Who wants to Marry a Finnish Girl?

I was prepared to hate Phil Schwarzmann. If you know me at all, you hopefully know that I'm not one of those who walk around hoping to hate people. But come on, you gotta hate a man who calls your home town "the capital of hillbilly Finland". Right?

But, it turns out, I do not hate Phil nor did I hate his brand new book How to Marry a Finnish Girl. Actually, I must admit quite liking it, even laughing at it. Phil turns out to have quite a sense of humor, I have to give him that, even if he insults my beloved town severely.

There are other reasons to read his book than his sense of humor. It gives you another side besides the tourist info. Yes, yes. We do have lots of snow, miraculous summer nights, fair and honest people and what not. But we do also have the dark side you can't find in any of the sugar coned, picturesque material aimed for the tourists.

Nobody wants to show their weak sides to strangers. No man, no country. Nevertheless, it would sometimes be a good idea to look at your own culture from the eyes of a stranger. Especially humorous stranger. And it certainly is good to know, that the Finnish winter seems everlasting, if you seriously consider moving here.

What I was a bit disappointed about, though, was that he paid too much attention to meaningless things like how we eat rye bread. Get over it. Every country has it own freaky food stuff. I find eating mayonnaise on everything quite as disgusting as Phil finds our habit of eating porridge. Instead I had been hopeful he'd actually have stronger insights on how to marry a Finnish girl. That's something even the men in Finland might find useful.

I strongly advise you to take a look on the book How to Marry a Finnish Girl. Even if you're a Finn, even if Phil disagrees. And especially so if you're not a Finn. Other than that, keep on marrying Finnish girls. After all, according to Mr. Schwarzmann, girl's in Finland are, right after Sweden, the most beautiful girl's in the world...

Now I only share the question of a good friend of mine: Who would write a book of How to Find and Keep a Finnish Man?