Finnish Traditions

PENKKARIT AND VANHOJEN TANSSIT

 

 

Last Thursday was the Penkkarit celebration in all the cities of Finland. Penkkarit is a yearly tradition for Finnish upper secondary school students. The event is celebrated in their last year of school before the start of the matriculation exams. This celebration consists in a small parade around the city center, the students are dressing up with funny costumes and they are throwing candies to the people.

It was really nice event, I had lot of fun and I got many free candies. What I don´t understand is why is before the exams and not after, when everything is done and you are not  stress about exams.

The next day of Penkkarit celebration, Finnish students do their traditional dance ( Vanhojen tanssit),is a formal prom

for upper secondary schools students during their second year. It is a celebration of when the second-year students become the seniors of the school.

The prom celebration  last approximately one hour, during that time the students are dancing some traditional Finnish dances, that they have learned during the first semester. As you can see from the picture the students look very elegant, the male students wear black suits and the girls long and colorful dresses, the families of the girls can easily spend over one thousand euros in the dresses, hairdressing  and make up. I was very jealous to see those beauiful dresses, we don´t have this kind of event in Spain, but anyway I don´t think that my family could affort to buy me such a expensive type of dress. The most surprisingly part was when the students were dancing "Tango". Tango is a very sensual dance but the Finnish students didn´t know how to dance it properly, they were dancing it very mechanically.

 

 

 

VISITING HELSINKI

HELSINKI

 

 

Last weekend I went to Helsinki with my spanish friend, he came to visit me and also to get to know Finland and Finnish culture.

We took the bus on saturday morning at 7:40 am, and we arrived to Helsinki at 9:00 am. We visited first the Hietaniemi Cemetery and the beach. We were very surprised how close each other are, in Spain the beaches are far away from cemeteries, in my opinion a beach should be a place where you can chill and relax, not a place where you can hear the bells of the church because of someone die. I seriously didn´t like the location of the cemetery, this fact could explain why there is so many Finnish tourist in Spain, besides of the weather.

We went next to The Rock Church ( Temppeliaukion kirkko). I think is a bit overvalued, is just a church made of stones nothing else special. After it we went through the Ullanlinna street to St. John´s Church (Johanneksenkirkko), it´s not the most popular place to visit in Helsinki but is very big and pinteresque, I liked it more than The Rock Church. Later on we visited  The Old Market Hall ( Eteläranta), I was happy to see a spanish shop inside selling Chorizo, spanish cheese and of coruse Jamón Serrano.

After all that walk we went to have lunch at a restaurant, it was a bit expensive but the food was delicious. After it we visited the port and the market.We also went to the Orthodox Cathedral ( Suomen ortodoksinen kirkko) and to the St Nicholas´Church ( Helsingin tuomiokirkko).    

This one looks amazing from the outside, is very big and impressive, but the inside is very normal, all the walls are white and there is not much old decoration. 

 

 

   

 

This one is my favourite one, it looks really nice from the outside, very different looking than catholic ones and the inside is even nicer, it reminds me the cathedral in Russia, is very colorful but a bit small, it looks bigger from the outside than from the inside.

  

Despite Helsinki is the only "big" city in Finland, the size of the city are quite small. When I was in Helsinki I felt like I was not in Finland anymore, the rest of Finland is full of nature and lakes, not so many people around, totally opposite of Helsinki, but it was really nice trip anyway.