A very nice three-part series from public radio’s PRI The World on world music. This dispatch from the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas features some performances from groups you’ve likely never heard of, like Daara J, a group from Senegal and Husky Rescue from Helsinki, Finland. Plop these MP3s into your ipod and take a stroll around town. The music is catchy and innovative, especially stuff by Husky Rescue. It’s always cool to discover new bands outside the mainstream.
Helsinki Festival
It started a few days ago, but the Helsinki Festival is now in full swing and welcoming visitors from around Europe and elsewhere until September 4.
The Helsinki Festival is a broad-based international arts festival, featuring music, dance, theater, art, cinema, circus performers and more. The focus is somewhat on on Finnish talent but there is a definitive international reach. The festival emerged from the Sibelius Week celebrations of the 50’s and the 60’s, that celebrated the music of Finnish composer Sibelius. Since then, they’ve really expanded though, and this year they will even feature a sort of Almodovar Marathon, where they will screen all the films of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, which can be either a good thing or bad thing, I suppose, depending on how much of an Almodovar fan you are. Myself, I’d probably find a good pub somewhere and enjoy a little Finnish food.
Midnight Sun Film Festival
The Midnight Sun Film Festival sounds like a pretty cool event. It takes place in Sodankyla, Finland, and was founded in 1986. It takes place every year at the top of the world, several miles above the Arctic Circle, during the months of the midnight sun (hence the name). Directors from all over the world show their work. And then vast amounts of vodka are consumed.
It’s a big draw for film fans and insomniacs alike. Check out the site…this could be a great additional activity to add to a trip to Finland which, I am told, is a very cool country to visit.
Country Sites: Virtual Finland
I’m going to start a series of posts on specific country Web sites, selecting one or two sites that really do a great job selling and explaining a particular country. And today, I am beginning the series today with a post on Finland:
Lots of countries have tourist sites that they use to provide information on the people, the places to see, the food and culture of a place. But few others I’ve seen are quite as well-designed and comprehensive as this site for Finland. Perhaps it’s the sleek, simple Scandinavian sensibilities at work, but I took some time looking around Virtual Finland site and found it wonderfully good. You can always visit Lonely Planet for information on a country, but sometimes it’s a good idea to go to the sites of the country itself. This is a perfect case in point.
From history to culture to food to travel to great photos, the folks at Virtual Finland have done a truly superb job on this site, for visitors and Web-lookie-loos alike.
Matka in Finnish
In Finnish puhu means talk/speak and matka means travel. This is just a small part of the lesson in Finnish I got when reading Crickey’s Scandinavian correspondent, Therese Catanzariti’s notes on the complexities of the language. Finnish has no future tense. No possessive apostrophe. No prepositions. But it does have 15 cases and you can throw the comma rule out the window. Language difficulties are no secret amongst some of us travelers, but if you plan on heading to Finland, see what Therese has to say. In any case there are tons of other facts that might come in handy one day.