lupine_85

Obviously, the Finns and the rest don't really consider Estonia to be in the same mold - http://satwcomic.com/party-crasher - but I've been doing some reading-up recently, trying to decide which of the two I'd prefer.

I haven't actually been to either yet ( a flying visit to copenhagen in december is all the time I've spent in the real-world version of skyrim), but all my reading suggests Estonia is a slightly warmer, considerably cheaper Finland. In particular, I was struck by the similarities of the various national stereotypes (although you do have to take such things with a pinch of salt, of course).

I'm planning on taking a (working) holiday this year where I visit both countries to do some more direct pairwise comparisons - but should this be a winter or a summer trip? I'm planning on spending most of my time innsecond, rather than first, cities (so Turku and Tartu rather than Helsinki and Talinn).

Obviously, both have ridiculously difficult-to-learn languages; I get the impression that Finland would be easier to get by in before picking up the rudiments of it, though?

Catchafire

I have never been to Estonia, but my wife is a Finn and I have visited several times. Go in Summer time!

Winter is cold, dark and depressing. It affects the nation's psyche.

Finnish is really hard to learn, after 12 years with my wife, I have picked up some, like all the swear words, but it pretty much just sounds like noise.

Finland is expensive, most people speak English, the food is pretty awful, the girls are hot and the country is is beautiful.

Blackladder

It's also known as the Land of the 70,000 lakes, so plenty of mossies, take your repellent with you!

Garbatellamike

Caveat - I have never been to Estonia in winter.

Go visit both countries a few times. Time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted in these cases.

JAJ

The pathway to Finnish citizenship is likely to be a lot more straightforward than becoming an Estonian citizen.

More a long term question, but if intending to settle, should be considered.

lupine_85

Aye, trips in May/June are on the cards. The citizenship question is interesting - long-term, it's certainly something I'd be looking at.

Norway is kind-of out, as they don't do dual citizenship as a rule. I'd not really looked at Estonia's rules, and having just done so now, you're right - they're properly stingy, and don't do dual citizenship in general either. Another plus to finland, eh?

I've started poking the language a bit, it's going in... slowly. http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/...p?page=Finnish is boss.

JAJ

Finland and Sweden have the most straightforward pathways to citizenship in the Nordic/Scandinavia/Baltic region of Europe. Both allow dual citizenship, at least under current laws. Note that parts of western Finland have a significant numbers of Swedish speakers and Swedish is an official language in Finland (as well as Finnish).

Iceland also allows dual citizenship, although it's a different culture entirely and not clear in practice how the naturalisation process works. There's talk that Denmark may change its laws to allow dual citizenship in the next year or two, but usually it's best to believe in these things after they have occurred. Even so, the waiting time for citizenship in Denmark is likely to remain longer than for most other European countries.

teza

I'm a Finn and my Oz husband lived in Finland with me for a year, studying the language full time for the whole year... Jobs very hard to come by without speaking the language unless in demand skill. At the end of that year my husband could understand 15% of conversations and speak about 10 sentences... It is commonly known as one of the hardest languages...

sunseasnow

I'm a Finn also and have an Oz husband. We are thinking of moving to Finland (living in UK at the mo) but not sure how easy/difficult it is for an Aussie to find a job in Finland. What are the other barriers to finding a job besides language? And how much does language pay a role as a lot of people speak English especially in the bigger cities in Finland? Cheers for any input!

teza

We were in jarvenpaa and had NO luck with jobs, although husband is skilled, not in the high skills of IT etc needed by Finland. To gain unemployment benefit he was therefore required to study full time which he gladly did but found it extremely hard and frustrating.

I was pregnant with our 1st child, I had asked him to live in Finland for one year to get to know my family and culture.

He endured the coldest winter in Finnish history (-53 in Lapland) and after 363 days we moved to Oz, haven't looked back since then (that was nearly 15yrs ago so things may have changed in Finland. I did notice more Finns talk English more freely on my only visit to Finland in 2007).

As for barriers, in 99 is was a big barrier for my husband, people would not want to talk much English, unless they were family or strangers drinking the piss...
Everyday life proved fairly hard for him and culture shock... It is so much different than uk vs Oz....

sunseasnow

Thanks, teza! We were thinking of Helsinki cause of the language etc as there are more foreigners there as well. But I think we will have to see and think hard. Our other option is also Oz but I'm not sure about that as it is very far away from Europe. But it would be sunnier. Decisions, decisions!

teza

Depends on you mainly as your Aussie hubby knows Oz life already.

I was one of those kids that decided at age 5 I hated snow and did everything to escape it, working in Greek isles and moving to London nursing etc and I've found Oz to be the home I longed for. I have quite few similar Finn friends in Oz. For Finns in Oz you can find dundernews.com for more info, although I don't use it for the "too polite attitude of Finns" ie. someone wants to show up to Oz border without a visa there's that typical polite answer instead of my brutal "can't be done". But if you have any questions feel free to PM me!