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LAxHEL
From Los Angeles to Helsinki and everything in between.
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Lapland Wonderland: Exploring Levi & Ylläs

February 28, 2021 0 comment

The Corona Bubble in Finland and Dealing with Being Homesick

September 2, 2020 8 comments

My Favorite Restaurants in Helsinki

March 22, 2020 6 comments

What I Miss about Los Angeles

January 13, 2020 11 comments

Is Santa from Finland?

November 29, 2019 0 comment

Cost of Living in Helsinki vs Los Angeles

November 23, 2019 4 comments
Los Angeles

What I Miss about Los Angeles

by Audrey January 13, 2020
written by Audrey

I recently went back home for a couple of weeks during the holidays. I haven’t been home since I moved to Helsinki in April, so I was eager to get back to LA, especially during the darkest part of the year in Finland. Now that I’ve been living in Helsinki for over half a year, I can tell you a few things I miss (and some I don’t) about LA.

The thing I miss the most are my friends and family. Starting about seven years ago, I started an annual girls Christmas party that we call “Holla Bae Soirée”. It started with five of my besties and each year grew to include more of our girl squad. I thought that this would be the first year I wouldn’t be able to organize it or join, but luckily I was able to continue the tradition.

Food

After my family and friends, it’s the food!! In my opinion, the best thing about Los Angeles is the diversity. The melting pot of people can definitely be seen in the food scene. We even have pockets of LA designated for certain cultures like Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Ethiopia, Little Armenia, Filipinotown etc. Don’t get me wrong, Helsinki has tons of amazing food, but there’s a few cuisines that I can’t get or the quality just doesn’t come close. Let me break it down for you:

Japanese Food:

Sushi – Yes there are tons of sushi restaurants in Helsinki, but the problem is the lack of variety. The options are usually salmon, some sort of white fish, and tuna if you’re lucky. I haven’t been able to find toro, albacore, yellowtail, sea bream, uni, blue crab, or spicy scallop sushi. So, one of my first stops in my LA food tour was my regular hand roll joint, Kazu Nori.

Other Japanese cuisine – I sometimes find elements of other Japanese cuisines at places like Kabuki in Helsinki, but I still haven’t found any dedicated Shabu Shabu, Japanese BBQ, Japanese curry, or Izakaya spots.

Boba: What coffee is to Finns, Boba is to Asians

Mexican food: $1 Taco Tuesdays, need I say more? Mexican food is pretty expensive in Helsinki, and I can’t seem to find some of my favorite traditional dishes like carne asada/al pastor/carnitas tacos and machaca/chorizo breakfast burritos.

Korean BBQ: So there are Korean restaurants in Helsinki, but no AYCE (All You Can Eat) for $25, where you can choose from a variety of cuts of meats and grill yourself at your own table.

Brunch: Brunch in Helsinki usually means a pricey buffet type spread. The spread usually involves salads, sandwich cold cuts, cheese, porridge, and fruits. Brunch in LA means you have the option to choose breakfast or lunch type foods, which usually involves eggs, waffles, or pancakes.

Weather

Obviously I miss the weather, especially the presence of the sun during winter, but one thing that surprised me is that on some days, Helsinki wasn’t that much colder than LA. The big difference is the drop in temperature between day and night in LA. On some days it reached all the way up to 75°F (23°C) but then at night dropped down to 44°F (7°C). Helsinki reached 44°F (7°C) on some days in December, but the temperature drop between day and night is usually only 3-6°F, compared to the 15-30°F drop in LA.

So while I was in LA I tried to soak up as much sun as possible. I realized what I miss the most about the weather is being able to hang out at the beach and rooftop bars to watch the sunset even in winter. I must have gone to at least four different rooftops around Downtown LA and Venice Beach and even took a boat out with some friends in Newport Beach.

Music

I’ve been fortunate enough to catch some big concerts in Helsinki like Lenny Kravitz and Ariana Grande, along with attending Flow Festival twice, but it’s not very often I get to see artists I’m familiar with. Helsinki isn’t a popular stop on big music tours unfortunately, but hopefully that will change in the future. I’m sure there’s a lot of great Finnish bands out there, but it’s tough when I can’t understand the language (yet).

That brings me to the LA music scene. On any given day, there’s usually a concert or broadway musical in town. There are also several music venues that have nightly performances by up and coming artists waiting to be discovered. On a brighter note, one of my favorite events for discovering new artists is Sofar Sounds, which has recently made its way to Helsinki. The only problem is that they rarely have shows, whereas in LA, there’s a Sofar Sounds show almost every day.

On New Year’s Eve, my friends and I went to Minimal Effort at the old Los Angeles Theater and saw several DJs perform, so I was happy to get my music and dancing fix. How gorgeous is this venue by the way? I can’t believe in my entire life living in LA, I had never been inside until recently!

Random Things

I couldn’t figure out a category for these next bits of LA that I miss, so I’m going to go with random things I miss.

  • Hulu (streaming service) – Some of my favorite shows like This Is Us, Grey’s Anatomy, and Broad City are on Hulu, and can’t be accessed in Finland. Disney Plus also just came out, which we can’t get in Finland. I checked it out though, and Baby Yoda is just as cute as all the hype!
  • Amazon Prime – 2 day delivery right to your doorstep. I did so much of my shopping on Amazon because of this. Out of batteries or moisturizer? Why go to the store, when it’s cheaper on Amazon, and gets delivered straight to you in 2 days. In Helsinki, we have to order through Amazon UK or Germany, and it takes longer than 2 days, and gets delivered to a kiosk that you’ll need to pick up from.
  • Trader Joe’s – My favorite grocery store that has their own line of everything and tons of delicious ready made meals. Speaking of everything, they invented the everything bagel seasoning, which I stocked up on when I came back to Helsinki, along with my favorite Mexican hot sauces (Cholula and Valentina).
  • Visual Voicemail – People don’t seem to really use voicemail in Finland. In fact, you need to pay extra for the service. But I always loved getting funny voicemails from my family and friends, and I lost all the ones I saved on my iPhone because they don’t have the visual voicemail service that we have in the US. You have to call a number to get your voicemail, so that voicemail feature on the iPhone doesn’t exist here.
  • Being able to read all the signs – I’m such a rule follower, but that makes it difficult in Finland when I can’t read any of the signs haha.
  • White Claw – Ok this is a new thing I just discovered when I went back home. It’s basically alcoholic seltzer water in a can. And it’s only 100 calories. So instead of beer or wine, people are drinking these and new brands have even started popping up. We need this in Finland stat!

What I Don’t Miss about LA

  • Driving & traffic – I thought I would miss my car and driving, but nope, I don’t at all. The public transportation system in Helsinki rocks.
  • Sheer massiveness – The vastness of LA makes it such a diverse city, but also impossible to meet people up if they’re on the other side of town.
  • LAX airport – It sucks. That’s it. Ok fine, a little more context. From the entrance of the airport, it took my parents over 30 minutes just to drive to my terminal because of the crazy traffic within the airport, and the terrible logistical design.
  • Homelessness – It only seems to be an increasing issue, especially in Downtown.
  • Tax not automatically added – When you see a price in Finland, it already includes tax, so there’s no guessing.
  • Tipping – Now that I live in a country where you don’t tip, it was hard going back to calculating that after every meal in LA.

So that’s what I miss about LA so far, I’ll be back again in May for my brother’s wedding and at that point it’ll be a year living in Helsinki. Let’s see how what other things I miss by that point…

January 13, 2020 11 comments
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Audrey and Kimmo with Santa Claus
HelsinkiTravel

Is Santa from Finland?

by Audrey November 29, 2019
written by Audrey

It’s officially the holiday season! I’ve already started jamming my Spotify Christmas playlists. Rambo also got his first Christmas Calendar from Kimmo’s parents, so that will be a new tradition. He gets a treat every day in December until the big day. How cute is this?

The history of Santa

If you ask a Finn, they’ll probably tell you that Santa is from a town called Korvatunturi in Lapland. I know when Kimmo told me this, I almost believed him. But as any good partner would do, I questioned him and googled the facts. Haha!

St Nicholas, the generous medieval Christian saint believed to be the inspiration behind the modern-day Santa Claus, was bishop of the small Roman town of Myra in the 4th Century in what is now Turkey. Turkey, what? Then where did the stories of snow, reindeer, and northern lights come from?

Before Christianity and Santa came to Finland in the Middle Ages, Finns celebrated a pagan mid-winter festival called Yule where men dressed as Nuuttipukki wandered from house to house, came in, and demanded food, especially booze. Nuuttipukki was a scary character (like Krampus) dressed in fur jackets, birch bark masks and horns. The Nuuttipukki were evil spirits; if they didn’t get what they wanted, they would make loud noises and scare children.

When St. Nick came along during the 1800s, his image blended with Nuuttipukki to create Joulupukki (‘Yule Goat’). Joulupukki handed out gifts instead of demanding them. Unlike Santa Claus who climbs down the chimney, Joulupukki would knock on the door and ask “Onko täällä kilttejä lapsia?” (“Are there any well-behaved children here?”). 

In November 2017,  Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture approved Joulupukki (or Finnish Santa Claus tradition, as it is known today) to be included in the National Inventory of Living Heritage (part of Unesco). This was huge for Finland, and strengthened its position as the country where Santa Claus lives.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171221-does-santa-claus-come-from-finland

Visiting Santa in Lapland

Okay now that you got the history lesson, let’s talk about meeting Santa and real reindeer! I might be a little partial to the fat man because I was a huge fan as a kid,  so when Kimmo told me he was going to take me to Santa’s official home, I was pretty stoked. We visited two places in Rovaniemi last November, and I’ll give you the lowdown on both.

Santa’s Village

Santa’s Village is free to visit, but you pretty much have to pay for any activity you do there.

  • Picture with Santa – If you want your kiddos to meet the real Santa, the jolly man in the post office is as good as it gets. They take a high-quality video of your visit and he genuinely asks about you and what you wish for Christmas. When I went in 2018, I wished for Kimmo and I to finally be able to live together in the same country, and guess what? A few months later, Kimmo proposed to me and I got a job in Helsinki! The man made my Christmas wishes come true and I have a video from that day to remember it by =)
  • Real Reindeer – I just about freaked out when I got to see real reindeer doing sleigh rides! They’re adorable. The only thing disturbing was that there was a reindeer restaurant right next to it, so after you meet the reindeer, you can also eat reindeer. Santa should probably think about making these two things further apart from each other.
  • Husky Park – We didn’t actually go in here because we didn’t want to pay the extra entrance fees, but from what we could see when we peeked through the fence, there were tons of cute huskies excited to greet the guests.
  • Cross the Arctic Circle – The Arctic Circle is a circle of latitude that runs 66°33′45.9″ north of the Equator. It marks the southernmost latitude where the sun can stay continuously below or above the horizon for 24 hours – known as the Midnight Sun in the summer and the Polar Night (“Kaamos”) in the winter. In Rovaniemi, the Arctic Circle runs through Santa Claus Village, where it is clearly marked. You can even get a certificate confirming the feat.
  • Moomin Snowcastle – We didn’t get to see this because we went at the end of November, and there wasn’t enough snow yet. I would have loved to check this out though, so make sure you check what dates this is available.
The Arctic Circle
Audrey and Kimmo with the real Santa Claus
Reindeers in Santa Claus Village

Santa’s Park

Don’t let their cheesy website fool you, we actually enjoyed Santa’s Park more than Santa’s Village. You can think of it more like a theme park. Here are some highlights:

  • One ticket price to see everything
  • Ice Gallery – We wanted to visit the infamous Arctic Igloos, but you had to be a guest at the hotel to see them, so this was the next best thing!
  • Elf School – Yup, get your Elf Diploma!
  • Mrs. Gingerbread Bakery – Make your own gingerbread man or woman
  • Train Ride – Take a ride through Santa’s Workshop
Audrey and Kimmo in Santa's Park

Tips

  • Where to Stay – Hotels are pretty expensive. We stayed in an adorable Airbnb which was really affordable. 
  • Transportation 
    • Train – From Helsinki we took an overnight train that left around 9pm and arrived at 7am in the morning. If you have the time to kill, I recommend taking a morning train so that you can see the sites along the way. At night it’s pretty hard to see anything, but we didn’t want to waste an entire day traveling, so it was convenient for us to be able to sleep on the train and arrive there in the morning. We got a private room which had 2 bunk beds, bathroom, and shower even. 
    • Fly – We flew back to Helsinki through the Rovaniemi airport. This was a quick, easy, and cheap flight!
    • Santa Express Bus – Once you’re in Rovaniemi, there is a Santa Express bus that stops at Santa Claus Village, Santapark/Arctic Treehouse Hotel, Santa’s Igloos Arctic Circle and the the Airport. See timetable here.

But Rovaniemi is just the tip of Lapland. There is so much more to explore. For instance this snowboarding video of Sanni Oksanen was sent to me from two of my American friends and is going viral because sites like TheCoolHunter reposted it. When I went last year in November, there wasn’t enough snow yet, and when we tried to chase the Northern Lights, there was no such luck. I’ll be back for you Lapland and aurora borealis!

November 29, 2019 0 comment
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HelsinkiLos Angeles

Cost of Living in Helsinki vs Los Angeles

by Audrey November 23, 2019
written by Audrey

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be featured in an Ilta Sanomat article (the most read online newspaper in Finland). The article is in Finnish, so in case you’d like to read it, I’ve translated it on the LAxHEL Facebook page. The article came about because one of the journalists stumbled upon my blog through Facebook and wanted to interview me about my last blog post. It was a wonderful experience and I received a ton of positive feedback and “welcome to Finland” comments from people who read the article. I was so touched by all the kind words. I also have to mention that when I shared the story about complimenting a woman in a clothing store and she ignored me, many Finns explained to me that it was probably because she didn’t know how to take the compliment since Finns are known to be quite humble, which I totally agree with.

Almost free

Although I couldn’t quite understand all of the comments on the article since it was in Finnish (Google Translate isn’t super accurate), from what I could gather, there seemed to be quite a bit of discussion around the high taxes in Finland along with education and healthcare not really being “free” since you do incur some nominal fees. So maybe I misspoke, but compared to where I’m from, they are practically free. Our taxes in LA are also not low (I was paying 31.95%), yet it doesn’t go towards our personal healthcare or college tuition. In case you’re curious, this California tax calculator can give you an estimate of California tax rates. All of this got me thinking about what the cost of living in Helsinki vs. Los Angeles is.

It is true that Finland has one of the highest tax rates in the world, and the wages in Helsinki are not as high as in LA, but the cost of living is lower. The real question is, do you end up taking home more money, less money, or break even? In my case, my salary in Helsinki is about half of what it was in LA, yet somehow I found myself with more money left at the end of each month after all my expenses. How is that possible? Well I did some digging and I thought I would share what I discovered.

Cost of living comparison

I used this cost of living comparison website to get average salaries and expenses in Helsinki and Los Angeles. A few of the amounts were my exact personal expenses in LA (student loan, car payment, health insurance, auto insurance, and gas). Please note that everything is converted to euros to give you a better comparison and there are a few items are not an apples to apples comparison such as:

  • Student Loan – I put €0 for Helsinki because if I was a Finn and went to college in Finland, I wouldn’t have needed to pay for tuition. I spoke to a few Finns, and none of them needed to take out a student loan but mentioned that some people may take out a small bank loan for books and living expenses, but definitely not an $80,000 loan for tuition alone like I needed.
  • Transportation Costs – In LA, you pretty much need to have a car, while in Helsinki you can get away without having one, so I included my monthly car payment in LA vs. my monthly Helsinki metro pass cost. Since I don’t need to have a car in Helsinki, I also no longer have auto insurance and gas expenses.

So upon further inspection, even though I only make half of what I was making in LA, I actually have more money leftover after expenses. I also didn’t include expenses like food, but I find food costs to be pretty similar. Again, I can only speak for myself and my own situation, and I understand that this is not an exact comparison, since there are people who do own cars in Helsinki and incur those costs.

And now I’m feeling nostalgic, so here’s a few pics of my old apartment in Downtown LA and my old car, which I’ve given to my parents.

Cost of having a baby in LA vs Helsinki

Although you don’t need to pay for health insurance in Finland, several people commented in the article that they do incur some medical expenses (for things like medicine, hospital stays, etc). This got me curious about the out of pocket medical costs in LA even with health insurance. Kimmo’s big brother recently had a baby and he asked me what it cost to have a baby in Los Angeles. He shared with me that his final hospital bill came out to €440 total for the entire delivery plus 3 nights stay in their own room at the hospital for 2 adults with food.

Since I’m just a dog mom, I asked one of my best friends from LA what it cost her. She had one of the most premium insurance plans available, so other health insurance plans would not necessarily cover this much and the out of pocket costs can be much higher. In any case, with an excellent health insurance plan, this is what she had to pay out of pocket versus what the actual costs were.

Note: These costs are from 4 years ago, so they might have changed since then.

Even though you can easily look up cost of living comparisons between cities, it was really interesting to sit down and do the actual math for my own situation. It was actually very eye-opening and before moving to Helsinki, I had no concept of what it cost to live outside of LA. I always knew I could move somewhere cheaper, but I was never sure if anywhere else could live up to LA…

November 23, 2019 4 comments
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About Me

About Me

Meet Audrey

Hi there! I'm a native Angeleno and moved to Helsinki in April 2019. LAxHEL is a blog about my journey moving to Finland, the fascinating differences between living in LA and Helsinki, and life living abroad... featuring my French bulldog, Rambo.

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LAxHEL
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