Tuesday, May 03, 2005
May Day and Tallinn
Hi Everyone,
Hope I didn’t scare you off with my history lesson last time! To make up for it, this blog entry is filled with spring revelry and pictures. Here goes!
Last weekend we met Justin in Helsinki just in time for the May Day celebration, known as Vappu here. This national holiday is part St. Walpurgis Day (the smallest part although that’s where the name Vappu comes from), part workers’ holiday akin to our Labor Day, part rites of spring, and part recognition of students (the biggest part). In Helsinki it starts at 6 p.m. on Walpurgis Eve, when the statue of Havis Amanda – the symbol of the city – is “capped,” and continues through the night with revelry, rock bands set up at various points in town, lots of drinking, and some hungover picnicking the next day. Of course there’s special food associated with this holiday – a kind of funnelcake fritter called Tippaleivät and mead called Sima, a mildly alcoholic drink associated with spring. For the recipes, click here.
We headed out early on April 30th to see the marketplace before the festivities began. The Helsinki marketplace is right at the harbor, and vendors set up outside early each morning to sell everything from flowers to fish to woolens.
One difference we noticed in the marketplace which signaled that this day would be different, however, was a cadre of balloon vendors selling wonderfully imaginative mylar creations to passersbys.
At about 2:30, the conventional merchants packed up their wares, and carnival vendors took their place with streamers, noisemakers, masks, leis, silly hats, and some downright rude paraphernalia to hawk to the revelers.
As we wandered around, we saw young people in jumpsuits which one wag suggested made them look like escapees from a cable installers’ convention. These jumpsuits were of every color of the rainbow, and were decorated with patches – lots and lots of patches. We learned that different disciplines of the university adopt different colored jumpsuits, and the folks wearing them tended to move in packs, creating pockets of color like spring flowers in the growing crowd of people. Many of the troops also carried a kind of smallish boat captain’s hat which we learned was the official hat of university students. The tradition is that partygoers can’t put their caps on until Havis Amanda, nicknamed “Manta,” gets hers. Many, many alumni also come back for the May Day homecoming, and proudly don their student caps (though not the jumpsuits) for the celebration.
By 5:30 p.m. the marketplace and adjoining park was filled with 45,000 party-goers, us included. People were moving in waves toward the statue, and we moved with them, ending up with a pretty good view of the festivities. We’ll let the pictures of the ritual take over at this point.
After “Manta” got her cap, champagne corks popped, caps were donned, and the partying began. Roy and I had a beer with Justin and the other revelers, before heading back for a sedate dinner at the hotel while Justin joined the street party.
The next morning dawned much too early for Justin’s liking, but we’d all decided the day before to take the ferry over to Tallinn, Estonia to visit their picturesque Old Town. After a false start to buy tickets (we forgot to bring our passports!), the later ferry didn’t allow us as much time as we would have liked for our visit, but probably a week wouldn’t have been enough time! The walled medieval city, with buildings painted in lovely Easter egg pastels, was absolutely charming. We wandered from the “lower” town up the narrow cobblestone streets to the “upper” town and a spectacular view of tiled rooftops and the harbor. Estonian handcrafts were displayed both in small shops and in tiny alcoves and alleys – woolens, linens, carvings, and painted silk – at amazingly low prices.
We stopped at a tiny coffee house with only 6 tables and felt like we’d time- traveled to the 16th century. Heavy dark wood furniture and carved woodwork crowned gothic style windows and 3 foot thick stone walls. Candles were the only light on the tables, and cups of cappucino, and pastries for the three of us came to less than $10. We remarked that the very things that made the place so picturesque wouldn’t be allowed in the U.S. because it would be against code!
We’ve promised ourselves that our next visit to Tallinn will allow us time to really explore the city!
On Monday Justin headed to Stockholm by ferry, and then on to Copenhagen. He’ll fly to Oulu on Friday, and next week we’ll take him up to a ski resort near the Arctic Circle for some spring skiing before he has to return to the States. Our days are nearly 20 hours long now. The Blue Moment, which Justin recognized when it happened, doesn’t occur until 11 p.m. Amazing!
More later,
Sarah
