Fastlaskiainen

For Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday, Finland celebrates laskiainen, which I mentioned it in my last post. The word, to my knowledge, means "to slide down", so it's pretty much a day to 

put on your student overalls, nail some skis to a bed frame or other large object, and spend the day sliding down snowy hills with hundreds of college students. That's how it's done in Vaasa anyway, and we call is Fastlaskiainen.

For some interesting history and to learn about the prevalence of the Finnish tradition in the U.S., click here.

Yesterday morning, my team for the sled races gathered to carry our masterpiece to the sledding destination: Kalasatama harbor. We had to carry essentially a bed frame with skis across the city center, which is very busy considering the not-huge population in Vaasa. You better believe that we got some strange looks from almost everyone we passed! It was really funny because normally Finns don't acknowledge strangers on the street or say hi in passing or anything. But when a group of college kids walks through the city with a ridiculous looking handmade sled, people will look up and just laugh. It was a fun walk.

 

At the harbor, a ton of students were hanging out, either to race their own sleds or just to witness the fun event. Some of the sleds were definitely a lot more professional looking than ours, but everyone got a good laugh out of our team name. A number of students told me that this is the first year in anyone's memory that there's been a team of international students participating in Fastlaskiainen. I'm glad we did participate!

It was a blast. Check out the video below for how we did, and don't laugh too hard if you can hear me screaming! For a moment we all thought our sled was going straight for the sea, but we turned it in plenty of time.

I'm sure you noticed that everyone in that picture above is wearing different colors of baggy pants with patches all over them. Those are the student overalls. A tradition in Finland, each academic department at each university has a different color of overall. The idea is to wear your overalls to student union events and parties and to sew on patches from those events. Instead of getting the typical yellow pair like the other engineering students, some of the exchange students at Novia opted for a brand new color exclusive to international students: mint green. We got our overalls just in time to wear them to the Fastlaskiainen after party. We got so many questions about where we were from, since people are used to glancing at the overalls and immediately knowing someone's university and department. By the end of the semester I hope to have a nifty collection of patches and memories associated with my overalls. A very fun tradition to take part in for sure. :)

Novia overalls exchange student style!