I think that it will be the darkness that is the hardest thing for foreigners. In North American terms Helsinki would be situated in the middle of Hudson Bay - it gets very, very dark in winter time... The winters are though very mild compared with a continental climate (this can also be a negative, as the south coast can be pretty depressing without snow to light it up a bit, I always hope for a relatively cold winter for Helsinki because there is more light then). And of course the sub-arctic summer is mad: all that sudden light and greenness, the natives go quite crazy then and Helsinki will be a completely different city...
Yep, we do drink quite a bit and tend to be on the silent and non-social side, but these things are much stronger in the older generations, and Helsinki anyway is still quite a cosmopolitan area even though it is not a big city. Living abroad can at times be frustrating (nothing works "normally" and everyone is speaking strange gibberish), but with an open and positive mind it's really a great experience.
Yep, we do drink quite a bit and tend to be on the silent and non-social side, but these things are much stronger in the older generations, and Helsinki anyway is still quite a cosmopolitan area even though it is not a big city. Living abroad can at times be frustrating (nothing works "normally" and everyone is speaking strange gibberish), but with an open and positive mind it's really a great experience.