Archive for 'Finland culture'
El País in Finland
Tuesday October 20th, 2009. 11:13 AM. Published under Finland culture, Spain, helsinki. 1 Comment.
El País (in English: The Country) is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Spain. Price in Spain: 1.20 €, Price in Helsinki: 2.75.
BTW. You can check the most important today’s front pages in the world in Kiosko.net and even more (838 newspapers in the world) in Newseum. From Finland only Iltälehti.
Iltalehti is a tabloid newspaper (sensational newspaper) and it translates directly as “Evening paper”. And ¿What? Wikipedia says that Iltalehti.fi is the most popular website in Finland as of November 2008. 0_o I didn’t expect this.
Sustainable forest management in Finland
Saturday August 15th, 2009. 01:37 AM. Published under Finland culture, Music. 1 Comment.
Yesterday I fund the article “Most sustainable forest of the world” in El País (main newspaper in Spain), where they talk mainly about 3 topics:
1. Forest in Finland: 85% of Finland is forest (23 millions of hectares), of wich:
- 95% of them have sustainable certificate (they are social, economically and environmental equilibrated)
- 60% of them is private.
- All of them is under the concept of EveryMan’s Right, I talked other day.
Compared with Spain, only 7% of Spanish forest (1.123.000 hectares) has this certificate of sustainable, but it’s growing.
2. Modern machines for cutting/preparing trees. Monsters capable of prepare a tree in 1 minute. In the right sidebar of the article there is a video showing this machine, but of course in youtube you can find more videos about this machines.
3. Process to make a forest sustainable: 30 years minimum of waiting for cutting again, re-foresting, etc. and also is important that companies who purchase paper or wood should demand the certificate of sustainable to the provider, as spanish comany Zara, or Tetra Pack.
If you visit/live in Helsinki city, probably you won’t see this wood industry, but going inside of the country and you will see different samples of this industry everywhere, like this photo in Pirkanmaa region:
Berrys in summer
Friday August 7th, 2009. 12:46 PM. Published under Finland culture, Photos, Summer. 5 Comments.
[This last week I was transfering the web from Dreamhost to HostGator and domain to GoDaddy, sorry if there was problems accesing some parts of the web. It seems everything is ok now, tell me if you see that something doesn't work. Thanks]
It’s time of berrys! 1 month ago you could see already peas in the market but know it’s already also berrys season. I thought it will be more difficult to find them in the nature, but they are almost everywhere in the forest and even parks. I’m a little lazy and it’s very slow to pick one by one, so if you are like me, better buy them in the market square at 3-5 euros a box of 400 gr.
In Spain, aside of the strawberrys, and blackberrys (moras) the rest are not so well known, and many times we group them as “Frutas del bosque” (fruits of the forest), to describe the taste in yogurts, ice-creams, juices.,etc.
Some photos of berry’s around Pyynikki in Tampere:
In Finland and Spain people knows that Vitamin C is good against the flu, but… Finnish people relates Vitamin C more to the berry’s and Spain we link Vitamin C with oranges & citrics in general, not to berrys. For me it’s funny that there is a lot of Finnish people that never have seen a lemon tree in real, the same way than for them is surprising that I had never seen before snowing until I arrived to Finland a couple of years ago.
(Lemontrees in Málaga, Spain)
I have taste some berrys this month for the first time. Wild strawberrys are small but really tasty. Rest of the berrys I have tasted in the forest were fine but a little sour compared with the berry’s in the shop.
It’s quite common to see people during July-Agoust picking berrys in the forest and it’s great that Finland have the concept Everyman’s right, that allows to the people to access freely to the nature even it is private property, always respecting the nature of course and being careful. So practically you can go everywhere in Finland to pick up berrys and enjoy the nature, the mosquitos and the lakes without worrying about legal matters of who owns the land.
If someday you come to pickup berry’s or mushrooms, there are some tips in this web and more information. If you, like me, can’t difference the names & kinds of berrys, this web will be helpful too.
Humor: Kummeli - Heikki Silvennoinen
Thursday July 30th, 2009. 10:46 AM. Published under Finland culture, Funny. No Comments.
Nice Finnish humor from Tampere. Kummeli is a Finnish comedy crew that are famous in Finland mostly because of their TV show between 1991 and 1995. (more in Wikipedia)
I still don’t know so good Finnish to understand the jokes, so I put a couple of clips that are internationally funny, i.e. without dialogs. In these ones appears the musician & actor Heikki Silvennoinen, part of Kummeli and a celebrity in Finland.
The first one: Krapula (hang over)
And Effect sounds!
Vapriikki - Sitting Bull Exhibition
Tuesday July 21st, 2009. 11:21 AM. Published under Finland culture, Photos, Tampere. No Comments.
Couple of weeks ago we visit Vapriikki, the main museum of Tampere. Until Nov’09 there is a exhibition of the life story of Sitting Bull, one of the most known Indian chiefs. Some texts in the walls were translated to English, but almost everything and explanition of the objects were in Finnish.
Some stuff that call my attention:
The Tomahawk with a heart!,.. like telling “I will slam the axe into your head… but with love ok?”, . Joking aside,… was awesome their ornaments, clothes, shoes, etc. all full of color and geometry shapes. They were truly craftsmen.
Exhibition was well staged and background sounds immerse yourself into the atmosphere.
Aside this exhibition there is other zones in the museum, included in the price and I think they are almost everyone permanent: ice hockey museum (of course), toys museum, shoes with the famous finnish Reino shoes, it seems they are getting fashionable among teenagers ¿?.
More information in Vapriikki museum web. This is a photo from outside, where you can see the Tammerkoski river:
Vapriikki means factory and this name was given to the museum when they renewed it due of the fact that it was a old factory from the Industrial Age of Tampere. The center of Tampere actually has this cool looking, buildings of red bricks constructed when Tampere was the industrial heart of Finland during the 19th and part of 20th century. Notice that Tampere is a quite young city, that this year has celebrated his 250 years anniversary.
Finland, Lapland, vikings, Nordic countries, Scandinavia… let’s clear up all these.
Saturday July 18th, 2009. 03:54 PM. Published under Finland culture, Scandinavia. 6 Comments.
I started looking what countries belong to Scandinavia… and everyplace they say something different. So I’m going to try to explain it here from the basis, and also other concepts. And please if you want to correct/add something, leave a comment:
Finland is a country with its own language, Finnish, and Suomi is the name of the country in the Finnish language. It’s a young country, independent since 1917. Its capital is Helsinki as you know.
Scandinavia is a not-official term and quite ambiguous. Geographically, the Scandinavian Peninsula, (more…)
Mmmh… sweet peas from the market
Wednesday July 8th, 2009. 10:04 AM. Published under Finland culture, Photos, Summer. 1 Comment.
Herne: 3 euroa / litra
Summer Solstice in Tampere, Finland
Monday June 29th, 2009. 04:43 AM. Published under Finland culture, Photos, Summer. 6 Comments.
One week ago, 21st of June was Summer solstice, when the day is the longest (daylight) in the year in the northern hemisphere of the Earth.
In Finland is quite impressive for the foreigners that during these days the nights are really short and doesn’t get very dark. It is like a long infinite sunset that never ends and joins with sunrise again. To see the real midsummer night (sun always visible 24 h) you should go to the north of Finland, Lapland.
As you might know, I’m currently living in the city of Tampere, and like I explained in the previous post, I wanted to check the possibilities of the camera Canon A590 with CHDK. So I programmed it to take pictures in short intervales. I left the camera in a tripod in the top of the building I am living in, and I went to sleep (after closing all the curtains)
This is the result of joining 1000 thousand photographs where you can see the Särkänniemi amusement park and the observation tower Näsinneula, an icon of the city of Tampere, which have an expensive rotary restaurant in the top with really nice views.
Song: Télépopmusik - Breathe
Oficially sunset was at 23.11 and sunrise at 3.42 in Tampere.
There is a Spanish film called Los amantes del círculo polar ártico (Lovers of the Arctic Circle, 1998), and part of the film was filmed in Finland. This small clip from this film shows how it is the midsummer in Rovaniemi, in the Finnish Lapland.
The next image was made by Isilmetriel. It’s not real, was computer made, but it shows beautifully the concept of Midsummer night:
Finland? = Such a cold weather, isn’t it?
Saturday June 27th, 2009. 02:54 AM. Published under Finland culture, Photos, Scandinavia, Summer. 2 Comments.
Not always. Summer in Finland exists!. This is the weather for this weekend. Tampere, in the center of Finland, will be 29º today, same temperature than in Costa del Sol, Málaga (Spain).
Full weather page from Aamulehti 27.06.2009 (500 Kb).
* Huomenna = Tomorrow
* Sää = Weather
* Aurinko = Sun
Aurinko dates tells you when is the sunrise and the sunset. You can appreciate a difference between Helsinki and Tampere because of their different latitudes. To see the midnight sun, (”night-without night” in finnish: yötön yö), when the sun is visible for a continuous 24 hours you will have to go to the north, Lapland. For example Rovaniemi, close to the Arctic Circle, midnigt sun is from 6th of June to 6th of July. Of course, more north you go, more days you can see the midnight sun. The extreme is the North Pole with 6 months daytime, 6 months nighttime in the year.
What people do in summer in Tampere? Go to the beach of the lake, their boats/yachts, sauna, fishing,… whatever but try to be all the time they can outside, because summer is short in Finland and you have to take most of it.
Sentimental Finnish men
Tuesday June 16th, 2009. 04:03 AM. Published under Finland culture, People, Videos. No Comments.
Quite funny TV advertisement from Finnish National Betting released this month.
“We invited 127 ordinary Finnish men for screen tests
We asked them about love, feelings, sentimentality and life.”
Wanna see a Finnish man getting emotional? …. Watch it (subtitled in English)