an afternoon dip

wappu--may 1--is labor day in europe, but also a huge student holiday in finland. first year technical students in tampere are dipped in the rapids in celebration, complete with parades, placing a hat on a statue at midnight, and lots of crazy finns.

ready for business

student parade

getting ready....

in the rapids!

the lady and her crown

spring is here

and the finns are out in flocks. i wonder where they have all been hiding? i decided to wander around the suburb i live in and see some of the far reaches one this beautiful day--

the lake is starting to thaw

the water tower, or a giant mushroom

the swimming hall (i'm not lying. it's underground. a loooonnnggg elevator ride down)

mämmi

bon appetit and belated happy easter, celebrated in the way of the finns.

rauma

during the same trip to pori with my landscapes class, we also visited the unesco world heritage site of rauma. it's an old medieval village with the crooked streets and everything (quite unusual for the young country of finland). i really liked the variety of colors throughout the streets. unfortunately, the church was locked (as seems to the standard here in finland), so i did not get to go inside.

a finnish lesson

because i am eager to find distractions from my paper-writing, i will continue the mini updates. here is a song we listened to in my finnish language class during one of the first lessons...of course, we also sang along with it. a small group of us aspire to learn the words to this legendary finnish song and sing it at the karaoke bar in the city center before our time here is over...

side note: "hän" means "he/she," but is not exclusive to either gender.

kyykkä

since i have a few moments, i'll share a little finnish culture. a few weekends ago, tampere university of technology was host to the 'world championship of kyykkä.' while the object of the game is to knock over the other team's wooden pins, what it really means is drunk finns (equaling talkative finns), naked drunk finns running around the ever-present sauna, tech student overalls (i'll post about those some other time), and other such shenanigans. you can learn a little more here and here.

from sunny tampere

not a total lie--the sun did come out today.



that said, i think i will kiss the ground the day i walk out the door and don't slide 5 feet.

arrival

so i finally got my study abroad blog going. here we go.

i have now been in finland for about 3.5 weeks and we are now enjoying our 5th day of sunshine. and the sun doesn't finish setting until after 5.30--i am thrilled. aside from the lack of daylight, things have been wonderful and surprisingly easy to settle into life in tampere. (good) english is widely spoken and no one will ever leave you hanging--if you need help, they'll do whatever they can.

class soon--more latertampere university of technology--obeliski