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Lessons in Santa

December 4, 2006 at 9:25 AM | 0 Comments


Remember how Finland claims to be home to the real Santa? Now Finnish airline Finnair is taking the point one step further and providing the world with training on being a substitute Santa--since poor Santa is so busy he often can't do more than "drop the presents...and go straight on to the next house."

Wanna be Santa too? Finnair's online School of Santa--proudly brought to you by the Official Airline of Santa Claus--gives you six lessons in "The Do's and Don'ts of How to be the Perfect Santa." From what sounds like the obvious first step of entering via the chimney (they suggest you use the door instead), through letting the children sing carols intead of torturing them with your own voice, and to not playing Santa at the wrong times of year, these handy instructional videos will have you Ho, ho, ho-ing your way into children's hearts the world over. Not that Finnair doesn't sneak in a fair slab of advertising too. All in keeping with the Christmas spirit of caring, sharing and commercialism, of course.

[Photo: BrockLi]

Related Stories:
· The School of Santa [Finnair]
· Will the Real Santa Please Stand Up? [Jaunted]

Amazing Race 10: Cho Bros Play Russian Roulette

November 20, 2006 at 8:01 AM | 0 Comments

Click Here To Go Straight To Chasing Racers Map


Chasing Racers is back, with a brand new Amazing Race 10 mashup. This map will update the morning after every new episode. Send along tips, rumors, gossip, locations and spoilers to our map editors, become a member and comment on the stories below, and add to the Jaunted-Flickr photo pool to get in on the fray. Enjoy.

What do tanks, tuxedos and Tchaikovsky have in common? They're all sullied on the latest episode of TAR. Only five teams are still racing, and the 'Bama girls are somehow still in this thing, but probably not for long. The Six Pack alliance--already without Dave and Mary--gets seriously tested in the Chernobyl glow. The Barbies--who've always been cutthroat--are looking to become the first female only team to win the race. Will nice guys Erwin and Godwin be able to hang? Will Rob and Kimberly overcome the car trouble that plagues them in the previews? And will we ever be able to mention tanks and Russian composers in the same sentence? Find out after the jump!

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Amazing Race 10: Ridin' Dirty in Finland

November 13, 2006 at 9:17 AM | 5 Comments

Click Here To Go Straight To Chasing Racers Map


Chasing Racers is back, with a brand new Amazing Race 10 mashup. This map will update the morning after every new episode. Send along tips, rumors, gossip, locations and spoilers to our map editors, become a member and comment on the stories below, and add to the Jaunted-Flickr photo pool to get in on the fray. Enjoy.

After Dave and Mary's long-overdue exit last week, the Amazing Race is shaping up to be quite a contest, but we don't remember Dave and Mary dying, did they? Two teams were acting as if the Kentucky power couple had passed away and end up dedicating their race "in memory of Dave & Mary". The remaining "live" teams leave steamy Madagascar for Finland, will Lyn and Karlyn's alliance with the Cho Brothers keep them in the race? Will Rob and Kimberly keep saying "bro" and "dude" with abandon? Will Tyler and James be able to tackle the muddy obstacle course or will they be left in the muck? We sort out all the dirty details after the jump.

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Next Up: Finland Gives Santa a Blog

October 6, 2006 at 9:36 AM | 0 Comments


Not only does the Finnish Tourist Board want you to spend Christmas in Finland, but they also won't stop until you submit yourself to Santa and place your beating heart in his hands. While we're all for the magic of believing in Santa--he's real, it is not like 5-year olds are cruising tourism web sites in search of the big man's official web site. Yet the Finns are taking Santa's existence very very seriously:

Why does the real Santa Claus live in Finland? You can meet him on any day of the year, without any charge, only in Finland. Santa Claus' own animal, the reindeer, lives in Finland.
Good to know!
Santa Claus, Lady Santa and the elves have time to relax in summer. This is when a lucky wanderer can see them angling or picking berries on the fells of Lapland. Sometimes Santa Claus has time for his favourite hobby, gold panning. He and his companions also go to the sauna and dare sometimes to dive into ice-cold lakewater after the intense heat of the sauna.
Santa digs the sauna? You don't say. We wonder if he ever visits New York. There's a fabulous gym in midtown we'd like to recommend to him.
The welfare of all animals is close to Santa's heart, not only that of his own reindeer. For instance, in the zoological park in Ranua, Christmas is always celebrated by the animals, too, and all the arctic animals of the zoo participate in the festivities from the lemmings to the lynxes. The bears, though, hibernate during the Yuletide season and cannot unfortunately take part in the Christmas party.
Does that mean Santa takes to his lemmings like Hollywood starlets to their yorkies? Someone get US Weekly on line 2; we smell a photo op.

Lest that not be enough for you, the Board also wants you to know that Santa has an internet television channel and private reindeer-herding territories in Lapland. Come on now...all that, and he doesn't have a blog yet?

[Photo: bcostin]

Related Stories:
· Finland and Santa Claus [VisitFinland.com]

Foxy Lights in Finland

August 30, 2006 at 8:15 AM | 0 Comments


With September zooming up at us fast, aurora season in Finland is starting to warm up. With the impressive statistic that the Northern Lights are visible four out of five nights from northern Lapland (providing it's not too cloudy), it seems like the place to be. Even better is the fact that the Finnish have a much cooler name for this bewitching phenomenon: revontulet. Wait a minute, we know it doesn't sound instantly cool, but the resaons behind it is: Literally translated, it means "foxfire", and a Sami legend tells of:

the tail of a fox running along snow-covered fells strikes the snow drifts, sending a trail of sparks into the sky
Aw, how sweet. More importantly if you do camp out in Lapland waiting for the foxy lights, make sure you do it in a hotel with a good wake-up service. When the lights appear, they'll call you in your room and you don't have to take the (albeit low at 20%) chance that you'll be staring up in the sky, cold and seeing nothing.

[Image via tjerkb/Flickr]

Related stories:
Lapping Up Knowledge in Lapland [Jaunted]
Finland's Vibrant Capital [Scotsman]

Coming Soon: Eurovision Action Figures

August 14, 2006 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments



Remember Lordi, the scary Finnish band that wore masks, frightened children, and then went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest? The Finns were a little embarrassed of the band before the competition began, but because everyone loves a winner, the country now has full-fledged Lordi mania.

To wit, the town of Rovaniemi has renamed a central square after the band; Tarja Halonen, Finland's president/resident Conan O'Brien impersonator praised the band for doing "Finnish quality work"; and, our favorite, there are plans for Lordi postage stamps and commemorative coins, although we presume they won't be produced by the Franklin mint.

We guess the Finns would rather be famous for their crazy band than for the whole cell-phone innovation thing. Strange, yes, but it's hard to argue with a band that has Satan wings on their costumes.

Related Stories:
·   Finland Embraces Its Monster Band [NYT]
·   Conan in Finland [Jaunted]
·   Eurovision [Jaunted]

Wife Flop

June 28, 2006 at 9:40 AM | 0 Comments


Hurry up and book your flights to the World Wife Carrying Championships in Finland next week! This intense competition will soon kick off for the fourteenth time. It starts mid-World Cup finals this Saturday, July 1, no doubt stealing all television airtime from the soccer.

Various categories exist but the trophy to aim for--World Champion Wife Carrier--involves a 253.5 meter track, a wife with a minimum weight of 49 kilograms, and a 15 second time penalty for each time the wife is dropped. (no doubt resulting in a night on the couch as well) In addition to a handsome trophy, winners receive "wife carrying products"--just what we want for the holidays.

If you want to start training, the website includes a few tips on How to Become a Master in Wife Carrying. Most important, perhaps, is the complicated choice of posture:

There are four customary styles to carry the wife: the traditional piggyback, the wife dangling upside down on the carrier's back, thrown over on the shoulder and crosswise on the carrier's shoulders. The style is free. You may also create a new personal style of your own.
Perhaps some of the World Cup teams would've performed better if they'd adopted some of these superior training methods.

Related stories:
Lapland Knowledge [Jaunted]

Lapping Up Knowledge

May 18, 2006 at 10:30 AM | 0 Comments


Heading north for the summer? If you have a Scandinavian excursion planned--and why wouldn't you want to pick up all those extra hours of daylight--the Arktikum in Rovaniemi, near the Arctic Circle in Finland, is your must-see educational stop. More than a museum, you'll leave knowing scads more about the weird way of life in a region that swings from midnight sun to midday darkness.

If Lapland's most architecturally cool glass tube corridor doesn't impress you, perhaps it'll be the 25 Inuktitut words for snow that'll get your blood pumping. Or the special exhibition, featuring archival films of Arctic Russia, opening this week and running until January (when the daylight'll have all almost completely disappeared).

One important factoid that this sterling museum imparts is the high incidence of elk collisions: 3000 per year, at last count. We think they mean on the roads, but nevertheless, when you're browsing Arktikum's main hall, watch out for the towering stuffed elk, or you might become nothing more than another statistic.

[Image via heavenuphere/Flickr]

Related stories
Fine Finnish Food [EU Observer]
Finnish Star Trek at Eurovision [readabet.com]
Lapland's Ski Resorts [Jaunted]

Don't Fret About the Competition

April 27, 2006 at 11:53 AM | 1 Comment



You think some of the contests you've been to are strange? This one beats the annual hot dog eating contest on Coney Island with ease. The film Air Guitar Nation, which is playing at the Tribeca Film Festival beginning this weekend, documents the Air Guitar Championships, held in Oulu, Finland. We guess that's what the Finns are doing when they can't afford to go skiing.

Air Guitar Nation won the audience award at this years SXSW film festival and was produced by the same team that worked on Project Runway, so you know it should be pretty exciting. Even if Tim Gunn and Michael Kors are lamentably absent from the movie.

As for anyone aspiring to travel the world on the basis of their air guitar prowess, check out the US Air Guitar web site; the next "regional final" will take place in San Francisco on May 11. Keep those fingers limber in the meantime.

Related Stories:
·   Are Lapland Ski Resorts Finished? [Jaunted]

Are Lapland Ski Resorts Finnished?

April 27, 2006 at 10:55 AM | 0 Comments


Jarmo Aaltonen of Helsinki's Helsingin Sanomat looks at the high prices of Finland's Lapland resorts and wonders if Finns are being priced out of domestic ski travel.


Aaltonen's April 12 article focuses on Ylläs, a ski resort in western Lapland, where it appears that ordinary families are bringing their own food instead of purchasing grub at the ski resorts. Aaltonen's Finnish ski resort price index explains why: Hot chocolate with a shot of something strong goes for €8.20, a baked potato with garnish is priced at €5.50, and a burger, fries, and soft drink meal runs €8.50.

These costs might not be all that frightening on their own, but look at them in context. Three people traveling on a car-sleeper train from Helsinki to Kolari can expect to pay €313 for the journey. Additionally, Aaltonen estimates that a family of four will pay €920 for accommodation and ski lift passes for a week. Ouchy.

Thing is, Finns are very well off. If Finns won't be able to afford ski resorts in Finland, who will frequent them? Norwegians?

[Image via wilsonlosvitato/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Commentary [HS]
·   Conan in Finland [Jaunted]

Save Our Sites

April 18, 2006 at 11:01 AM | 0 Comments



A little help in prioritizing your travel never hurts; that's why this list of the World Monument Watch's 100 Most Endangered Sites (via Kottke) is just peachy. Forget Disney World--a site we wish was endangered--and instead head to, oh, Helsinki's Malmi Airport. It was the second largest airport in Europe in 1936, with a hangar that could fit six whole aircraft, and now it may be demolished for a housing  project.

No sale? What about the Segovia Aqueduct in Spain? Built in 50 A.D., it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, and yet...the Spanish aren't taking very good care of it, failing to repair damage from water and bat nesting. Always watch out for the bat nesting.

And if that doesn't interest you, there's always the entire country of Iraq, which made the list as a single entry. It won't be long now before cheap flights to Kirkurk start to appear...

[Image via cuellar/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   2006 List [World Monuments Watch]

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