Hyv�� Juhannusta!! Happy Midsummer!!

Living in Finland is great.  There are a tonne of holidays here that do not get celebrated in North America.
One of these holidays happens to be Midsummer.
It's always placed on a weekend, the Friday being the Eve of Midsummer and everything closes by 12pm on the Friday.  Buses stop running by 1pm and everything is closed on the Saturday.

Last night I got a message from some friends to go check out the huge bonfire that was being lit across the lake - so I packed up one child and went downtown to see.

In order to get closer to the fire you had to pay for a ticket...but we did this last minute - so we didn't bother.

I was told that Midsummer is considered a very magical day.
If you hope to find true love - it's very traditional to pick 7 flowers and place them under your pillow before you fall asleep on Midsummer Eve and whomever you dream of that night is your true love.

There are some other methods but they usually involve being naked and running around or spinning in circles and such....

People tend to go away to their summer cottages for Midsummer and of course slap themselves (and each other) silly with birch branches tied together in big bundles.

Another thing that is pretty common (and is very unfortunate) is to drink quite a bit and go out on a boat and if you really have to pee - and can't make it to land on time, some people pee while standing up in the boat.  Unfortunately, if you're drunk enough - you might fall in and possibly drown.

It's one of the major causes of death during Midsummer celebrations...the numbers seem to have gone down - but still it can and still happens.

So don't drink and paddle!