News from Finland

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

Stockmann's Department store in Helsinki plans an extensive renovation at the cost of EUR 125 million to be finished by 2010. I enjoyed shopping there when I was in Finland. I'll always remember the time about 40 years ago when I wanted to buy a greeting card there and asked the clerk to translate some of the verses for me. She couldn't do it and the next thing I knew she had called one of the store officials and he proceeded to read the greeting cards for me until I found one that I liked. Now that's what I call service with a smile!

On another note, about 40% of babies in Helsinki are born out of wedlock. In 2004 there were 2,500 babies born to parents who were not married. A similar trend can be seen in all of Finland. The parents in one of four families in Helsinki are not married, and between 70-80% of children born out of wedlock in Helsinki are born to these families. The main factor behind the trend is the increasing number of couples who live together without marriage.

FAR, June 2006

June

[diogenes99 Registered Find all posts View Profile Close diogenes99]

Stockmann

We returned from Finland a few weeks ago, and stayed in a hotel across the street from Stockmann. We spent an evening wandering from floor to floor, and emerged from the store on a completely different block, having gone underground without knowing it. It is truly a fun store to shop in, although we did not buy anything of any significance. (We had some trouble finding facial tissues for our son who had a cold -- and discovered they are packaged like napkins in the states and not in Kleenex-like boxes).