Hey!So I just got back from the Formula 1 race (European Grand Prix) at Nürburging in Germany. I went with a couple of Finnish friends (Teemu, Janne, Krister, Matti, and myself).
The race itself wasn't that spectacular - we were situated on a sloped field with a giant screen, but we could see cars racing by. Ive been to an American Le Mans Series race at Laguna Seca, but these cars were ridiculously louder.
I was surprised by the fans that came to this race - when you see how the drivers carry themselves during interviews, along with the millions of dollars pumped into the sport, and the global scale that this sport competes on (5 continents), you could expect the fans to represent it.
In the area that our tickets seated us at, there was every American NASCAR stereotype to be found, but not nearly as bad as this guy:
But there were of course 10's of people who could have had the biggest beer bellies I've ever seen. Some Germans brought their own mini kegs instead of buying cups from the vendors. There were people who were covered in tattoos.
Of course there were also the people who flew in from the UK, or drove from France or the Netherlands to see the race - the people who you would expect to be at these races.
In the end, I thought it was a pretty good race. I was rooting for either Michael Schumacher (my favorite since Dan from CA got me interested in the sport), or Kimi Räikkönen (thanks of course to the Finns.) At the end, Michael Schumacher ended up winning, and Kimi ended up in 4th out of 22.
With that being said, I think that was one of my last F1 races for a long time. If I were to go to one any time soon, it would have to be the Monaco Grand Prix.
We went up and back from the F1 race in Teemu's car. With that being said, there's really no car ride that can compare with a 3 hour ride each way filled these Finns. It's a good group of people, and with my complete lack of knowledge of Finnish, a little insane at times. We started with German radio at the beginning of the trip, and there was actually decent music on (that means it was current American music), but then the signal faded out, and we started listening to Finnish music. Leevi and the Leavings was the band name.. it may sound strange at first, but you just have to like a band with such memorable song titles as "Matkamuistoja" and "Kerro Terveiset Lapsille" and "En Ei Olla Niinkuin Ennen", I mean that goes without saying.
The music is what you would think when you say "Finnish folk music", but apparently the genius is in the lyrics (of course that wasn't my opinion). The songs apparently range all the way from drinking a lot, to fucking, to love, to drinking even more than before.
After about 4 hours of Leevi and the Leavings and other finnish music, I had a few favorites that I am going to download in the next few days to add to my collection of "Spanish music that I have no f'ing clue what the words say", and "Bulgarian music that I have no f'ing clue what the words say".
All in all, I really enjoyed the daytrip and am really glad that I went to see a Formula 1 race.
Anyway here is a photo from the Finns waving their flags in front so that everyone behind them had to see :)
NEXT:
Tomorrow I am going to Croatia to the Island of Krk with none other than... 5 Finns.. this is going to be great. I am going with Ville, Krister, Teemu, Jaako, and Perttu.
May 9-14 is the trip.
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