Popular Finnish rap duo inspired by reggaeton

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. 

Vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos

Nos salimos como los ricos

y bailamos como unos locos

déjame que lleno nuestros vasos

Vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos

quiero que aquí no lo dejamos

me gustan las fiestas en los veranos

que bien esta noche lo pasamos

Vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos, vamos

What happened to the savings in Turkish liras?

The Turkish lira has been in finance headlines because it has been suffering significant inflation recently.  I was in Turkey ten years ago and then one Euro was worth two Turkish liras. Now one Euro is worth 15 Turkish liras. Basically if I had left 5 000 euros exchanged to 10 000 Turkish on a Turkish bank account 10 years ago it would be today worth only 670 Euros. This is a great example how leaving savings in cash on a bank account or as bank notes in your safe has also risks. I talked to a Turkish friend who was pretty upset after losing the savings. The fall of Turkish lira has stirred up also protests on the streets of Turkey and people are also stocking up goods. Now that we have been seeing inflation reported also in Euro zone it is good idea to think about options for cash saving in Euros. 

Salary of Professional Floorball Players

Credit: Salibandyliitto

Floorball is the 3rd most practiced hobby in Finland with 61 000 registered players in 2020. If you add also recreational players the number is 350 000. Despite the high number of the players there are not many professional floorball players in Finland. On December 2021 world cup of Floorball is played in Helsinki and about half of the Finnish national team are professionals according to Helsingin Sanomat. Semi professionals are combining their floorball career with studies or part-time work. For example National team player Eemeli Salin confirmed in an interview of Yle in 2015 that he was earning about 2 000 EUR per month during the season.

One of the biggest Finnish Youtubers Roni Bäck (559 000 subscribers November 2021) plays floorball in the third division. The turnover of his one person company was 337 000 EUR and profit 202 000 EUR. So he is making much better income than the professional floorball players. Another famous floorball player in 3rd divison is radio host Tuukka Ritokoski whose income in 2019 was 44 000 EUR written in IS.fi. He went for a try-out (video) session to 1st division team. After the training session he commented that he did fine technique wise but was exhausted and could see a great difference especially in the physical condition (audio). I believe that there are also many other players in the third division who have well paying jobs and are making more income than the first division floorball players in Finland.

The budget of players in the Finnish first division floorball teams was between 270 000 EUR and 10 000 EUR in 2018 - 2019 according to pelimies.com. In the season 2019 - 2020 average attendance was 605 spectators. So the floorball league is not considered big in financial standards nor by exposure to the large crowds. Peter Vesterbacka who is known from Angry Birds is explaining in the article of Iltalehti how he is planning to help making Finnish floorball league the most valuable floorball league by the year 2028. Part of the plan is to make the league attractive for bigger audience and expand internationally. 

Latin music

During the past year I have been listening plenty of Latin music at home. Before I was not listening much Latin music at home. Does it mean that I miss Spain. I was introduced to Latin music when spending time with foreign friends and in the night life in Spain. Especially I have liked a lot Rosalía's album "El Mal Querer" and C.Tangana's album "El Madrileño". Both of the artist mix brilliantly traditional music to pop music.

Finnish Reggaeton - Reguetón Finlandés

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. 

KuPS playing in the capital

Olympic stadium in Helsinki KuPS - Astana

This month football team of my home city Kuopio played four matches in Helsinki and I had a chance to attend all of them. Two of the matches were qualification matches to UEFA Conference League against Astana and Union Berlin. Home matches of KuPS were played in Helsinki Olympic Stadium because the home stadium of KuPS in Kuopio does not meet the UEFA requirements. Two other matches were away matches of Veikkausliiga against teams of Helsinki (HJK and IFK).

The match against Union Berlin attracted the biggest attendance over 5 000 people which was the record attendance of KuPS this season so far even though the match was played 4 hours away from the home city of KuPS. Union Berlin had around 500 supporters in Helsinki and their chants created a good atmosphere together with the supporters of KuPS.

Bolt Stadium HIFK - KuPS

Holiday 2021

Here 5 photos from my summer holiday in July 2021.

Landscape from Uusikaupunki

Art house Pilvilinna of artist Raija Nokkala

From the car museum in Uusikaupunki

We catched 3 pirches

Summer cottage which is over 100 years old

Tortilla de Patatas al Estilo Nórdico

Tortilla

I have prepared tortilla de patatas several times after I learned the recipe but this time I decided to modify the recipe of Spanish omelette. I thought what would be the typical Finnish/Nordic style to cook the tortilla and what ingredients I could use, that are typically used in a Nordic kitchen. Typically potatoes are deep fried in oil but I decided to boil the potatoes instead as in the north we eat typically boiled potatoes. After boiling the potatoes I peeled and cut them. Next I added some butter on the hot frying pan instead of oil because in Finland we use typically more butter than oil for frying. I also had some salmon left overs from previous day so I decided to add that as a substitute of chorizo. I added the potatoes, salt, salmon and mixed eggs on the pan and let it cook, flipped the tortilla around and it was ready to be eaten. I liked the final result, feel free to try and let me know how did you like it.

As a guest writer

I wrote two articles as a guest writer in two different websites.

One was in Finnish about Daniel Carrillo Venezuelan football player in KuPS

Another was in Spanish about Spanish players in Finnish football league Veikkausliiga

Padel in Finland

I heard about padel for the first when I went to Spain in 2009 and also played it few times. First padel court was built to Helsinki in 2004. Now padel seems to become a mainstream sport in Finland as my colleagues are talking about it, it is mentioned in TV programs and you see marketing about it. According to Yle the popularity of padel exploded in Finland during the Covid times. Sports arenas which previously were focused to Tennis and badminton have constructed recently padel courts. There are now in total 250 padel courts in Finland and more are being planned according to the Finnish padel association. I have also padel courts about 200 meters away from my home.