Scandinavia includes three countries: Norway, Denmark and Sweden, which happen to be the three countries our ship has been visiting this past week. I always thought that Finland, the country of my mother’s ancestors, was part of Scandinavia, but I learned that it is not –it’s actually considered Lappland, with a different genetic derivation, closer to the Siberians. To me as an ignorant American, that doesn’t seem so logical. Looking on the map, it’s Finland which is a long skinny country very much like Norway and Sweden, and not much like Denmark. It may seem like you can’t draw conclusions based on the map, but after all it was the fact that South America and Africa look like they could fit together that led to the development of the idea of plate tectonics and Pangaea, when all the world was once a giant continent.
Denmark, as well, feels as if its boundaries are fluid, since it comprises many large and small islands and multiple peninsulas. But now having traveled here, I understand that Denmark shares a sensibility with its neighbors in the North Sea, and not others. It is hard to describe. It’s not like the melting pot of the US but more of a bouilliabaise that has different kinds of seafood, all fighting for supremacy of being the most seafoody but imitative of each other, and each hardly caring if they are not the winners.
Consider, for example, that there are three Scandinavian currencies. There is the Norwegian krone, the Swedish krona, and the Danish kroner. The paper and metal currency look similar but are not identical. They have three slightly different exchange rates, with the Danish being distinct from the other two (.1243, .1246 and .154, respectively). The Finns use the Finnish Mark or the Euro. A local merchant can tell the coins apart easily, of course, and won’t necessarily accept those from the other country. The many coin operated public toilets don’t use the coins from the other countries. Which is, again, why travelers are wise to remember to look for the nearest library where toilets are clean and free. Continue reading “Fish Slappin ‘ II: In this country, we have our own”