Feeling hot, hot, hot!
So my face is sunburnt. Last week I could not have believed that this would be possible, but it’s hooooot here. It’s reaching up to 15 degrees!
I got sunburnt on Vappu which is apparently one of the biggest events in Helsinki. I will try to tell you what Vappu is, but I’m not actually entirely clear about it, so you’d be best to follow up with the Wikipedia article if you actually want to know what it is.
There’s the 30th of April, when Vappu starts, which was Saturday this year. Saturday seemed to consist of everyone buying sparkling wine and picnic ingredients for Sunday, popping on bizarre white hats (costing around €100) which signify that at some time during your life you’ve graduated from something, if you’re a student, wearing your university overalls in the colour of your department, then basically drinking … oh and washing a statue. Not any statue, a particular statue somewhere in Helsinki. You are then meant to party hard for as much of the night as you can.
Sunday, May Day, is the time to grab all those picnic ingredients and sparkling wine you shopped for yesterday, and head to the picnic in the park. The picnic in the park, the park being Kaivopuisto. When I was told that everyone would be picnicking all day, I really imagined this meant that a bunch of very hungover, rowdy, hard-partying, uni students would sack out in the park around midday. Nope. It is an all-age attendance of, as far as I could tell, every resident in Helsinki and then some. Also there are many gaudy helium balloons of no particular theme. Also there are fire trucks on hand to make a circuit of the park dousing the bins as they catch fire (this seems to happen a lot and I’m not quite sure why). Also you should eat tippäleipa (funnel cakes). And I was informed it is only a real Vappu if you have seen the real pink panther, i.e. a guy dressed as a pink panther wandering around the park (and I’ve forgotten how to distinguish the real one from the fake ones).
I did not have a real Vappu. I did get sunburnt while picnicking for 5 hours in the sun.
