There are so many people living in this planet; far too many for our poor amazing Earth!
Spain has 46 million inhabitants. More than 60 million live in the UK. France has surpassed the scary number of 65 million inhabitants. Germany is even more crowded with almost 82 million Germans. The USA has around 313 million people living there. Tiny Japan carries on its soil 127 million and the number of inhabitants of India and China is just too obscene to even mention.
But Finland has five and a half million people living in a territory that boasts being the fifth largest in the European Community. This certainly means a lot of land for few people! And when one loves solitude, Finland is heaven on Earth.
Finnish people have a bad tendency to underestimate and dislike their homeland. This is something I have not encountered anywhere else.
I had somebody ask me recently in a most astonished voice why I had moved back to Finland after almost 20 years abroad. It made me laugh. That a Finn should ask such a question, how typical! A Spaniard would've asked me how come I managed to survive so long away from Spain, the best country in the world!
Well, I have quite a few good reasons why I chose to come back to my mother's homeland. But there are two reasons weighty enough to make me want to stay here for the rest of my life (oh, this does not mean I couldn't spend a few years somewhere else if a good opportunity came by, just for the heck of it!):
Solitude and nature.
Do you have an idea of the luxury of spending three days snow shoeing in the forest without seeing anybody but your own loved one? Or paddling for four days in a row on a beautiful lake in the summer, sleeping on little islands and not seeing a single human being except for your adored one? This happens in Finland all the time.
There is this law in Finland called 'Everyman's Right' which entitles us all to walk about in privately owned fields and woods. Even picking berries and mushrooms is allowed; everybody has a right to the fruit that the land gives wildly. This means that anybody can enjoy the woods close to their home or far away from their home .
So when you paddle in a lake or in the sea and you see a little island with no cottage on it, you can just paddle to it, leave your kayak tied to a tree and even camp on the island. Nobody is going to shoot you or take you to jail because you are on somebody's private property; actually you don't even know or care to know who owns the place, because it makes no difference.
This is perfectly lovely! And the loveliness is crowned by the fact that the chance of meeting somebody is very small. 17.70 people per km2 makes it hard for you to bump into someone in the countryside.
And the quietness... oh, the sweetness of silence! And the beauty of untouched nature so close by to one's normal everyday life! It is so easy to get into the car, drive an hour and then you are in the middle of nowhere with nobody in sight, and nature is generously open to give you her most adorable gifts! This is luxury and wealth in today's world! This is a present from Mother Earth, that Big Mother whom we should all revere and adore and protect humbly!
And it's a present also from this Northern country so empty of people. Oh, may it stay like this forever!