This is what the sidewalks look like during Vappu, the Finnish May Day celebration where students dress like race car drivers (academic jumpsuits color-coded by university department) in sailor hats (graduation caps)…
and everyone drinks large quantities in public space…
until the next day, when it’s capped off with a “quaint” picnic in Kaivopuisto Park with the rest of Helsinki…
Remarkably, the gruesome sidewalk residue of broken bottles, vomit, confetti and corks disappears within hours. A local told me they spend somewhere around 100,000 euro to clean the city after Vappu, and urban legend says they even lift each car and sweep under there. It’s an impressively streamlined mission and a talent they should outsource to other cities. How many people make up the cleaning department? When do they do it? How do they delegate the tasks? It would be enlightening to follow a few of these guys around for a day and see how the magic happens. By Monday it’s as if Vappu never happened and the girl I saw crawling on all fours licking a puddle of beer was but a fever dream…
June 24th, 2009 at 4:47 am
The legend is true, they lifted all the cars on my street (not very carefully!) then the sweeper came past and cleaned it, taxes are high for a reason!
Also in my experience that’s how the streets look every weekend morning!
June 24th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Ha wow that’s amazing! Go tax money!
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 am
[...] The Day After [...]
July 26th, 2009 at 10:07 am
They may use the Nottingham crew - our cleaners have to do that about 4 mornings every week (not so much the car-lifting, though!).