Moved to countryside (sort of)

As said in the previous entry, we moved from Lauttasaari to Ymmersta in Espoo. If you are familiar or interested in the neighbourhoods in the Helsinki metropolitan area, you may know that compared to Lauttasaari, Ymmersta is quite far from the city. It’s located next to Kauniainen, the old villa area that is nowadays known as the tax paradise of Finland (sort of oxymoron, yes, but you pay whopping 2% or so less taxes there compared to Espoo or Helsinki. The difference used to be bigger in the good old days.)

In other words, we have moved to the countryside :)

In reality, the house is a few hundred meters from the nearest railway station and the Helsinki - Turku highway is close by — but there is no ramp anywhere close… The services in Kauniainen are good, and they are in walking distance. Unless it’s raining.

I’ve noticed two key differences in the two days that we have been living in Ymmersta: it is much more quiet there, and people greet each other. The house is sometimes dead silent, and it requires some time to get used to it.

The moving itself was very swift, as a moving company took care of everything. We packed the stuff, gave orders to the movers and now we have to unpack everything. Moving a duplex full of stuff took less than 2,5 hours for five guys. Now I understand how they can afford to have such cheap fixed prices.

As the house is brand spanking new, there has been a fair share of glitches. Fortunately nothing major, but they are still annoying. The foreman has visited the flat three times, and every time the list of fixed items is amended with new stuff and some of the older items are crossed off as fixed. There are still some unexplored territory outside the house, as everything is not yet ready.