Vappu (30th of April)

The week of the 30th of April and the 1st of May is seen as one of the most important times of the year. Not only celebrating labour's day on the 1st of May but also the beginning of summer including barbecues and sitting outside means a lot to Finnish people.
That is the reason why they start celebrating this day already at the beginning of the week. 

On the 30th of April people would then meet at their houses having brunch together and heading to the city centre afterwards. 
Following the finnish tradition, I also went to a Finnish student's place together with a friend of mine where we had a really nice barbecue and lots of sweet pastries such as: three different apple cakes, pancakes, salmiakki, donuts and a lot more. 

Brunch at Jutta's place

At around 5 pm we started walking towards the city centre because there was the ceremony going to take place at 6 pm. 
Usually Finnish people all meet up at Kauppatori and exactly at 6 pm they all put their graduation caps on while having some sparkling wine. 
It was incredible that there were old and young meeting at the city centre, all with their hats on.

Students organisations hold speeches and people are singing and standing all along the road at Kauppatori.
One road at Kauppatori is dedicated to all the Finns who are Finnish speaking and at the other one for the Swedish speaking population in Turku.

Lots of Finnish people with their hats at Kauppatori

After this, people leave Kauppatori to walk towards the river where they sit down talk and drink. Some also go to clubs or continue the rest of the day celebrating at their houses.