Hauskaa Vappua!

Which pretty much means happy first of May!

And it is a nice holiday in Finland because after a bleak winter, it is a welcoming of Spring with some color and a little silliness. Helium balloons, fairy floss, silly hats and dumping technical university students into the cold river.

Each city and often suburbs, have a Vappu market that has a bouncing castle or two and some food vendors. If the weather is good, they are filled and despite rain being forecast for the afternoon, there was plenty of sunshine in the morning and people were out in force. One of the things I like about Finland, is that these kinds of events aren't very special in terms of what is presented, but people really enjoy supporting them, milling about, seeing what there is to see. Finns are pretty laid back in this regard and don't mind being outside.

The city was full.
For a small city.

And Smallsteps was having a ball.
And a bounce.

And cat got some fish.

That is "muikku" - a freshwater whitefish that is fried up en masse and eaten whole. It is pretty weird for some people, but it is about as close to "fish and chips" as you get in Finland, so I don't mind it. Smallsteps loves it too, and luckily we were able to find a place that had gluten-free batter. Normally, we can't eat it out and about at these events, so she was pretty excited.

And then it was on to some sideshow games. Which brings back terrible memories to me of being at Bakken in Denmark and spending about 50€ trying to win something for my then fiance, only to end up getting a crappy toy from a fishing game, where "everyone gets a prize" - Smallsteps did the fishing, I did the knock over the cans one.

Can you guess what I was aiming to win?

I didn't win.

But they let Smallsteps choose a crappy prize to make her feel better for having such a loser of a father.

It was not the bomb.

Then it was onto the main event...

Fairy floss

They have it in buckets now and we haven't found the "on a stick" kind for years, but today there was someone doing it properly, so we got a couple sticks of it.

I asked my wife to marry me on this day, nine years ago.

She hasn't changed that much in her appearance. Her personality however...
Owners start to resemble their dogs.

Woof.

After the sugar rush, it was onto finding a balloon for Smallsteps.

Which is easier said than done in the wind...

But eventually, it was done and a fairy with rainbow-colored wings was coming home with us - which sounds like we might have been visiting the Sydney Mardi Gras.

All up, it was a great way to end what was a welcome long weekend and tomorrow it will be back into the fray at work, trying to close out my quarter in order to get a bit of a bonus. Which is needed, based on the prices of a bit of spun sugar, a foil balloon and some fried fish.

Totally worth it though.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]