Finnish winter by Rune Pönni, class 9C

Finnish winter starts at different times in different parts of Finland. But you could roughly say that in Southern Finland it starts in December and in Northern Finland already in October. The "beginning" of winter is counted from the day the first snow arrives. The temperature also differs between south and north. In the southern parts the temperature is about from 0– -17°C and in north it's about -20– -25°C. It's pretty cold anyway so we Finns must have a warm change of clothes.

Winter is very important to the Finns. The winter is quite long in Finland so the Finns have lots of time to do all kinds of winter sports like skiing, skating and slalom. In the past the skiing has been a quite important travelling form in winter in Finland. Nowadays people don't move that way to travel but skiing is very popular sport in Finland and Finns have won some remarkable competitions like Olympic skiing.

Skating is also popular and ice hockey. Many young people like to play ice hockey and it's a common hobby among Finnish youngsters. Finland has also many good ice hockey players and Finland has also won many world championships in ice hockey. But ice hockey isn't the only way to skate. In Finland you can also go skating to a frozen lake! You can travel much longer distances than on a normal ice rink. It's really great.

There is also a quite special "sport" that some Finns like to do in winter. First they make a hole in ice called avanto. Then they warm their sauna and go swimming in the cold water. This is called "avanto swimming". After the cold swim Finns go quickly to sauna to warm their cold limbs. It's really refreshing though it sounds quite grazy (not that I had tried myself). Obviously this can only be done if you have a sauna beside a lake because you would freeze after the cold swim if you didn't.

In the Southern Finland where I live we don't always have much snow so skiing isn't always possible here. But the norther you go the colder it gets and there is more snow. In winter vacation many Finns go to Lappi, the northest part in Finland, to do all kinds of winter sports. In Lappi you can also see reindeer and even Santa Claus because his office is located there.
Well I hope you got some kind of figure of what Finnish winter is like and maybe even learned something. But I think I should stop now so that I won't steal more space from here. Thank you for reading this.