Multicultural Festival in Helsinki

FESTIVAL!!!

Last weekend was the multicultural festival in Helsinki. I took the bus on Saturday at 10 am to Helsinki, and around 11:30 we reached Helsinki city. I know is quite early to go to a festival but that was the time that fit me the most, I am a huge fan of Eurovision and I didn´t wanted to miss it.
The festival was full of tents with information about Europe, languages courses, non governmental organizations asking for money for the underdeveloped countries, there were also tents selling handmade things and so on.

I had two favourites tents, one was the vegan tent where you could get lot of  information about how to become a vegan, the sad thing was that all the information was in finnish, but I can use google translate. And my second favourite the nutrition tent, the girl was explaining us how to eat properly, I find it out very interesting and useful, but again same problem as before it was only in finnish, luckily the girl spoke well English, now I will follow her tips to have a healthier lifestyle. 

There was also many restaurants from Africa, Thailand, India and Brasil, and surprise surprise!! couple of vegan restaurants too.
In the middle of the festival there was a huge circus tent, with more things to see and many free things, spaniards are crazy for free things, I got many candies, bags, almond milk, stickers....I have no idea what I will do with all the items I took.

And the best of all the concerts!!! This time was different, there was finnish singers but also foreigners so I could understand what the songs were about.
The weather was lovely, not too cold not too hot and the people were enjoying a lot as I did. 

gender violence event

EVENT AGAINST GENDER VIOLENCE

 

 

It has been a month since last time I wrote a post in my blog, I have being very busy lately. Luckily I got some free time and I am back!!!

 

Today I will talk about something that concerns all of us, gender violence.The number of victims who suffer gender violence has increased in the last  years, in Spain the number of victims that have died during this year is  45 women, the Baltic countries are on top of the list, in Finland the 20% of Finns women had suffered gender violence. Is quite interesting that the countries with higher education are the ones that have more cases of gender violence, how is this possible?

We must start teaching the respect for each other since childhood, and also teach them what gender violence is. Thousands of teenagers don´t even noticed that they have been manipulated for each couples, gender violence is not only phisically is also mentally. We must do something soon or the number of victims will keep increasing.

Last week I participated in an event against gender violence, the name of the event was "Vahvat ei kiusaa" and  there were many exhibition about arts martial, the instructors were teaching the youngster how to defend themselves against the aggressor and showing some basic moves for beginners. 

There was also videos about gender violence cases and what the victims could do to stop them, there was also many information about who to contact in case you are suffering any kind of aggression. I think those kind of events are very usefull for concerning the youngster about this topic and also for giving them the courage to speak out loud about gender violence in case they know a friend or relative that is suffering any kind of abuse.

My task was walking around giving balloons to the participants and talking with the youngster, it was a bit exhausting job but I really had fun.

 

Trip to Tallinn

CRUISE DAY TO TALLINN

 

 

Last weekend I went to Tallinn with my family, we did a day cruise to Tallinn from Helsinki. The Ferry left Helsinki at 10:30 am, it took us around two hours to reach Tallinn,Tallinn and Helsinki are close to each other, only 82 km away from each other.

It was the first time for my parents in a ferry, they were very exicted, I must said that ferries are not like an ordinary ship, ferries are huge, very huge. It is impressive to see it from the outside, but even more impressive from the inside. When you are in the ferry, you don´t have the impression of being in the sea, it  looks more like if you were in a mall, there is lot of shops and restaurants, there is also a pub and a karaoke. You can easily get lots, at least I got lost couple of times. Our ferry was very crowded but luckily we got a place to sit on our both ways.

Once we arrived to Tallinn we got a map from the tourist information point and start our adventure in a new city for most of us. Our first stop was St. Olav church, is at the entrance of the city, is one of the tallest buildings of the old city of Tallinn, so is very easy to reach. The inside of the church is very simple, not much to see, we paid two euros to go on top of the tower and see the city from there, I have to say that it was really hard to reach the top of it because there is not other way than going through very skinny stairs, it is very cramped but it totally worth to go, the views were amazing.

After that extra sport we went to have lunch, it was not easy to find a good restaurant with suitable prices, at least not in the old twon, you need to go far away from the old town to find some cheap restaurants. After had lunch we went back to the old town and enjoy the touristci attraction that the city offers to you, like the town hall, door Viru, Alexander Nevski Cathedral and so on. We took the ferry back to Helsinki at 20:30 pm but before that we went to an alcohol store and buy some bottles. That is very common reason to travel to Tallinn, many Finnish come back with lot of bottles and cans, Finland have very high taxes for alcohol drinks, so by buying it in Estonia you can save lot of money.

        This is typical middle age finnish couple on their way back

 

 

 

 



FAKE SPRING

FINNISH SPRING

 

Today I will talk about the Finnish spring. As all of you know the official day of the beginning of the spring is 20th of March. But it seems that Finland have a bit different  weather than the rest of Europe.

Yesterday my family came to Finland to spend Easter with me, and also visit Finland. What they didn´t expect were that Finland would recieve them with snow. They arrived to Helsinki at 20:00, our original plan was do some sightseeing around the city until the time we have to take the bus to my city, but the weather was awful, it was windy and snowing, very cold for them, imagine they came from Spain where right now the temperature is around 25 degrees and sunny. So what we did in exchange was have dinner in a Burger Knig and wait inside the train station until our bus leaves.

 

                        

                           Is this how spring should look like?
              Don´t you think this images fits more in Autumn?

Two weeks ago We had a full week of sun, YES!! SUN IN FINLAND. We thought the spring was finally coming, people were hoping that there won´t be more snow and the temperatures will start rising, but it was all a delusion, after that sunny week we went back to cold temperatures and rainy days. In my previous experience in Finland, spring didn´t come until May, I hope I am wrong this time and soon we can enjoy lovely sunny days with good weather, I CAN´T WAIT!!









  



Northern Lights in Finland

           NORTHEN LIGHTS

 

 

Yesterday, 17/03/2015 was possible to see Northern Lights in all Finland, including Helsinki. This is very rare, normally you can see northern lights only in the north of Finland.

I was coming back home from work when suddenly I saw something green in the sky, at the beginning I thought it was a cloud, the light was very weak so it was not so clear what was it. I got into my house and check my facebook, a friend of mine posted that she saw a northern light just few seconds ago, so I decided to wear some more warm clothes and go out to see them too. The best place to see northern lights is at the top of a hill, where there is not much artificial lights. I went to the lake and waited there until I could see them. It was quite cold outside but it worth it, I can´t described what I saw. At the beginning it was just a weak light on the sky, but later on it got bigger and brighter. There was a moment where all the sky was completely green. Just amazing, sadly my phone´s camera couldn´t take any picture.

Next morning my facebook was full of comments and pictures about the northern lights night, the best way of see northern lights is through a good camera, your eyes can´t see properly all the colours.

 

Is such a big coincidence that same day was St Patrick´s Day in Ireland, it seems that Ireland and Finland agreed with the colour of the day!!



World Cup Lahti Ski Games

WORLD CUP LAHTI

 

Last weekend was the World Cup Ski Games of Lahti, a total of 23 countries have participated : Austria, Australia, Canada, Great-Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kazakstan, Lichtenstein, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Swedem, The USA, Korea, Bulgaria and Estonia.

I went to see the games on Saturday and Sunday, I could go also on Friday but the weather was awful, so I decided to stay at home.

On Saturday I went to see the Ski Jumping Group Race, it was the first time in my life to see this kind of competitions, as all of you know in Spain there is not much snow, actually I don´t even think there is any Ski jumping tower at all in my country.There was so many people at the competition area, quite surprinsing because there is normally not many people at the city, at least on winter time, we will see how is on summer. I was very amazed how high athletes have to jump, to give you an idea how tall it is, you can see  the Ski Jumping Tower practically from any place in Lahti, also during the nights thanks to its illumination.

 

 

I woke up early on Sunday and I went to see the Cross Country Female Race, the males one was at ten o´clock in the morning that´s way to early for me. After the Cross Country race there was the Ski Jumping Individual Race. Sunday was a foggy day so I couldn´t see the top of the ski jumping tower, but anyway

I really enjoy the competitions even though my country was not participating and Finalnd was not as good as the rest of the countries.

After the races there was a party place with lots of concerts, what I didn´t understand was that all the artists playing there were Finnish singing most of their songs in finnish, Is a world cup!!!, were many people from different parts of the world came to lahti, to enjoy the event, so why the organizer didn´t think about the tourists? It would be much more fun if the concerts would be more international.

 

VALENTINE´S DAY IN FINLAND VS SPAIN

VALENTINE´S DAY

 

Today I will compare the different ways of celebrating Valentine´s day between Spain and Finland.

As all you know Valentine´s Day is a celebration observed on 14th of Febrary. It is celebrated in many countries around the world, but can be celebrated in lots of different ways.

In Spain is the day of the lovers and  is a huge celebration in the whole country. All the shops around are decorated with hearts, love messages and romantic mood, you can feel that love is in the air.

Is a day where couples celebrate the feeling that they have for each other. It consisted basically of  buying some flowers to the couple and have an intimacy dinner in a expensive restaurant. Restaurants are full this day,so you need to book it in advance or you will ending up in a fast food restaurant. It is a celebration of great importance for women. So if you have a spanish girlfriend DON´T FORGET THIS DAY!!

 

 

In Finland is the day of the friendship ( ystävänpäivä), The notion of the 14th of February as a “special day” arrived quite late to Finland, compared to the rest of the world. In Finland is a day when close friends send cards and gifts to each other. For Finnish is not such an important day, is like an ordinary day,so is not so common to see shops decorated. But there is also some Finns couples that celebrated it by buying roses and having dinner together in a restaurant. what is quite surprising  for me,is that is also a common day to get engaged or get married.

Sadly nowadays Valentine´s Day is getting more commercial and is all about BUY, things for your couple instead of LOVE your couple and spend time with them.