1. We went to the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival and saw Morbid Angel play! Then went to a bar called Tavastia in Helsinki to see Norther live in concert. And I must say that it is the first time that death metal had an impact on me. The energy levels of Norther are phenomenal. Although the vocalist growls, you can make out the lyrics. He has a fantastic stage presence. And the melodic death metal that goes along with it was thrilling with the amazing acoustics of the place. A check later on wikipedia showed that Tavastia is one of the oldest and best rock bars in Europe with bands like GNR and AC/DC having played there. And I Was there \m/
Kiitos Norther!
2. Finnish is the weirdest language in this world. Yes, even weirder than Asian languages. It feels like the people there make random noises from their mouths and seem to understand each other. Finns write using the English alphabet, with certain special characters - like an 'a' with two dots on top of it, ditto with the 'o', etc. The words are so long that its hard to read them at one glance like we do in English. and most of the times vowels are placed adjacent to each other, making them impossible to pronounce for the non Finn. I was happy with my Kanahampurilainens... :).. did not try any more Finnish.
The language is also weird. Sample this:
Hej is Hi.... Hej Hej is Bye :P
Moi is Hi.... Moi Moi is Bye :P :P
But then again the cheerful 'Moi' coming from the infinitely cute waitress at the fast food joint makes your heart melt with delight. ;)
I read somewhere later that JRR Tolkien loved the Finnish language and it was his inspiration to learn languages and invent the Elvish. Yep!... everything fits into place. It did sound Elvish like to me.
I am quite sure now that Scandinavian people were the inspiration behind the concept of elves. With their fair skin, good looks (women), blonde straight hair.. etc. And coming from a weird land speaking extremely weird languages... it all fits!
