Spring

Happy First of May!

















This is not from Iceland of course (as you can see trees!) even though last week was Sumardagurinn Fyrsti, the First Day of Summer, which is an old old Icelandic holiday for the celebration of the end of the winter and the arrival of the summer. The appropriate greeting is Gleðilegt sumar, happy summer, to which you respond with Takk fyrir veturinn, thank you for the winter. Even though it is usually still quite wintery here during that time, last Thursday it was grey and rainy.

But I flew to Finland on Friday and there the Spring had already arrived. The picture above is from the Haltiala Arboretum, where we went for a Sunday walk. More pictures will be promised later with flowers, more green leaves, water, dogs, cows and even a one week old lamb.






















Here we have some authentic Icelandic grass though. I saw it yesterday when I was coming home from work. This is actually our building. Notice the bright sunlight even though it was past 8pm.

And today it's another first, namely the First of May, yet another holiday. You have it at least in all the Scandinavian countries. You call it the First of May or May Day or Labour Day or Workers Day. The ancient history of the holiday is the same as for the First Day of Summer, namely it is a celebration of the Equinox, the day when days start to be longer than nights. However, I'm now quite confuced since the celebration seems to be quite off: equinox happens around March 20th.

In Finland though, the biggest celebration is on Walpurgis Night, the eve of First of May, the current atmosphere of which is aptly described by Wikipedia: "The celebration is typically centered on plentiful use of sparkling wine and other alcoholic beverages." This year I'm celebrating my third Vappu away from Finland.

















Today we were quite impressed by the workers parade in Reykjavík. The parade started from Hlemmur, the main bus station close to where we live and marched down Laugavegur all the way to Aðalstræti, where the speeches started. They had two marching bands and a lot of flags and banners and at least a third of the city was present. Which of course isn't such a huge amount of people yet and today was a very beautiful day. The sun was shining from the clear sky, it was warm and we almost sat outside for lunch.
To get you in the mood, here's the first marching band.



And some more pictures here.