Throwing the cold stone

One of the things that often suprise people moving to Nordic countries from other parts of the world is that every day of the year is dedicated to to a specific name or a couple of them. These vary from country to country but the idea is the same. For example in Finland Laura's name day is the January 18th.

More interesting is that there are heaps of old beliefs connected to certain name days. For example it was believed that if you wanted to have a good crop the next year you should not do any work on the day of Martti in November.

One of the beliefs that still survives is that the waters start getting cold on the day of Jaakko. It is said that Jaakko throws a cold stone into the lake. As it happens, my boy friend is called Jaakko and his name day was yesterday. I hope he didn't sneek out to throw any stones because I still intend to do a lot of swimming this summer.

Tomorrow is also special but for another reason. It is called "unikeon päivä" which means the sleepy head's day. The person in a household that sleeps the longest will be the official sleepy head. Since I'm on sick leave because of my flu, I'm afraid that will be me.

The nightless night

These pictures are from the Midsummer night three weeks ago. I was with some friends in one of the small islands that are scattered in front of Helsinki and surrounding cities. It was wonderfuly peacefull and the boat ride there was so much fun.

I took these a little before midnight and as you can see it's still quite light. The darkest hour of the night is of course at 1 am because of the daylight savings and here in the southern parts the sun does set every night.

I just wanted you to see how beautiful Finnish summer can be. This is also an excuse for the very slow posting. Before long it will be dark when we get up and dark when we come home, so I'm trying to enjoy the light while it lasts. I will keep posting through out the summer but probably the pace will be slow. I promise it will get better in the September at the latest...

Time flies

I really don't know what happened to this whole week. All I know is that Easter holiday started today and in ten hours I should already be sitting on a plane headed to Istanbul. Perhaps it was the sunny and warm weather that hit Stockholm this week that has made it impossible to be stressed out about anything. (Usually I stress extensively about packing.) I've been sitting outside "studying" and enjoyed running in the evenings that are getting lighter and lighter.

At this point I'm almost done with packing. The last thing on my to do list is the dishes, and sleeping of course...

But before I go I would like to show you this picture of the Swedish påskris, or virpomavitsa as we call them in Finland. Tomorrow is the Palm Sunday and kids will go from door to door dressed up as little witches, handing out these decorated birch twigs and asking for sweets in return. Kind of like Halloween in US I guess.

I got these about a week ago when a girl in my Swedish class made a presentation about Swedish Easter traditions. She had brought them with her but since she already had some at home she gave them to me afterwards. They have grown tiny leafs which in Finnish are called "mouse's ears". It's so nice to have a little bit of spring inside.

Happy holidays to all who celebrate Easter! See you in ten days!

Fettisdag

I quess in English this time of year is called Shrovetide but here the name for today can be directly translated as the Fat Tuesday. I know it has something to do with starting the fast that's supposed to go on until Easter but I'm too tired to remember or find out what. To me the meaning of this day has always been the pastrys and occasionally sledding.

The traditional swedish pastry for this holiday is the "semla" which is a bun filled with marzipan and whipped cream. We eat those in Finland as well but there we call them "laskiaispulla". The Swedish-speaking people in Finland call it "fastlagsbulle" which is the direct translation from Finnish. If you ask for a "semla" in Finland you get a bread roll and if you ask for a "fastlagsbulle" here in Sweden you get looked at as if you were an idiot. Asking for just a "bulle" would get you a plain bun. Except in southern parts of Sweden where it would mean a bread roll. Confused yet? I know I am.

"Kanelbulle" on the other hand means a cinnamon bun both in Finland and the whole Sweden. But it is also another name for @-sign. Swedes even have a special day for cinnamon buns, "kanelbulledag", but I don't remember when it is.

Things I didn't know about Ikea

I have been exposed to a little too much Ikea lately. It seems that in Sweden every student room, hostel and most of the public spaces are full of Ikea furniture. Then last week when I had to pick a subject related to Sweden for the talk that I'm going to hold in my Swedish class tomorrow. So I panicked and picked Ikea.



Here are covers of Ikea catalogues from 1958 and 1962. Pretty retro! There are many more to find at the catalogue cover archive.


Here are some new things I've learned:

• Ikea was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad who was at the time 17 years old.
• The name IKEA comes from the founder's initials and the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up.
• IKEA originally sold pens, wallets, picture frames, table runners, watches, jewellery and nylon stockings.
• Last year there were pressed 175 million Ikea catalogs in 27 languages and 458 million people visited Ikea.
  
• Ingvar Kamprad is estimated to be among 4 richest people in the world. He is also said to have raised funds for a pro-Nazi group in Sweden during the World War II.
  
• Before 2006 the worl's biggest Ikea was one of the stores in Stockholm but now it is the one opened in Bejing, China.
  
• World's northernmost Ikea (65.50 N) is in Haparanda, Sweden.