Besides having great landscapes, amazing food, lovable people and fantastic design, Finland is a country full of curious traditions and customs. One of them is related with Heavy Metal and how the Finns teach their youngsters to listen to good music since the beginning. And you can see the result while you walk on the streets of Helsinki, Turku, Porvoo, Espoo or any other city there. Metalheads everywhere! Everywhere, anywhere, you will spot somebody who understand your love for guitar riffs and your fascination for GAN GAN GAN GAN.
Back in 2009, when one of my best friends in Brazil started dating this Finnish guy, I got to know about this “heavy metal for kids” thing and how big and important this is in Finland. Harri was his name and I still remember the words: Well, if you like metal and dinosaurs, you should listen to this Finnish band called Hevisaurus
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My first reaction was “Ahn? What? How?” and the magic of YouTube showed me this:
You can watch it at DailyMotion: Hevisaurus – Räyh
As you can all imagine, this metalhead here instantly fell in love with Hevisaurus and with Finland. And this love and fascination for metal and Finnish people is the main reason of this post.
Last year, as you can all remember, Fotostrasse was invited to go to Finland for the first time. If you don’t remember, read the posts about our summer experience in Finland. This country has so much to offer that only after 7 days we decided that eventually, Finland will became our new home. (Porvoo and Helsinki, Helsinki and the pissing statue and the 5 things to do in Porvoo).
So, September 2014, Fotostrasse arrives in Helsinki and all I can remember is “OMG! I’m going to buy everything I can find from Hevisaurus! OMG! Hevi-fucking-saurus!“. I could not shut up about Hevisaurus, everybody in #TravelHousePorvoo that was not from Finland got to know Hevisaurus‘ music and so on. This last week, we went back to Finland to experience the winter over there and to be part of the fantastic crew of #NBEFinland. In fact, you should check it out the hashtag on instagram and twitter and have a look on how amazing the things are done in Finland!
The program gave us a pre tour, some really useful workshops, the opportunity to get to know fantastic people from different destinations and a post tour. And of course everybody from the pre tour to Turku, again, got to know Hevisaurus because I couldn’t shut up about it once I step in Finnish territory. We were having a dinner in an amazing Viking Ravintola (Ravintola is Restaurant in Finnish) and I was showing everybody the videos of Hevisaurus and Pikku Orava, that is another amazing celebrity on this great “heavy metal for kids” universe that Finland has to offer! Actually, check this out:
You can watch it at DailyMotion: Pikku Orava – Taivas lyo tulta.
So, after I-can’t-remember-how-many-youtube-videos, people were finally understanding my fascination with the piece of Finnish culture. In Brazil the kids grows up listening and watching all kinds of crap, copying the dance moves they learn on TV, and, often, those dances are erotic dances that kids should NOT be doing it. The Finnish way shows kids a bunch of dinosaurs playing heavy metal instead of a semi-naked people shacking their butts. I could go deeper into this discussion but I guess it is too much politics and behavioral studies based on economics, social differences, blablabla for this post, huh?
All I can say is that: A country that has musicians who rather play in a dinosaur costumes instead of playing in bands like Thunderstone, Stratovarius and Sonata Artica, is the best country! Period!
Well, apparently after the Viking meal we had and the “Hevisaurus, an intensive course by Marcela Faé”, Inari Fernandez, the BEST host of all the hosts, the responsible for our pre-tour to Turku and the sister of #NBEFinland‘s organizer, Inna-Pirjetta Lahti, started making calls and talking to people to surprise me during the last day of the Matka Fair. I still have no clue who was helping her, but I know that the amazing photographer and the greatest Finnish guy I’ve ever met, Konsta Punkka, was also behind it.
The day went by and finally it was the last day of the travel fair we were invited to be part of. Inari, Konsta and some other people were like “you gotta be at the party at 7pm sharp, ok?“, ” will you be there at 7pm?” and I was starting to get suspicious, but I could never, ever, ever, ever guess what was waiting for me over there.
After a few champagne glasses, some awesome food and a great time with the best group of travel bloggers, Inari got the microphone and invited me to the stage. She said something about how crazy I was with Hevisaurus and I started to shake and finally, from the stairs of the Plaza Hotel in Helsinki, HEVISAURUS SHOWED UP JUST FOR ME!!!
More than just my endless Thank you, thank you thank you, Inari, you have my love! Forever! And Finland, you have the best people, the best landscapes and the best vibe of all the countries we’ve ever visited! If Finnish cities made the top 5 list of best destinations of 2014, in 2015 Finland made the top 1 list of our hearts! If Finland is not on your list of places to see, you’re missing out!
Soon enough there will be the video showing you all what was my face as soon as this crazy dinosaur entered the party!
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