Wappu party

G'day!
Long time no post uh? I know I know... sorry fo that.

Today is a 1/2 cultural, 1/2 party post. This is about the finnish Wappu party! Brief explanation of what it is (thorough explanation comes after from the mouth of a native finnish!) The Wappu is the main event among student events in Finland. Considering how crazy are finnish people, you can imagine when they decide to party a little by more hardcore than usual... The so called finnish crew organized in partnership with AEGEE this party for us. That was really cool! Everybody was wearing a small finnish flag drawn on a cheek, enjoying folk finnish music and specialties like Salmiakki.

Salmiakki is a nice discovery I've done here. It's the finnish national alcohol, very dark, well opaque, black and it's actually salty licorice liquor! It tastes just great and is suitable to drink alone or in long drinks. The only thing is that you can't really find it outside of Finland... Here's a better explanation about the idea of Wappu by Hannu from Tampere in Finland of course but before that, photos!

But what is finnisch Wappu?

Wappu was originally a namenstag of Valburg, a abt from Bayern in
the 600-century. Valburg was declared as a saint the same time as there
where a non-religous celebration for the beginning of summer. The
increasing light and warmth launced the people to have tournaments and
witchhappenings with huge fires.

The Wappu spread into Finland amoung the rich people. In the
1900-century the
celebration was rapidly adapted by the students. In 1889 there were huge
strikes in USA, and so the Wappu was starting to be widely used as a
tool for the working class in this meaning.

As the time passed by the strikes were smoothen into parades. Nowadays the gab between students
and working class in non-existend, as more or less the whole country
wants to make the best use of the free days.

For most of the students the Wappu means everything. Some parts of the
Finland Wappu is started two weeks beforehand, and it keeps running till
the end! Some alcohol is taken, but also things like markets, parades or
smaller parties are arranged.

So be in Triangel Bar on the 30.4 at 21:00! We hope to see you there!

Hannu