilometer (nothing like Wyoming though with 5.4 per square mile)
And if you're doing your income this week end you'll want to know that the income tax rate is about 31.5 % and the VAT 22%. But, in exchange, you get free health care and other social services. Imagine that!
It's also the most ethnically homogeneous country of the EU and "according to a recent study, Finland is the least corrupt, most competitive and most democratic country in the world." Well, I'm reading Lucifer's Tears by James Thompson, a mystery novel set in Helsinki, and I don't think he read the part about curruption in that study.
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