Welcome To Finland, Slumber Capital Of The World

IOL ^ | 12-11-2002

[blam]

[DonQ]

Finland is very definitely the land of the midnight sun, with daytime/nighttime alternating in ways contrary to normal human cycles. This might be complicated by the 500-year cycles in global warming/cooling (now near a warm peak, just like the 10th century when the Vikings were most able to sail out of Scandinavia). I think it would take well over a couple thousand years for a human species to adjust to that odd rhythm.

But other Scandinavian countries don't quite have the same symptoms. Maybe it's because Finland is afflicted with a language that is particularly insular - unrelated to any other European language - and a history that includes being repeatedly invaded by the Russians, and being cobelligerants with the Nazis.

[ErnBatavia]

(to tune of O Tannenbaum)

O Lutefisk … O Lutefisk … how fragrant your aroma O Lutefisk … O Lutefisk … You put me in a coma. Yor smell so strong … you look like glue You taste yust like an overshoe But Lutefisk … come Saturday I tink Ill eat you anyvay. O Lutefisk … O Lutefisk … I put you by the door vay I vanted you to ripen up … yust like dey do in Norway A dog came by and sprinkled you … I hit him vid an army shoe O Lutefisk … now I suppose I’ll eat you as I hold my nose. O Lutefisk … O Lutefisk … how vell I do remember On Christmas Eve how we’d receive … our big treat of December It vasn’t turkey or fried ham.. it vasn’t even pickled spam My mudder knew dere vas no risk. In serving buttered lutefisk. O Lutefisk … O Lutefisk ... now everyone discovers Dat Lutefisk and lefse make … Norvegians better lovers Now all da world can have a ball … you’re better dan dat Yeritol O Lutefisk … vid brennevin You make me feel like Errol Flynn.

[ErnBatavia]

I know.....back to HTML bootcamp! Humbug!

[blam]

"This might be complicated by the 500-year cycles in global warming/cooling (now near a warm peak, just like the 10th century when the Vikings were most able to sail out of Scandinavia). "

The 'Little Ice Age.'

"Maybe it's because Finland is afflicted with a language that is particularly insular - unrelated to any other European language."

The language is distantly related to the Basque....And, their DNA is closely related to the Basque and Welsh.

[Shenandoah]

The English don't have a clue as to what a sandwich is. At least they didn't when I lived there 30 years ago. You ask for a roast beef sandwich and you get a thin slice of roast beef between two pieces of thin, white bread. The English ought to spend some time in a New York deli.

[ErnBatavia]

...Scandinavian walks into a pizza joint, turns and walks out saying, "Who trew up on da Lefse?"

[contessa machiaveli]

eventually we'll move to the sunbelt. i'm going to visit my parents in palm beach for christmas vacation, then in january spend a week at my friends place near tampa. i love the sun,the near- tropical breezes and the palm trees. and that's how i keep my sanity in the winter.

[SoDak]

I like it. I think my mom has a copy of that somewhere, as I've read it before.

[SoDak]

Love that lefse. I stopped into our new Wal-Mart grocery and while picking up groceries thought I'd pick up some lefse (that time of the year and all) and the bakery manager, who was from somewhere down south like Nebraska said "Huh?" I had to swing back to my regular store.

[Wally Cleaver]

Finns don't like to drink...they inhale. Just visit the country during midsummer days..it is a 3-day nation drunk.

[Wally Cleaver]

If you like weird food--you need to try this stuff the Finns make at Easter for desert. Called mammi (sp?). Looks like a cow patty when they serve it.

[LostTribe]