Happy Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day... that time of year where everybody is spoiled with chocolates and flowers, red and pink everyone, and love is all around. Or at least so I thought. Not until I came to live in Europe had I realized to what extent the states seems to go all out with holidays... especially on Valentine's Day. What everyone says is "a national world holiday" seems to only be celebrated in such an extreme way just in the USA. Turns out, Europeans don't celebrate Valentine's all that much. At least here in Finland, it's considered to be much more of a "friendship day" And in the end, the most that I did to actually celebrate this holiday was eat these heart shaped doughnuts from a place called Arnold's (kind of like a Finnish dunk-n-doughnuts.. only better) with my host family. Mind you, they were really good doughnuts!

Instead though, today happened to be a day of a slightly different celebration. Today was the Abi's (3rd year//Seniors) last "official" day of school. On this day all of the Abit have a theme which they dress up to and decorate the entire school. This celebration is called Penkkarit. 

Quick description via Wikipedia: Penkkarit (more formally penkinpainajaiset, "benchpressing [fest]", or bänkskuddardagen ("penkkis") in Swedish) is a yearly tradition amongFinnish upper secondary school (Finnish: lukio) students. The event is celebrated in the spring of their final, usually third, year as the final day of school, before the start of the matriculation exams. Traditionally, the date of penkkarit is a Thursday in late or mid-February.

And so there you have it, the day's celebrations. Alongside the Abi being dressed up and going all out with their theme, they also pick on us younger students and teachers -- side note: It's funny, because here I'm enrolled as a 1st year (15-16 year olds) and yet, I'm the same age as most Abi. 

By doing so, they draw lipstick all over our faces and throw glitter and candy at us. A lot of students get tied together for the day, even. The Abi come to our classes and take over the "teaching" saying or doing whatever they please. While all of this is going on, there was dubstep playing outside the classrooms and students dancing on tables. It was quite the sight to see! People kept joking with me and would say "you should just tell everyone in the USA that this is your usual day at Lukio" Hmmm, no wonder Finland is ranked in the top #5 best educational systems in the world! Haha, no.. no, just kidding! Finnish schools are really as good as they say :) Perhaps it's because everyone is so serious about their studies, that when events like this happen.... they go ALL out! Also, if anything at all, Finns do know how to have fun!