Juhannus

Juhannus is Finland's celebration of Midsummer (equivalent to S. João in Portugal) and it's their most important holiday after Christmas. During Juhannus Finns flee from the cities into wood cottages near the water. This year I was fortunate to be invited to celebrate Juhannus in Finland with 20 people from all over Europe.

My trip didn't start the best way, my first flight (to Helsinki) was delayed 40 minutes. Upon arrival I had to run full speed to my next flight's boarding gate barely arriving on time to find out that flight was late 40 minutes. Life has its ironies... From Helsinki I flew to Tampere from where part of our group drove to the eastern coast, somewhere around here (google maps).


We reached a peer and took a boat to my friend's cottage which is in small island with some other 10 cottages.


The cottage has no running water or toilet but it has a sauna! The toilet was located outside in another sort of cottage. And it has a window so one could contemplate nature while he did his thing :) Quite relaxing!


But life in the cottage implies working, usually before doing sauna, or as the Finns say sauna Hiki (to sweat before sauna).


Here is a boulder we dug up to move it to the lake. It took some 5 or 6 of us, a couple of heavy metal rods and two logs used as levers and a hour or so. But after that hard work the sauna felt sweeter :)


Juhannus is all about tradition, so we had Karelian Pies for breakfast (pastries filled with rice and covered with egg butter).

We also had our Juhannus birch tree.

On Juhannus night we did a big bonfire near the sea, of course.

We also had 90 liters of Sima, a typical Finnish homemade brew ranging from 5% to 9%. Very pleasant and refreshing :)

And on Juhannus day we had pea soup! Not the best tradition...

Another Finnish tradition, the vihta, made of boughs of birch tree it's used in the sauna to beat oneself on the back for relaxing the muscles and calm the skin after some mosquito bites (which were huge there). We ended up beating each other not very gently :)
After sauna we usually went to swim in the sea which felt quite good. We usually alternate between sauna and sea some three times. Here's the access we used to dive in the sea.

We usually would this till quite late. At that latitude it never really became dark so we never quite knew what time it was... The sun rose at 4:30

The rest of our cottage life was relaxing, some traditional games, some barbecues...
Enjoying nature...

And of course, drinking.

Koninginnedag

Koninginnedag or Queen's Day is a national holiday in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Celebrated on 30 April (the 29th if the 30th falls on a Sunday), Koninginnedag is Queen Beatrix's official birthday. (...)

Koninginnedag is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt ("free market" or flea market), at which many Dutch sell their secondhand items. It is also an opportunity for "orange madness" or oranjegekte, for the national colour, when the normally straight-laced Dutch let down their hair, often dyed orange for the occasion. -- Wikipedia

This year I went to my first Queen's Day. I flu to Amsterdam on a Thursday (gladly Prince William got married on Friday so no need to waste a vacation day) and got there in time for dinner and then a techno show featuring Richie Hawtin & Marco Carola!

Next day there were some preparations for Queen's Day such as buying beer and lastly there was Queen's Night. Queen's night is like the warm up for next day. We had dinner at a friend's place, went out to a square where there was a stage with live music and lastly we hit some bars. The streets were crowded and a general good mood with most people dressing orange. In the end riding our bikes home was quite an adventure :)


Finally Saturday. We all put on our orange shirts, mine already had a few years but was the first time I wore it. We managed to go out around 14h which was rather late as festivities start in the morning. On Queen's Day the streets are full of stands selling all sorts of things, everybody is dressed orange and most people are drinking and carrying beers (we had backpacks full of them).



Every other square has a stage with music and people dancing. The atmosphere is fantastic!




People celebrate not only on the streets but also at home and in the canals.


And dress in all sorts of ways...




At 20h all stages close down (strangely early) but I suppose it's because there is a lot to clean...


For us the party continued indoors where he had music and some 80Lt of beer for 40 people! Surely an unforgettable day...

London Marathon

Next morning, me and my mate went to see the London Marathon arrivals. Beautiful day... Some pictures: