I had a new experience I didn't like yesterday. I don't know if this is a common occurence, but I hope it is not.
I was just about to go out yesterday afternoon to meet another new friend, when the doorbell rang. I answered it and a middle-aged lady was there. I thought she might have been one of the other girl's mums, but when I said hello she gave me a piece of paper written in Finnish, I didn't really understand it but at the bottom it said €1-5. As she wasn't the smartest or cleanest looking person I've ever seen, I guessed she was begging for money, so I shut the door again. I understand some people get themselves into unfortunate situations, and sometimes I do give money or a snack to homeless people, but I found it a bit outrageous that she had the audacity to get into a private building and go door to door, begging. She must have waited for someone to go in or out of the front door and then gone inside.
I hope this kind of thing doesn't happen a lot; it's ridiculous for someone to think they can just turn up at a stranger's door, disturb people in their own homes, and expect some money. I don't have anything to give at the moment anyway, but even if I did that kind of rudeness would annoy me too much to do anything for that person.
After that I went to meet a new friend. We have a mutual friend from England, which I guess was how he started to read this blog. It was nice to hear about how things are in a Finnish university - mainly there's a lot of drinking, so that's not so different to my university. I also impressed him with an explanation of pub golf - I can see that catching on in Finland!
An unfortunate thing about bars here is that if you went to the pub at 4pm on a Wednesday in England you'd expect it to be quite quiet and low-key, and if you're a girl on your own you don't expect any trouble or unwanted attention - here the pub was already full, to the point that people had to stand, and a very creepy man decided to hit on me. No thanks. Luckily a friendly gay man started chatting to me in a bid to protect me. I was very glad when Tero turned up and I didn't have to try to get rid of the creepy men...
Hi Tamsin. This type of things happen once in a while. I've mainly run into Polish art students begging for money by selling paintings behind our door or our newest trend Romanian beggers taking advantage of the no passport treaty inside the EU.
ReplyDeleteThen of course there's the usual people trying to convert you and spread the word... those people usually come knocking on sundays and secondly there's people collecting money for a good cause. I haven't seen the note she gave you but judging from the fact that it was an elderly lady and the note said 1-5€ I could imagine it was some sort of collection for money. Since those kind of people usually give you an information leaflet about who's collecting and for what cause and then might have the phrase "a good sum to give is between 1-5€" so people don't get ashamed if they only give some coins from their pocket.
Hmm, I thought she might be homeless as she was a bit of a mess and had a pretty rough looking handwritten note.
ReplyDeleteI don't want anyone to think I'm completely heartless, I frequently do give money to homeless people or if I have an extra drink or something I don't want I have no problem giving it to someone who might need it a bit more, I was just quite shocked that someone would turn up at my house to do that.
Guys selling paintings would be just fine by me, at least they're coming with something to offer...maybe I should try that myself...
Maybe she was, she didn't speak to me.
ReplyDeleteNot every immigrant is like that. I'm an immigrant and I don't beg for money