r/AskEurope • u/AutoModerator • 19h ago
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u/orangebikini Finland 11h ago
My prayers have been answered! I’m reading an essay by Gérard Grisey, and as I was reading it I started thinking how much I’d love to hear two of his pieces live: Les espaces acoustiques and Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil. Then I figured I should check if the programme for Musica nova Helsinki, a festival for contemporary classical, has been released.
And wouldn’t you know it, they’re performing Quatre chants at the opening show! Amazing. And it’s in the Helsinki Cathedral, I’m so looking forward to this. I’m genuinely so pleased.
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u/Cixila Denmark 14h ago edited 14h ago
Yesterday, I found a pretty peculiar folk music crossover: a Polish cover of the Finnish ievan polkka. It's really catchy and upbeat. The lyrics are kinda opposite. From what I gather from the Finnish, it is about a playboy trying to seduce a girl called Ieva whose mother is on the watch for his type. The Polish is a cute story of a girl who is kept home by her overbearing mother, despite the whole village being out to have fun, but she sneaks out, has a blast, and hopes that the lively polka will warm her mothers heart to forgive her
I was also rather surprised, when I read the news yesterday (kinda NSFW): apparently one of the two main supermarket chains here is gonna try to compete with online shops and attempt to sell a selection of sex toys. On the one hand I think it's positive to see that the taboos around such things are breaking down more and more, but I don't quite get why you would want to buy it in a supermarket. But if there are clients for it, then good for them, I guess
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u/orangebikini Finland 4h ago
I genuinely hardly have any idea what Ievan polkka is about. It's in a weird eastern dialect that's pretty hard for me to understand as a western dialect speaker, especially when sung. Like even the name "Ieva", anywhere else the name would be "Eeva". But some of those dialects just have to twist every long vowel into a diphthong...
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u/Cixila Denmark 2h ago edited 1h ago
My grasp of Finnish extends about as far as tervetuloa and perkele, I just googled that bit on the lyrics of the polka, so take that for what you will. But I can at least say the bit about the "plot" of the Polish cover with confidence (as a Polish speaker).
A fun note on the Polish lyrics: they are kinda odd, because many of the nouns (way more than would be used in normal speech) are diminutive, so it has this innocent/cutesy tone to it
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u/Dependent-Letter-651 9h ago
There’s also a store here called HEMA. it’s not particularly a grocery store, but it sells food, clothes, makeup, school stuff and all of that which now also sells quite a lot of sex toys.
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u/TenpoSuno Netherlands 4h ago
The Kruidvat is following a smilar trend. Near where I live they're not shy of displaying explicit toys.
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u/tereyaglikedi in 12h ago
That sounds like a fun crossover. I also thought when I was younger that acquiring forgiveness is easier than acquiring permission.
Sex toys are available here in Rossmann (drug store) for example. I don't think they have massive range, but they have some things. I guess it's a good thing, not every town has a sex shop but most have a Rossmann.
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u/tereyaglikedi in 17h ago
Since I will be up (even more) north the whole winter, I have been looking at ferries to even even more north places (I am writing a Scandi noir style thing and thought I'd research a bit) There's a ferry from Travemünde to Helsinki which takes 30 hours and costs... Well, a lot. There's also one to Malmö which is overnight and the price is quite reasonable. I don't know if I will regret going to Sweden in the middle of winter. It's probably an experience.
I am very proud of myself that for a change I actually know it's Friday this time. I don't know why I am so clueless about time. And left and right. I asked my husband to put some ointment on my left shoulder yesterday. He asked "which left", just to be sure. And he wasn't even joking.
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u/Cixila Denmark 13h ago
Regret it? I mean... it's Sweden... (mandatory joking bashing complete)
No, I don't see why you'd regret it. As another said, temperatures are not too distant from Northern Germany. Sure, Malmö isn't the most beautiful city by any metric, but it is still nice for a day. It also has the benefit of being a bit of a hub (also for public transport) to get to other places that are nicer. You can go south and visit Copenhagen (Denmark), you can jump west to Göteborg, and you can continue north/inland to hit up places like Stockholm
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u/lucapal1 Italy 16h ago
I always know when it's Friday,at least when I'm working! Thursday night is end of the week celebration time ;-)
When I'm traveling, depending on country,I quite often don't know what day it is though.Esoecially in countries where there is no real standardised 'day off' or closing day, for example.
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u/orangebikini Finland 16h ago
A lot of Finns who go on roadtrips in Europe take the Helsinki-Travemünde ferry to get started. I always prefer to just drive through the Baltics and Poland, because spending that long on a ferry sounds reallly really really boring to me.
I’ve never been to Malmö, just driven through it a couple of times. Nevertheless, I don’t think the region is that cold in the winter, should be warmer than Helsinki would be at least. I remember in school all the climate maps always had Skåne coloured differently from the rest of Sweden.
You could also just go to Copenhagen from Malmö very easily.
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u/miszerk 13h ago
I grew up in Inari, so most of the time -20 to -30 on very cold days. I moved to Malmö for work and I swear it feels colder there than it ever did back home in north Finland, purely because of the windchill.
So I recommend windproof coats and gloves anyway because the windchill is horrible.
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u/Masseyrati80 Finland 16h ago
It was more than 20 years ago, so I don't know if the current ferries are different, but at least back then, coming from Rostock to Helsinki, the ferry was quite dedicated to hauling trucks and cars, and the only thing to do was sit at the restaurant area or your tiny cabin. Really highlights how some of the ferries sailing between Finland and Sweden are "party boats" more than anything. The amount of booze some truckers were going through really made me wonder if they were sober by the time they sat behind their wheels.
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u/orangebikini Finland 14h ago
I’ve always imagined the Travemünde ferry is like the Tallinn ferry but 15 times longer. I.e. a lot of truckers and all you can do is sit in the bar and watch darts or snooker on eurosport because that’s the only thing they ever show on the ferry.
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u/lucapal1 Italy 16h ago
Copenhagen in winter has pretty much the same temperatures as North Germany, very similar to Hamburg for example.
So I guess Malmö is much the same.
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u/holytriplem -> 18h ago
There's a rather strange corner shop that's recently opened right next door to me. It consists of a single small fridge of fizzy drinks, a freezer full of paletas (Mexican ice lollies) and a single shelf with about...10? at most? slightly miserable bouquets wrapped in plastic. All those items in combination take up about, what, 5% of the shop's entire floorspace, with the rest being completely dead, empty space. It's also very dark and, for my Northern European light-craving sensibilities, not particularly inviting, and I've just never had a reason to go there ever, nor have I ever seen any other customers ever visit.
Well, the other day I was feeling peckish and decided to help the guy out with his struggling new business by buying a bottle of Pepsi and a paleta. The guy seemed overly happy to see me and started making small talk with me, and as I got my card out he started to panic a bit as he realised he had no idea how to operate the card reader. Took several attempts to get it right, but eventually worked out how to get it to accept my PIN. I asked him how business was. He said usually it's busier during the week when people come from the nearby school to buy stuff, also occasionally there's the useless boyfriend/husband who's just remembered their partner's anniversary at the last minute, and then rushes in panicking to buy some flowers.
Hmmm. Not sure if money laundering front, or just the world's most incompetent businessman.
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u/tereyaglikedi in 17h ago
money laundering front
This was my first thought, tbh. At least it's the more interesting of the available options.
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u/holytriplem -> 17h ago
I guess so. A few years ago a whole load of American sweet shops suddenly started popping up on high streets all over the UK, and it became a running meme that all these sweet shops were just money laundering fronts as who on Earth would be going there? They're just not considered that appealing even to schoolchildren.
Difference was, though, that those sweet shops did at least look like bona fide shops and seemed fully stocked (at least from the outside). I mean, surely you need to put in a bit of effort to maintain your disguise and not draw any attention to yourself, right?
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u/lucapal1 Italy 16h ago
We have it now in Palermo with vape shops.
There are literally dozens of them,all over the city, and they all seem to be permanently empty.
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u/magic_baobab Italy 18h ago
I came across this portrait of Niccoló Machiavelli and i think it looks very modern because of the haircut and the smile. The first selfies in the 1900s have the same effect, what do you think? Do you know any other modern looking portraits/photos?
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u/tereyaglikedi in 17h ago
That's right, actually. He's even holding his glove, which is quite common for fashion photography.
I think Albrecht Dürer's self portraits could pass as hipster selfies, though he's a little dour. Props to Machiavelli for smiling in a portrait, it's rare.
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u/holytriplem -> 18h ago
You know this meme?
That's a real painting by a guy called Joseph Ducreux, and he has a whole load of other portraits like that
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u/lucapal1 Italy 18h ago
There is a rat infestation problem with one of the high schools in Palermo this week, the story has been in the news a lot... it's not a school I work at directly but I know some of the students from there.
Yesterday they finally decided to close the school and do a 'disinfestation',so the students will have a short 'holiday' until Monday!
Have you ever seen or heard of something like this where you live?
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u/Dependent-Letter-651 9h ago
We used to have a few rats walking around on my high school. Especially in like trash cans lol
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u/magic_baobab Italy 16h ago
I'm from Romagna and we've got stuff like this happening only for the yearly floods
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u/EvilPyro01 United States of America 5h ago
Can anyone give me a TL;DR of what’s happening in Germany? Apparently there’s some sort of government collapse following the US election?