Day 43 Happy Penkinpainajaiset Day!

One thing I love about the Finnish culture is that they celebrate just about everything. yes, everything!

So today, as I was walking to the academic bookstore to pick up my Finnish textbook, there were noises everywhere on the road, which is weird in Helsinki because everywhere is quite quiet and calm here. I looked around and I saw a huge crowd of people standing on the side of the road, and lorries with young people on it passing by.

(Photo: Guess who they are? They are actually senior high-school students celebrating the end of school year. Today is the last day of school and the start of the preparation of the Finnish matriculation exam (like university-entrance exam) for these kids, and you know the Fins, this calls for celebration!)

It is a Finnish tradition that these high school kids go into nicely-decorated lorries and parade around the Helsinki district. They also throw candies to the crowd and the crowd will cheer along with them! My Finnish teacher Merja told us that the celebration lasts for the entire day and night. First they go around the school, pranking teachers/ school, sing songs, interrupt classes, then they go out and parade in lorries, then at night, they go party! Quite frankly, I feel really really happy for them! It reminded me of my last day of high school, and we had prank days! It was so fun! Ah... the good memories.

Barbora's friends came to visit her all the way from Austria! We first went to the 14th floor of the Soko's hotel to see the view of Helsinki, it was so pretty!
(Photo: I knew I was going to be the shortest one...)

(Photo: Seeing so many lights at night feels so much like home!)

(Photo: Hehe, I couldn't resist this.)

And then, we went to the Fazer cafe near Stockmann. The place was really nice! Every pastry looks delicious and I tried the Fazer Chocolate tea!



(Photo: Chocolate tea is actually a mixture of black tea, vanilla extract and chocolate powder. It tastes like normal black tea, but smells like Chocolate and vanilla!)