Juhannus - Midsummer

The day after I arrived from back from Eurotour was Juhannus (midsummer), the night where the sun doesn't set (or, in southern parts of Finland, the sun sets but the sky doesn't go completely dark) and there are many celebrations going on.

I spent the day decorationg the house with my host sister and then in the evening I went to Koivulan kokko (Koivula's bonfire) which took place on the rivers edge less than 1km from my house.

front door decoration

the overall effect

Koivulan kokko

We had dinner at home then waited up until midnight and went outside (still some light, sky kind of a light navy colour, enough to read a book by) to do some midsummer rituals. Firstly you pick up as many pieces of fire wood as you can and then count them, if you have an even number it is a supposed sign that you will get married soon. Then you pick 7 different types of flowers and sleep with them under your pillow and you will see your husband/wife to be, had never done anything like this before so it was a unique experience for me.

As dark as it got, as you can see unfortunately it was clooudy

so that made it darker than it would normally have been.

Collecting firewood

7 types of flowers

All in all I really enjoyed my first midsummer, it was an amazing experience.