Easter

Hyvää Pääsiäistä (Happy Easter!)

For the first time I am having Easter in Spring instead of Autumn, the snow is almost all gone except for certain areas around the city such as areas in constant shade, it is like I have begun my exchange all over again, in another place where there is no snow, new things keep popping out of the snow even in areas I thought I knew quite well. It is amazing to see how everything changes without snow.

what is left of the snow in my back yard

Finnish Easter traditions:

·         ‘Rairuoho’ – special grass grown in pots for approx. 2 weeks before Easter. On Easter morning these are then decorated with Easter eggs and fake baby chickens.



·         The Easter rooster – on Easter morning it is the rooster who lays the eggs and these eggs are made of chocolate, they are laid in a hat under your bed, or in our case, this year, on the kitchen table. I must say he has extraordinary taste in hats [a cork hat from Australia ;).

Easter Rooster

Easter hat

·         Painting eggs – with breakfast was boiled eggs, you decorate these eggs with either paint or textas and once you’ve finished you can smash it open and eat it as per usual breakfast... I was too attached to mine to eat them though haha

egg number 1: Finnish flag & 'hyvää pääsiaistä'

my portrait of the easter roooster

We had a large lunch with some of my extended host family, I made some hot cross buns the day before Easter as my contribution to the meal (also ‘Australian’ salad... exactly the same as Finnish salad but the lettuce leaves are left bigger, not shredded as much as Finnish, turns out this somehow affects the taste, who knew?) Along with the hot cross buns (not even heard of in Finland, gasp!) we had  makkara (Finnish sausage) and corn cooked in ‘grillikota’ - a separate little hut from the main house in which is a fireplace (centre) and benches around the walls to grill from – also salmon, other types of bread, salad and a little poro (reindeer) it actually didn’t taste that bad! Then for desert we had cheesecake.

my beautiful hot cross buns

My creativity in decorating the cheesecake with strawberries

Easter in Finland is such an amazing experience, so many different traditions and activities to Easter in Australia, I had an amazing day :)