Finlandia
Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää kaikkille!!
So today's Finland's Independence Day, and corydrane beat me to the punch in making a post, but I still wanted to say a little something. It was really nice today going to google and seeing this:
So on this day, 1917, Finland declared its independence from those commie bastards the Russians. Okay, I don't think Russians are commie bastards for those who don't understand being snarky. But yeah, the Finns fought in a tough winter war against the Russians and kicked their asses!! And also fortunately for Finland, Russia ran out of money before they could get reinforcements. I was mostly interested in the war and this documentary is a really interesting one I saw on PBS a few years back.
It definitely must be said that the Finnish men that fought in that war were some serious BAMFs. One guy held off something like 50 Russian solders with a friggen log for 10 days, or something like that. It's wild. This Guy is just one example. I remember learning about the Winter War in my World History class my sophomore year of high school and even back then I was thinking "damn, those Finns are tough" Too bad I can't say the same for the modern Finnish man.
Today, we're staying in, I'm making a really nice Finnish dinner of salmon, potatoes, salad and blueberry crumble (there's something to be said about Finnish blueberries...they're farking awesome!!). I have a couple of friends coming over and we're just going to chill out and eat. Finland's Independence day is completely the opposite of our American Independence day. Over here it's very quiet and solemn and people go to a special church service. I guess because it hasn't been quite a century since the war, people still pay respect to it. Not to say we don't pay respect to the people who died for our independence and our forefathers who fought for us, but we see it more of a celebration of our independence. Finns are just a bit more....melancholic than we are.
But yeah, nice food, nice company, makes for a nice day I suppose. And it's also great that we have so much snow, so it's not a dark Independence day like it was last year.
This is actually my favorite hymn in English too - Be Still My Soul. It was written previously in English in the late 1600s, but Sibelius, who is a musical genius, BTW made it into a Finnish nationalist song, and it definitely has that impact.
So today's Finland's Independence Day, and corydrane beat me to the punch in making a post, but I still wanted to say a little something. It was really nice today going to google and seeing this:
So on this day, 1917, Finland declared its independence from those commie bastards the Russians. Okay, I don't think Russians are commie bastards for those who don't understand being snarky. But yeah, the Finns fought in a tough winter war against the Russians and kicked their asses!! And also fortunately for Finland, Russia ran out of money before they could get reinforcements. I was mostly interested in the war and this documentary is a really interesting one I saw on PBS a few years back.
It definitely must be said that the Finnish men that fought in that war were some serious BAMFs. One guy held off something like 50 Russian solders with a friggen log for 10 days, or something like that. It's wild. This Guy is just one example. I remember learning about the Winter War in my World History class my sophomore year of high school and even back then I was thinking "damn, those Finns are tough" Too bad I can't say the same for the modern Finnish man.
Today, we're staying in, I'm making a really nice Finnish dinner of salmon, potatoes, salad and blueberry crumble (there's something to be said about Finnish blueberries...they're farking awesome!!). I have a couple of friends coming over and we're just going to chill out and eat. Finland's Independence day is completely the opposite of our American Independence day. Over here it's very quiet and solemn and people go to a special church service. I guess because it hasn't been quite a century since the war, people still pay respect to it. Not to say we don't pay respect to the people who died for our independence and our forefathers who fought for us, but we see it more of a celebration of our independence. Finns are just a bit more....melancholic than we are.
But yeah, nice food, nice company, makes for a nice day I suppose. And it's also great that we have so much snow, so it's not a dark Independence day like it was last year.
Click to viewThis is actually my favorite hymn in English too - Be Still My Soul. It was written previously in English in the late 1600s, but Sibelius, who is a musical genius, BTW made it into a Finnish nationalist song, and it definitely has that impact.