I am strolling down the street, quietly humming to myself, and grinning stupidly as I look up through the canopy of branches above. The first trees have turned into stunning gradients of red and green, but they cannot match the sky overhead, which is a frankly ridiculous mess of orange and red. It is a fairly standard Monday evening and I am walking home from work. My earphones are in and I am listening to ‘Wake me up when September ends’ much too loudly. I almost never listen to Green Day, in fact only once a year, but it’s a nice tradition. As I turn left down the alley I live in, I realize that this is the very last thing which I had not experienced in Finland before. Tomorrow, October 1st, would be my first ‘duplicate’ day and my one-year anniversary of moving here. Does this mean that Finland is now officially home for me?

The sky has shifted to a slightly different pattern, more red than orange, and with some blue patches. It is something that does not often come to mind when thinking about Finland, but the color palette in autumn is spectacular. The angle of the sun is so shallow that sunsets take forever, and the sky is often some interesting blotchy version of overcast, creating changing patterns and colors. And most importantly, this is the time of year where sunrise and sunset are at a time you might actually be outside, instead of ‘middle of the workday’ or ‘middle of the night’. I have grown to love the variety of Finnish seasons, four distinct times of year, each with their own look, feeling, and character. In addition, the names of the months are just so much more fun than in English! Here, judge for yourself:

Winter (Dec.-Feb.): Snow covers everything all the time. If you step outside, you hear just silence, the air is painfully dry, and the world surprisingly bright. Although the sun sets just after lunch, everything is white and a single streetlight is enough to illuminate an entire street. In joulukuu, ‘Christmas moon’, you additionally find Christmas lights in most public spaces, adding to the brightness of Finnish winter. After New Year’s, the sea ice around Helsinki is fully frozen and the temperature plummets below -20°C. Here, in tammikuu (‘oak moon’), lies the heart of winter. If you have never experienced it, temperatures like these are fantastic. There is no wetness to the snow, all mud is frozen, and a wind gust that feels like -40°C is just quite interesting to experience. Nature is hard and harsh, but also clean and pure. Just make sure to use obscene amounts of skin cream! Then, for helmikuu (‘pearl moon’), be sure to get your sunglasses. The sun is starting to be a bit higher in the sky, and the ice crystals on the ground reflect it back, as if the world is covered in millions of tiny pearls. I adore Finnish winter, 9/10.

Spring (Mar.-May): Ice covers everything all the time. If you step outside, you hear yourself yell, the floor is painfully hard, and the world surprisingly spinny. It is fitting that March is called maaliskuu, the ‘ground moon’. Because that’s where you’ll spend most your time. Spring near Helsinki stretches on forever, way into huhtikuu (‘cleared woods moon’), since all the sea ice has to melt before it can get much above freezing. That means that layers of snow melt and then re-freeze at night, just to be covered in more snow, obscuring the treacherous slipperiness beneath. It is truly a miserable time of the year, the end of which is marked by Vappu, the first of toukukuu (‘spring moon’). For a brief moment, the fight against ice now turns into a fight against mud, but it is an upgrade. I abhor Finnish spring, 3/10.

Summer (Jun.-Aug.): If you think about perfect weather, what comes to mind? A warm breeze, thirty degrees, the sun shining down on you, the sky a perfect blue? Well, you are wrong. Maybe for a day, or for a week on vacation. But for everyday life, this is miserable! Constantly being sweaty, or having a sunburn? No, what you want is semi-cloudy, 23°C, and occasional rain to keep nature green. There is even the bonus of sunlight when heading home at 3 AM from a night of partying! This is the dream. And this is what Finnish summer is to me: Three full months of perfection. Fittingly, June is kesäkuu, ‘summer moon’. And since the Finns (quite literally) make hay while the sun shines, it is followed by heinäkuu (‘hay moon’) and elokuu (‘crop moon’). This time is crammed full of outdoor events and many Finns spend a full month of this time at their summer cottage up north. I have nothing bad to say about summer, just don’t forget your sleeping mask! 10/10.

Autumn (Sep.-Nov.): Life takes a turn to the worse as we enter syyskuu (‘autumn moon’). It is starting to get dark early, and the sunsets are stunning, but the weather is now definitely on the rainy side of perfect. However, as long as you pack your umbrella, or sateenvarjo (‘rain’s shadow’) as the Finns say, you should be fine. That is, until we enter lokakuu, ‘sludge moon’, when the rain above is enhanced by the mud below. This is the darkest time of year, as the days are short and no snow provides illumination. If you are miserable then, I have bad news because next is marraskuu, ‘death moon’. In addition to darkness, rain, and mud, there will now be first bits of snow during the night, which melt and refreeze into small patches of black ice. Truly a masterpiece of misery, to the point that I grudgingly respect the art of it, 4/10.