Helsinki, Finland

ONE of my best friends posted the first plea at 8:41 p.m. Finnish time last month: “Please, adopt me until I can find permanent living arrangements in America.” Other friends soon inundated Facebook with similar requests for refuge at my apartment in Brooklyn. They hunted for plane tickets, researched visa regulations and vowed to leave Finland for good.

This was not a result of a natural disaster or armed revolution, but rather of a very proper, very democratic election that shocked me and my friends and startled much of the world. Overnight, Finland seemed transformed from possibly the most sensible, even boring, country in Europe — known for excellent schools, zero corruption, gender equality and a pro-European Union approach to politics — into the nationalistic, populist, Euro-skeptic home of the True Finn Party.

Having lived for two years in the United States, I arrived for a visit home this month to a changed land. The long, dark Nordic winter was finally over and the streets of Helsinki were bursting with the bright green of new birch leaves. Usually Finns are gleeful this time of year, but the mood now is sober. My parents and friends talk of nothing but the election results and the risks and benefits of Finland’s policies toward the European Union. Political discussions are even breaking out among strangers in the subway — unheard of here, where we are famous for keeping to ourselves.

The most heated debates revolve around a country at the other end of Europe: Portugal. On the heels of the bailouts of Greece and Ireland, debt-ridden Portugal has been counting on a 78 billion euro rescue package, about $115.5 billion. When the True Finns won 39 seats in Finland’s 200-member Parliament, they became the third-largest party, with enough leverage to try to block Finland from contributing its share. This had the potential to derail the entire rescue package, calling into question the survival of the euro zone itself.