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| This is what we post on Instagram, but it's not the whole truth... |
Around midsummer, most of the Finns I know migrate to their summer cottages (mökki in Finnish). They post pictures of sunsets, landscapes with plenty of water, and it really is so beautiful you want to puke. I did the same a couple of days ago, but after seeing Instagram fill with like minded posts, I decided to come clean and reveal the true story.
1. Packing
You need a lot of shit in mökki. All the food, starting from salt and sugar, and all possible vanity items like toilet paper - you do not want to be a two-hour ferry ride away from the mainland with absolutely nothing to wipe your ass with.
Bed sheets, warm clothes, rubber boots (more about that later), sunscreen, a couple of hundred kilos of stuff you carry while wishing you'd stayed at home. Mökkis are usually situated quite far from said home - traveling takes years, plus all your mental and physical strength.
2. The weather
The mökki I go to belongs to the family of my significant other. It's located in the outer reaches of the Turku archipelago, close to the open seas. IT IS NOT WARM HERE, EVER. The sun might shine, but go on a boat trip without your windproof coat and you're dead. A pleasant, warm midsummer here translates to +16 Celsius, and on worse summers it's more like +6 with insane wind that makes it dangerous to go outside.
3. Living standards
Some rich people have mökkis that are more like villas or houses, but the ones I'm used to are a bit more 18th century. There's no running water, OBVIOUSLY, so shower means pouring buckets of water on you, and the drinking water (that is safe enough to drink, I'm told (??!?!!)) comes from a well. Electricity we do have, which is very much needed for heating. The toilet is outside, a short walking distance away from the actual mökki. Mosquitoes love the toilet, and they're always happy to keep you company there. Spiders enjoy their time there too, pleased to greet you from the ceiling whenever you attend.
4. The fauna
There are swans swimming around looking like supermodels in a ComeToFinland ad, seagulls crying, swallows showing off their aviating skills, and if you're lucky, you'll see a seal on one of the islands not far away. No boat rides needed for meeting snakes, though. They're all over the islands, and they bite. That's why we always wear rubber boots here - I nearly stepped on one just yesterday. There's also quite enough of spiders, who do not limit themselves to toilets - they love hanging out indoors in places you'd least expect to find them.
There's one animal, however, that is the most infuriating and over-appreciated thing I've ever seen: the nightingale. They sing throughout the night. Sounds lovely? Then you've never heard them sing. For such a tiny bird they make a lot of noise, and they do not need to pause for breath. A nightingale sounds like what happens when you mix a bad stand-up comedian, a beat boxer, and all your ring tones together and add magic mushrooms. Nobody sleeps peacefully listening to that.
5. Activities
Sunbathing, boat trips, reading books by the fire? As if.
Mökkis need constant repairing and attending to. You chop wood (or buy it pre-chopped, which means you just have to carry a couple hundred kilos of wood to the shed and pile it in neat rows, to protect it from mold - it takes a morning and a half), you wash the windows, you dust the cobwebs (quite literally), you fight the ever-growing jungle outside trying to create paths to move around the island, you decide to paint the mökki walls from outside and it turns out to be the project that costs all your remaining sanity plus your relationship, and you're constantly washing dishes (without running water, mind you). In the evenings you eat cold sausages because you can't be bothered to heat them anymore. We always go to sauna, but not-Finns rarely understand anything about that. It's a room where it's very hot, you sit there naked, and then you have a beer. Swimming is only for the very brave as seawater tends to be ice cold here, no matter the season.
6. The way home
After six days or so the longing for a real toilet grows so strong you pack your things and head home. Arms aching from work, skin covered in mosquito bites, and hair transformed beyond all recognition by the windiest of winds, you immediately start planning the next mökki trip. Mökki, after all, is the essence of summer - it is true happiness. For what is happiness without exhaustion and spiders?
