After two more personal entries, this chapter will be a bit more about the Finnish culture again and about me trying to fumble my way through it :). I had no idea it was a thing until co-workers invited me along for it. It being Vappu.
As far as i've gathered, they celebrate the first day of may across the entire city/country?, to celebrate that the weather is finally turning warmer and more sun is happening on a daily basis. They do this celebration by all running outside and having a massive picnic. Another funny little quirk i noticed was that they all wore little white caps. Turned out all students who graduate from high school get one of those hats, and the shapes slightly vary so the observant onlooker can see what or where they studied. Another thing i saw were a lot of balloons. Seriously. So many.

I was invited to some park in the city, and while finding it was a bit hard on my end, it was made a little harder by the fact the trams were so utterly crammed full of PEOPLE i had flashbacks to seeing things like that in Japanse train stations. For someone who isn't that fond of too many people too close, it was quite a trial. Hence why i decided to walk to the station when i went home, 23 minutes of walking be damned. I hated playing sardine a little bit more then having to walk for a long while.
But as i walked i did get to enjoy a few pieces of very nice looking architecture. My shitty photos do them no justice i'm afraid, but they were really nice to look at.

But in short the food was nice, the atmosphere was great, and over all it was very fun. Parades were everywhere and they even dressed up the huge statues located at the train station. A colleague of mine asked how it compared to Kings day, and to be honest, the party atmosphere is about the same, the hat ratio is also about the same, but there is a massive lack of orange ;).