Finland Independent Day

        December 6 is one of most important national holiday in Finland, Independence Day.
In 1917 Finland declared the independency from the Russia and became a free nation. People cerebrate this special day with family dinner at home watching the Presidential Independence Day Reception at the Presidential Palace. Every year about 2000 guests are invited from the nation wide and enjoyed the music and dinner for the reception and it is broadcasted on national TV, with which people can feel join the cerebration together.
This year President chose to come to Tampere for the ceremony due to the presidential Palace’s renovation. City of Tampere was excited more than usual. Tampere University had student’s torch procession to the city hall. From the city Hall balcony the woman Mayer gave the special speech to the people with white and blue balloons (Finnish national flag colors). Unfortunately I don’t understand the contents but it sounded stately, then more than 1000 balloons flew up to the sky with the salute of cannon.
Soon after that fireworks started at the harbor. It was only 15 min or less of the show but red, blue, and orange, many colors were so gorgeous. Usually quiet Finnish people cheered loudly.
At that time it was still before 5 pm even though it was deeply dark already. People got to return home with alacrity for the holiday dinner and watching the presidential reception on TV.
However for us it was too early to go home, so we walked around the city for a while anyway. Even though it was snowing all the time. It’s holiday!

Thanksgiving in Finland

            This year I am in Finland, so there is no Thanksgiving Day here. So I decided to have Finland version Thanksgiving dinner here. My colleagues in Tampere University, School of Health Science are so international team. One of professor at our school used to collaborate with CDC and WHO many years, and nearly 20 years ago School started a special epidemiology Ph. D course for international students. At that time they wanted helping the epidemiology disaster in India, so they invited a couple medical doctors to be educated here to improve their research and study, then later that program expanded to Africa and East Europa. Occasionally, now every other year, few students who are medical doctors in their countries or epidemiological scientists are invited to the course. They stay here to take many courses in epidemiological field one year and going back to their own country to continue their research to complete for the doctoral dissertation. During their research period they, students and professors keep communicate with internet, telephone, or mail. Or sometime they are visiting each other. Finland is very interested country in that point doing this.
Anyway preparing Thanksgiving dinner course, I found many interesting differences, too. I could not find Cranberry source, pumpkin pure, and cornmeal at anywhere, but Lingonberry source and corn flour.
Instead of pumpkin pie I baked apple pie. Instead of cranberry source I used lingonberry source, which worked very well. My new friends here, Finnish, Italian, Mongolian, and Chinese, everybody had their first Thanksgiving turkey with big smile!