It doesn't take long for a new visitor to Finland to discover salmiakki. That stuff which looks like licorice but with a really strange taste. Watch someone eating a bit for the first time: you may see some dramatic facial expressions, and hear strong vocal reactions such as 'What is that ?!?' The fact is, not all Finns like it. Shocking, but true. While some foreigners - prepare to be shocked again - take an immediate liking to it. And even though it's found elsewhere, in places like Sweden, there's no doubt it's very characteristic of Finland. If you somehow wandered into our school and didn't know it was the Finnish School, you'd spot a hefty clue in the fact that a lot of the sweets on sale in our shop are salmiakki in one form or another. Salmiakki itself is ammonium chloride, which sounds like sodium chloride, and it would, because it is another salt. Hence it's often called salty licorice. I've been caught out by that in the past. Once...

Moi! No niin... Here's the Manchester Finnish School's website, newly worked over as a blog, and here's our first post. My name's Mark, I'm English, and I've been coming to the Finnish School for *cough* some years. I figured that while the site needs to provide information on classes and school dates and such, we should really use the blog to celebrate why we're here, to feature all the things, big and small, which we enjoy about Finland. Culture, places, events; after a while there should be the sort of variety of posts here which will tickle your curiosity and maybe spark some interest in this very cool country. What better way to start than to talk about the Finnish School itself? My interest began with a Finnish band I got into. I saw them twice in Manchester; they're long since departed. They sang in English, but I encountered the language on a fan forum and was intrigued. When the forum's lady boss explained a bit about it, including suc...