22.2.2010

Last week was Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday, aka Shrovetide, aka the last day of Mardi Gras, aka the last day before lent begins. It's a pretty big holiday in Finland. People usually take the day off and go sledding. The idea is the farther your sled goes, the taller your flax will grow that year. You're also supposed to wear your hair down (long hair = long flax), eat pea soup and pancakes (which you're also supposed to do every Thursday. I guess you just can't get enough of them), and eat shrovetide buns. I did all these things, so look out flax 2010!

Shrovetide bun for breakfast

Pancakes for dinner. The Finn's make their pancakes really eggy and bake them in a pan (imagine that) in the oven. Then you cut them into squares and eat them with jam. It's sure easier than standing at the stove and flipping. 

Preparing to go down the huge sledding hill. 

Success! 

I've been amusing myself all week at the bus stop by trying to get a good video of the buses sliding to a stop on the ice. So far no luck, but here are some of my failed attempts: 

Random Finnish thing: In the "hypermart" there is an entire aisle devoted to sauna supplies:

On Saturday I went to see Josh Ritter (one of my top three favorite musicians) and The Swell Season (made famous in the movie Once) perform at the Kulttuuritalo. It was really good. But I kind of felt like I was annoying the people next to me just by tapping my foot. I was sitting near the back and I could look out over the whole crowd and not see a single head moving to the music. Finn's aren't the most expressive folk in the world. But it was still really good.

The theater

Josh Ritter

The Swell Season

Somehow, over the years, I've developed this tradition where I have get a vanilla milkshake at McDonald's in every country I visit. It's definitely not the best tradition in the world, and if I had a chance to do it over I won't pick that again, but since I've been doing it since I was 14 and went to Panama, I kind of have to keep it up. [Although I JUST realized I forgot to do it when I had that day trip to Austria on my way here... That means I'm going to have to go back to Austria..] Anyway, I went ahead and got my Finland McDonald's milkshake out of the way:

They actually display the nutritional information.

Thank you!