Finnish movies and literature

 1) Arto Paasilinna

One of the most famous authors in Finland is Arto Paasilinna. He was born in Lapland in 1942. He wrote a lot of novels whose many are translated in French.

His name, Paasilinna, has been invented by his father. It means “stone fortress” in Finnish.

His novels are characterized by an unusual narrative sense of humor with singular characters living in several regions of Finland. Nature is very important in his novels, it is a full character. It’s why, Paasilinna’s work is described by “ecological humor novels”.

I have chosen to read one of his first novels, Vatanen’s hare written in 1975. It is also the most famous Paasilinna’s novel and it has been adapted in 1977 for a movie. The story deals with a journalist living in Helsinki who hit a hare with his car. He looked after the animal and went to the forest with it. They traveled during several seasons and walked across the Finland, as far as Lapland.

2) The Moomins

The Moomins (Muumi in Finnish) are characters in famous Finnish books then cartoons created by Tove Jansson. They look like white hippopotamus.

I saw several passages on Youtube but also, when I was a child I used to watch one cartoon video cassette that I had.

We can find these characters everywhere in the shops on cups, cloths, dishes, accessories, soft toy, etc… I bought several moomin items for my family.

It even exists an amusement park Muumimaailma (The world of Moomins) in Naantali in the southwest of Finland. 

Vappu

Hello, this is Thomas and I'm going to tell you about my last party in Finland on the first of May, however this party was not a random one, it was Vappu.
Vappu is a festival, a big party, which takes place on the evening of the 30th of April and continues to the first of May. All the students and former students gather to celebrate this day, the end of the exams and drink together.

To celebrate Vappu, we decided to go to Jyväskylä, it's a bigger town than Varkaus and is 2 hours away by train. There were so many students! They were all gathered in a park with music and they had their traditional white hats, we met our Finnish friends there and we had some Sima, which is a traditional non alcoholic beverage for Vappu. There were street singers, many shops, and bars; it's a nice city.
I was there with some friends from Angers and Annecy and also our Dutch Friend. Then with a friend, we drank some unknown beverage in a kind of Finnish fraternity full of bearded men. Still, I had a fun night, it was a good experience to party somewhere else than in Varkaus. It was our farewell party, not the best, but a particular one.

Picture of Vappu in Helsinki

Point of view of a dutch student

What could you do, in the night, in Varkaus?

In the evening, there are three establishments frequented by students: The Next Step, the Harrisson and the Z-one. We have to walk 30 minutes to go to the Next Step then 15 minutes more to go to the Z-one or the Harrisson. Sometimes, we took taxi (if we are many, each one has to pay only two euros).



These are the places where you can speak with foreigners outside university.

You can taste finish alcohol: Salmiakki (liquorice, sugar and vodka), Mustikka (alcohol, cream and blueberry), White Russian (vodka, coffee liquor and milk) and Long Drink that you can find only in Finland or some regions of Sweden. Alcohol is expensive but there are sometimes student concessions or price cut for special days.




There are also karaokes. It is very practiced in Finland in every pub. We could see a finish people sing alone then return drink and speak with his friends. It is not like French karaoke where people come especially to sing and often with friends or family just for fun. Furthermore, Finnish karaoke is free! There are even karaoke in nightclub.


It permits us to discover finish songs. One of most sing is “Levoton Tuhkimo” a song from Dingo, a finish rock band. It is very liked by Finish people. Every week, we sang this song. The song says that we have to live our life day by day. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5ynOiwXVUM

Sometimes, there are concert in Next Step or Z-one. It permits us to know finish music. There were The Teflon Brothers (a hip hop and rap group), Brädi (a Finnish hip hop artist) and Cheek (a Finnish rapper) and others metal groups. 

Sauna

Sauna originally comes from Finland but you can find it also in others Nordic countries.

It is a wood room with benches and a stove heats up stones. You have to put water on the heat stones to create steam and so increase the temperature. The highest bench is the place where it is warmest.  The temperature is from 70 to 100 °C. It is dry warmth contrary to hammam.

 

Sauna is a Finnish tradition in order to drive toxin out from organism thanks to acceleration of perspiration. Sauna allows to relax and is beneficial for blood flow, skin but also to stimulate immune defenses.

During the sauna you could go out to take a cold shower to take advantage of sauna (two times is good).

Normally, you have to go in sauna naked because swimsuit troubles sweat evaporation. Furthermore, for Finnish, wear swimsuit is not healthy. 

There is a sauna in the dormitory. Women can use it every Wednesday and men every Thursday. 

Our trip to Saint Petersburg

Hello everybody, today I'm going to present our trip to Russia. Living so close to Russia, we decided to visit the country, but not everybody could come. Indeed to go to Russia, you will need a Passport! Otherwise you won't be able to enter their territory, which is why Amandine and some other French people couldn't come to this trip. Besides, we went there for only three days because without a Visa, it is not possible to stay more than three days. You also have to be "invited" by a Russian person to go there. Therefore we have two ways to go to Russia:

• on our own
• with a travel company

We decided to go with a company and we had two choices, let met explain to you why and what company.
In the boat on our way to Russia, we met two French girls and they told us that they had to pay for a hotel about 30€ to be considered as invited. Besides, 3 days are short and discovering St Petersburg with a guide is much more interesting and fun.

The two companies were: Aikamatkat TimeTravels (the company with whom we went to Lapland) and Bigland.
They offered the same price which included the trip on the boat and the hotel for both but there were no tourguides with TimeTravels and the hotel was far away from the city center.

We went to Saint Petersburg with Bigland, our tourguide, Ivan, was really friendly and told us many things about his city, we also met some of his friends and it was really interesting.

Our first impression of Russia was of its uncleanliness and of how crazy all the drivers were... It was dirty because the snow had just melted and the drivers were crazy just  because they drive crazily!
Our tour-guide was really helpful because in St. Petersburg, nobody spoke English. Only few young people such as students were able to, however if you go grocery shopping or go to a restaurant, Russian people will not speak a word of English, even basic words like numbers. Besides, Russian people use a different alphabet which is the Cyrillic alphabet, Ivan's girlfriend taught me how to read Russian words when we were in a bar; it's actually not complicated at all but it looks like it's totally different.
Anyway, for three days, we had the opportunity to visit many things:

• The State Hermitage Museum (Winter palace), which is very known for the History between French and Russian People, many things in it are about Napoleon Bonaparte. There is also modern art such as Picasso; it is a really interesting Museum. The entrance was free for students.
• The Swan Lake Ballet by Tchaikovsky: The ballet costed 50€ and lasted about 2 hours, it's expensive but it was totally worth it. It was one of my favorite things in Russia.
• The Church of the Spilled Blood (Ice cream Church), it is one of most famous churches in Saint Petersburg

  

  At the Ice cream Church

• Catherine Palace (Summer palace), also known for being the Palace in the movie "Anastasia", really looks like Versailles because Catherine liked French architecture a lot, which is why she wanted her palace to look like Versailles.
  

  

  Catherine Palace

Inside the Catherine Palace

We also saw many cathedrals and fortresses and we heard a canon shoot (they shoot one canon every noon to announce the time, Russian style...). You will be able to see our schedule and all on the website of the company: http://openyourrussia.com/en/info/fin

We learned many things about Russian history and mostly of Peter the First, we also visited the metro, which is very beautiful and clean. Our hostel was in the middle of the city, perfectly located, very beautiful and we had free breakfast.

I really recommend this trip, we had a lot of fun and we learned many things thanks to our tour-guide  so if you want to go to Russia, I invite you to go to this website http://openyourrussia.com/

Here are some pics of the trip:

Ice cream Church

Group picture

Near the Catherine Palace

Russian Metro

Russian people tanning by 5°C

Stockholm

Hi, it's Thomas and I am going to tell you some things about my trip to Sweden.

As you know, we have many free time here, which is why I decided to go to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, for some days with my girlfriend. The currency of Sweden is the Swedish Krona and €1 amounts SEK8.6 and the cost of living is much more expensive than in France. I went there by train and then by plane. I could also have gone there by train and then by ferry but the price was equivalent.

In Stockholm, I visited many museums such as The Nobel Museum, The Swedish Royal Armoury, The Museum of Photography, Skansen and Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology. Unfortunately, I wanted to visit The Vasa Museum and the National Gallery but they were closed for maintenance.

• The Nobel Museum was small and inside were two cinemas showing videos of famous people. There were also machines retracing the history of the Nobel Prize and all the people awarded. It was not my favourite but was still interesting.

• The Swedish Royal Armoury was very interesting, it shows the history of Sweden’s kings and queens and there were many old clothes of ladies and knights. At the bottom of the museum were also some coaches from the 17th and 18th centuries. If you are lucky you can also watch the changing of the guards in the very famous Brittish manner outside of the building.

• Skansen is famous in Stockholm, it is an outdoor museum showing the history and the way of life of the saami people. There is also a zoo in it where you can see the Scandinavian animals such as reindeers or wolwerines.
  

A Wolwerine in Skansen

The Museum of Photography was really interesting and The National Museum of Science and Technology was a bit disappointing compared to the Science Museum in Paris for example. Both of these museums were not specific to Sweden but it was still interesting.

In Stockholm, I also wandered in the old island called "Gamla Stan" which is really beautiful with its old and charming architecture. Besides, being with an American girl for the whole time, I spoke english the entire time. This trip was a perfect trip for my culture and also my personal life.

Here is one last picture: