The business of Santa is alive and well in Lapland, which seems to have cornered the market on all things St. Nick, at least for Europeans. On my recent trip to Finland, I found that Rovaniemi’s campaign, more than 50 years in the making, to serve as Santa’s hometown has paid off handsomely...

My hatred of glasses goes back more than 30 years, when an optometrist  put a pair on me and said, “Does that seem better?” He had no idea. Until that day, I had always seen the world in shady outlines, a beautiful blur that fueled my imagination (even if it did cause me to trip a lot)....

I grew up in Minnesota, so I knew a bit about the good – and bad – aspects of Scandinavian cuisine (lutefisk, never again!). But I was surprised to discover that the simple flavors and natural ingredients of Finnish food suited me, and we ate well on our visit, particularly in Helsinki and...

What surprised me the most about my visit to Finland is that Finnish design is not just something that you see in the shops of Helsinki. It’s a way of life, and one that reflects their history and innate quirkiness.When babies are born, the Finnish government gives the family a box full of goodies,...

photo courtesy of MiikaS, Flickr Creative Commons In September, I made my first trip to Scandinavia when I took the train throughout Finland, hitting Helsinki, Lapland and a few other towns. In a way, though, it seemed quite familiar; the result of growing up in Minnesota. All throughout my trip, people...