I went to the shopping center Itis to try out the games in new arcade games center. The center piece was the rally simulator with suspensions. The driving experience was cool and suspensions definitely gave a more immersive experience. There was also a dancing game like Stepmania but an upgraded version with great light effects and the playing required moving your whole body. The third game worth mentioning was a shooting game where guns had recoil. There were also other games which were fun.
Colombian Reggeaton artist J Balvin held a concert in Ice hockey arena of Helsinki and drew a crowd of 5200 people. J Balvin started the concert with his hit song "Mi Gente" and the people sitting on the benches stood up and started to dance like the people on the floor in front the stage. The people danced through the whole concert. The atmosphere flattened when the end was approaching and J Balvin was asking people to request their fevourite songs. Also the reporter of Helsingin Sanomat made the same remark. There wasn't a clear answer from the crowd and I was wondering does he usually get a clear response from the crowd. The atmosphere went up again for the encore ending with song "In Da Ghetto". Four years ago Maluma held also a concert in Helsinki and attracted about same size crowd. The big reggeaton artists cannot yet attract as big crowds as the popular Finnish artists who have sold out 30 000 people stadium concerts.
Few months ago I was wondering if reggaeton could make a breakthrough in Finland. All of a sudden one of the most popular rap artists of Finland released a song where you can hear the influence of reggaeton and Latin music. Rap duo JVG published "Vamos" one week ago and the song has been on the 1st and 2nd position in the most listened tracks in Finland's Spotify list.
I got inspired by the song and decided to write the chorus in Spanish to make it more approachable for Spanish speaking audience.
Recent years Latin music and reggaeton has influenced pop music. For example Colombian artist Maluma has released songs with Jennifer Lopez and Madonna. Some reggaeton songs have become hits also in Finland. That made me think that when will there be Finnish reggaeton music. I made a Google search and found El Migu who is half Cuban and half Bolivian. He has released reggaeton songs where he combines Finnish, English and Spanish languages. Could also Finnish reggaeton make a brake through in Finland like Finnish rap music made brake through in the beginning of 2000.
Today has passed 10 years since my first blog post. I started this blog to write about cultural differences between Spain and Finland. Now this blog has posts about the culture of many other countries and many other topics too.
Within one year I have attended an orthodox baptizing ceremony in Georgia and a protestant baptizing ceremony in Finland. To summarize the ceremony in an orthodox church in Georgia with one word: chaos. The ceremony was held in a church in the center of Tbilisi. The baptizing ceremony was not the only event being held. There was also a wedding, another baptizing and also many other visitors to pray and tourists. During the baptizing the priest was interrupted few times to give a blessing, the priest took the baby around the church and a tourist interrupted in order to take photos of the baby. Afterwards the celebration was continued in a restaurant. In Finland the event was held in a small chapel with only the people attending the event and without any interruptions. After the ceremony the celebration was continued in the home of the baby.
The religious rituals reminded each other in the both events. The head of the baby was wetted in the near presence of the chosen god parents. In both countries family and friends gather together to celebrate the baby.
Feria de Abril is a festival celebrated in Sevilla one or two weeks after semana santa. This year I had a chance to attend for one day. The festival takes place for one week. As the festival has grown so big the area is like a neighborhood with streets names and numbers. The area is full of tents called "casetas" which belong to different kind of organisations. If you want to have an access to them you need to know someone to get invited. There are also several public tents which you can enter without invitation. you can enjoy the festival without invitation but knowing people from tents gives you definitely better chance to enjoy more.
The festival has its own atmosphere as most of the women are dressed up in a traditional dress of gypsies and men are wearing suits. Then there are the numerous horse carriages which people are using for transportation. The odor of horse shit is very noticeable and you also better watch your step. I have seen festivals having high prices but I was happily surprised that one small beer in a public tent cost only one euro. You can see people of all ages and you can see on the dance floor the same time teenagers and elder people.
This blog is now 6 years and 6 months old. I am very happy for being blogging for so long time and being able to publish 500 blog posts. During that time I have lived 24 months in Łódź, 15 months in Kuopio, 14 months in Joensuu, 10 months in Alcalá de Henares, 9 months in Ankara, 3 months in Madrid and 3 months in Tbilisi. It means that in Past 6 years and 6 months I have lived in 7 different cities and in 5 different countries. I have published on average 6 posts per month.
This is not an announcement to retire from blogging because a new adventure is waiting for me abroad. I am moving to Barcelona and I will continue blogging from there. I can escape the freezing cold -30 degree weather of Finland and see more sunny days in Spain.
The sky was full of fireworks on the first of January in Georgia as it was the new year celebration. Yesterday night I also witnessed fireworks exploding in the sky. There was not as many fireworks as on the first of January but still plenty of them. Georgians like to celebrate the new year two times. The old new year is unofficial celebration day which is celebrated according to the Julian calendar. I have been said that Georgians like to find always a reason to celebrate.
Tbilisi night life is different to all the previous countries where I have been. The biggest difference is the music. in Tbilisi there are no night clubs which play commercial music. All the clubs play rather minimal club music. Here dancing for commercial music is not considered cool. Night life is mostly focused on the area of Meidani. Occasional events are organized in Underwheel which is a place on a top of a mountain in Mtatsinda park. Most of the travel guides tend to mention something about possibilities for gays to go out. In Tbilisi Cafe Gallery turns to a club in the weekends and there you can find gay people mixed with straight people having fun. Nearby Cafe Gallery you can find Canudos Ethnic Bar which has international atmosphere. Cafe Gallery and Canusdos Ethnic Bar are close Rustaveli metro station.
Disco polo is a music genre in Poland and it resembles Euro dance. You can hear disco polo especially in Polish weddings. There are clubs dedicated to only disco polo and also a music channel which plays only Disco polo. Though in a trendy/fashionable clubs disco polo is not played at all. Disco polo has a reputation of trash music so the most of the people say that they hate disco polo. Here one example song.
Polish have the reputation of drinking a lot of vodka. When Polish go out and drink they drink in a different way than Spanish or Finnish. Here I will explain how I see the drinking culture when drinking with friends in Poland, Spain and Finland.
In Poland people might be drinking only vodka the whole night. Among friends they have few bottles of vodka and they like to drink it as shots. They might be taking one shot every ten minutes and after shot having a little sip of juice or soft drink. In bars they also serve shots where they mix different flavors. There are also many different vodkas which have flavor of lemon or something else.
In Finland people usually drink many beers and if they want to get more drunk they do it by taking shots. Shots are treated like some extra for beers. Drinking with friends also involves often sauna. Drinking rum or whiskey is rare because those are more expensive than vodka. As alcohol is very expensive people tend to buy the cheapest.
In Spain people like to mix vodka with different soft drinks. It is important to put first ice, then pour the alcohol and last the soft drink. Spanish also tend to prefer more rum or whiskey instead of vodka. The most typical place to enjoy your drinks is outside in a park even it is illegal. In Spain you can find also bars what are specialized in serving shots but in my opinion there is stronger shot drinking culture in Poland than in Spain.
Naturally in every country you can find people who drink beer, take only shots, make drinks or drink all kinds of alcohol in a one night but the descriptions above is in my opinion a typical way to drink with friends in each country. I would say that in each of these countries people like to drink to get drunk.
I have been few times in night life in Lodz. I noticed that here it seems to be much more common to dance and give spins to the girl. You can see more couples dancing together holding hands than in any other country where I have been. Of course you can see here also groups dancing in a circle.
Today is birthday of my blog. I have been writing now three years. Since April 2010 I have been following statistics about visitors in my blog and here I am going to share some statistics. I have had 3400 unique visitors in total. There have been visitors from 91 different countries so it have been a good choice to write in English. Top ten list how people have found to my blog are different variations of my blog's name Parmvoo, Ankara snow and hairy women.
Finally I entered the famous nightclub Kapital near train station Atocha. ESN Madrid Organized there a welcome party for all the Erasmus students in Spain. The entrance was free until 1:30 and included also a free drink. As many most of the international people is used to go out earlier than Spanish the club was already after 00:30. Kapital is like a theater. There are seven floors and from all the floors you can see to the stage in the first floor. The place is big and you can easily lost your friends but I managed to find my friends after losing them. Though finding them took time.
The letters JMJ comes from words Jornada Mundial de Juventud. JMJ 2011 is an event where many catholic young people have gathered to Madrid this year. It has been estimated that about 1,5 million people have come to Madrid to participate this event so you can see the effect of the event very well in the street picture. The people who have came to Madrid can be easily recognized from the similar back bags and from big groups wearing different color of T-shirts with JMJ logo. All the groups have flag of their own country and they sing songs of their country which reminds me of a sports event between different nationalities. These religious young people are not that innocent because they have been spotted buying alcohol and condoms.
Yesterday there was a party in la latina neighborhood in Madrid. Lot of people gathered to the streets. Bars had set up a serving points and speakers to play music to the streets. Always when a lot of people gather together immigrants appear to the streets to sell beer, sunglasses and hats which is illegal. Even there are some policemen it does not stop immigrants to make business. When we were sitting in one market square almost every five minutes somebody comes to offer their products. I asked one that how much does he earn in a night by selling beer from his bags and he responded that 100 euros by working five hours. Even there are a lot of immigrants doing this illegal business they make reasonable income. In Finland there are no people doing this illegal business but there the collectors of the bottles which are worth money.
I took three days holidays from work and went to Vitoria-Gasteiz. In Vitoria-Gasteiz we had a meeting with 15 students who did Erasmus in Joensuu last academic year. In this weekend there was also a festival. The festival started in the main square where people sprayed champagne on each other. We got also wet clothes from the champagne shower. Then there was different groups performing on the stages and groups of people singing, dancing and playing songs on the streets. You could see people from all the age groups partying: mothers with their babies in the stroller and seniors. Streets were full of plastic bottles and other trash because most of the people were drinking. Also you could see in the center of the city many wet spots which were of course urine of the people. Festival guarantees great party atmosphere in the city for five days.
Gay pride attracted the streets of Madrid full of people. Gay pride was a good excuse to have a party even you are not gay. Various stages were set where DJs or performers were playing music. Few stages were under the name of silent disco where people should have been wearing headphones to listen the music what DJ was playing but the idea did not seem to work because I saw nobody wearing headphones. I spotted many more gay male couples than gay female couples. Many were dressed up in a very gay way or without shirt. The whole center of Madrid was full of people with good party mood.
This academic year I have had a chance to attend many birthday parties. Especially last month there was many birthday parties in total seven. In total there has been fifteen birthday parties in this academic year. Spanish way to wish good luck for the birthday person is to pull his/her ear as many times as the age of the birthday person.
