I haven't written on here for such a long time, almost a month, as its been absolutely crazy here and I don't know where the time has gone. I'll backtrack a wee bit because I never wrote about Vappu which is a celebration on 30th April through to the morning of 2nd May, and you can't really have done erasmus in finland without experiencing vappu. Basically, Vappu is the May day holiday here which means everyone gets 2 days off work. It is tradition that the students have a huge festival over these days and it was manic, sort of like Hogmanay on Princes Street back home but crazier. All of the main streets in Helsinki were closed and literally the entire population of Finland was out partying, there were various traditions taking place in the main square in the afternoon such as giving the statue in the main square the cap which people get when they graduate from high school but essentially it was one big party. We started the celebrations early in the morning on 30th with a picnic - which obviously included alcohol - and then that set us up for the day of more barbeques and merryment, ending in a trip to the hospital (my friend thought she had broken her arm) and finally back home at 8am. To have a few hours of sleep and then back out again for the traditional picnics in the park early on 1st, which then followed on with a day similar to the one before ending at 9am on 2nd. We'd been hearing about Vappu from the Finns since we arrived so it was a huge event for the erasmus students, and I dont think we were really disapointed!
The early morning picnics, and celebrations in the statue:
So, that was Vappu!! We all felt very Finnish over these few days and there is a lot of talk of everyone coming back next year for a reunion over Vappu, but I don't quite know how that would sit with 4th year finals in Edinburgh!
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Now we're into the final 2 weeks of our lives in Finland, everyday we are going to parties for "last night of ....." and its getting crazy. Each day almost someone goes home and I don't like it. It doesn't feel real, it's very sureal and very strange. Everyone is going home at different times because we all actually finished classes before Vappu at the end of April so this has been one crazy party month (as if our lives in Finland needed any more than that) meaning people have been going home whenever depending on their commitments back in their home countries. I'm not quite sure how I feel about going home - I'm really scared about it because I know I have to go back to reality and sort out so many things, not only on a pratical administative level but also rekindle relationships with people in Edinburgh and at home who I haven't seen for over a year. I left Edinburgh at the start of May last year to start my epic journey to Russia, Mongolia, China and then finally into Finland. I've done so much since then and met so many people that I can't quite imagine what it will be like going back to my every day life in Edinburgh because it feels so long ago. For the last year I've had such close relationships with people who I potentially will never see again, or at least, if and when I do see people again not everyone from our groups will be there and also, it will be different because we're no longer erasmus students. Everyone will have commitments and life to deal with, here we can just forget everything because certainly at the moment we have no schedule on our lives. We have no university commitments so this last few weeks have essentially been lots of socialising without having to deal with anything like an adult. In 2 weeks I'll be back at my parents house and I'm not ready for that. On another note, loads of people have booked flights to come to Edinburgh for the festival. I can't wait.
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I've also been to Stockholm a week or so ago which was really fun - we didn't do much but had a good couple of girlie days too. It only cost 70 euro in total too which was amazing - the ferry was 27 euro return including a cabin (okay, it was the cheapest one and we slept under the cars) which was a great oppertunity for my friends to learn lots of sea life related vocabulary which is clearly essential to life such as shark, jelly fish, sting ray and whale. Then I spent around 40 euros over 2 days in Stockholm. It was a really cool city.
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Eurovision happened over the weekend and it was brilliant. If I'm at home I've always watched it at home with my mum and it felt quite fitting to watch the Eurovision towards the end of my year of travelling fun, because last year I arrived in Moscow on the day Russia won the contest, so there are great memories attached to the entire year. A group of around 20 of us went to a pub to watch it on a big screen - we had various nationalities represented: UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Malta and Lithuania. As well as the obvious joint "nationality" of Finland. The Italians were there too but they had no idea why, apparently Eurovision does not happen in Italy. It isn't that Italy are awful and never make the final, it is simply that they don't enter and before we left a fair bit of wikipedia'ing took place to explain the concept of the programme. So we cheered and laughed at the awful nature of our countries entires, as France and Germany were shambolic, along with Spain and Lithuania who tried too hard. Obviously no one thought much of the UK entry too. So we decided that the winner should be Portugal, and then Azerbaijan and then Iceland. And wow, how wrong were we with our predictions!!
The Finnish song is actually very famous in Finland and it has been played in all of the clubs over the last few months, so we already knew the words although no one realised it was an actual Finnish song, or it was Finlands eurovision entry until we were looking it up online. So when Finland performed, the entire pub went crazy with people dancing on the tables, jumping around and singing loudly persumably to counter balance the fact that whenever one of our countries sang we all cheered loudly too. But sadly the excitement was short lived with Finland bringing up the rear of the table with a shambolic 22 points. I really don't know why as there were loads of countries who had a much worse song than Loose Control but I guess its all down to the politcal voting as Terry Wogan would say!! Although if this is the case, how did the UK manage to do so well?!
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Photo from the Sit Sit I wrote about last time, and also a photo from our trip to Riga in March:
