Vappu

Senatsplatsen

and of course the infamous student overalls

view down from the cathedral

view of the cathedral

Somewhere from the swedish Valborg and the German Walburgis, the Finnish have created their own form of carneval: Vappu. Like the German it has to do a lot with celebrating and drinking. My first Vappu expierience was in Helsinki on the 30th when I had just arrived by plane form Germany and then took the train to Turku but in betweent I had some 3 hours and decided to visit a friend.

Well said friend recieved me on the stairs of Helsinki cathedral where he and the other students from his student organization waited and drank and celebrated. Apparently he had at one point worn his student overall to the carneval in Cologne and fit in really well.

But its not only for students, in Helsinki I saw plenty of old people wearing student hats and celebrating. And as we all know, celebrating in Finnland means also drinking a lot. Besides that the celebrations are really peacefull. We had good luck and sunny warm weather (warm in Finnland means around 15°C)

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But in Turku the other part of the 1st of May tradition is a live as well. There were events from the Left Party and from the Greens. Maybe even from the SDP, but I didn’t see them.

A story for Finnish Swedish Heritage Day: Östermark

Today people in Finland celebrate Finnish Swedish Heritage Day. Time for me to publish the following fictonal story. No offence is intended.

Östermark

A normal student party at Uusi-S across the street from Turku University. Samuli and Pekka had been drinking a fair amount of booze. As it was normal in a Finnish student party. But what should you else do. Drinking and having a good time.

“Hey are you going to the independence day event tomorrow?”
“Ah why not, if I’m awake.”
“You are such a lazy patriot.”
Laughter.
Pekka turned around and fell.
It must have been some time when he woke up.

A well hung guy in a nurse uniform spoke to him in Swedish.
“How are you?”
“I’m not sure, my head hurts. Where am I”
“In the the Karl-Gustav Hospital.”
“What is the Karl-Gustav Hospital?”
“The central hospital here in Abo, capital of the eastern province of the Kingdom of Sweden, Earth.” The male nurse said with a friendly smile.
Only then Pekka realized, that the nursa had answerd in Swedish.

He tried to sit up.
“Hey, be careful, we are not sure how long you lay there.”
“Where did I lay?”
„On the opposite side of Abo Academy Student house. You were found there this morning by an ethnography student, doing work on Swedish Student culture.” Pekka was baffled for a moment. He was sure he couldn’t be in Sweden. Was his hung over so bad, he had taken the ferry to Stockholm?
„You are always mentioning Sweden and speaking Swedish to me, but the last thing I remember was being in Turku in Finland?”
The nurse laughed. “Good joke, you students always like to prank, but lets get some rest, a concussion is nothing to take like heartedly.”

Pekka decided to follow the advice and lay back. Maybe this was prank, by one of his friends, who studied nursing. Whatever he was glad his head had stopped hurting. And he tried to sleep a little bit.
Some time later, he woke up when a doctor came to his room and examined him. He asked him why he spoke Swedish with such a bad Karelien accent. Was he part of the Finnish speaking minority from Karelia?
No Pekka replied, he came from Turku and had lived all his live here, but his parents spoke Finnish with him at home.

“Yeah some people are really set in their ways, but boy you can go home. Get your stuff. The nurse will take care if you need any help.”
“But Doctor, its normal that people in Finland speak Finnish.”
The Doctor had been about to leave an turned around.
“Finland? But that is only a term used by his hard core separatist from the East. No one say Finland, we are here in the eastern province of the Union of Scandinavia.”
“No we are in Finland….”, for a moment silence ensured. “At least we were before I fell down the stairs at the student party house.”
“Boy I think its best you talk to our hospital psychiatrist before you leave.”

The doctor wondered, OK, there was no information about the guy in the hospital system and the student card he had carried with him looked a little bit strange, but thee had not been any sign for serious head injury seen on the CT scan.”