10 Things You Can Only Find in Scandinavian Countries

What do you associate with Scandinavian countries? The fjords? The furniture from the IKEA store? Or maybe the Vikings? This post will show that we don’t know Scandinavians that well. Yes, they are just crazy, but always in a good way.

O awesome.club found several things that happen only in northern Europe. Go packing your bags if you want to meet them live.

Friends from all over the world take care of each other, but in Denmark there is an especially sweet tradition: if you don’t have a partner on your 25th birthday, then, on this birthday, your friends throw you a lot of cinnamon, like a sweet roll. The spice is vigorous, which means that, after the genuine ritual, the victim will exude sweet and strong aromas for quite some time. The scent will be a signal to other celibates, indicating that its bearer is on an active quest.

The roots of this tradition go back to the Middle Ages: spice sellers were usually so busy with trade that they married late. So the smell became a kind of signal that the subject was highly likely to be single.

“Kiss and say goodbye. No kiss should last longer than 3 minutes!”

Those who have already found the love of their lives and tend to have long farewells at an airport end up disturbing people when parking. The airport in the Danish city of Aalborg became famous around the world for putting up special information panels warning that the farewell kiss should not be prolonged. Written on a blue background, it immediately acquires relevant weight in the eyes of pedestrians. We only wonder if the measure actually has an effect.

It seems that Scandinavian countries like to invent unusual road signs. This happened, for example, in Stockholm, where you can see some as relevant as ever: “Watch out! Possible pedestrians looking at their smartphones!”.

However, we must insist that this is not a municipal initiative, but a project by the artist Jacob Sempler, who in this way wants to draw attention to the problem derived from the enormous dependence on cell phones. And the initiative is perfect: people take pictures of the poster and share them on social networks.

Thanks to some people, living in this world is becoming more and more interesting. A creative group from Sweden has invented a real mini-world for mice in city streets, and built shops and bakeries for the rodents in the underside of buildings.

Everyone knows that Iceland is a very beautiful country; This is probably why there is so much love and positivism among its inhabitants, so much so that even traffic lights reproduce the shape of a heart (in the city of Akureyri) or smiles (in the capital, Reykjavik).

Have you ever wanted to get rid of your cell phone and escape the crowds and noise to a deserted island with absolutely nobody? There is a place, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the third largest of the Westman Islands, called Elliðaey. Of her, one can only say: “I’ve never been, but I sure would love to.”

A year ago, Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, declared: for him, Hawaiian pizza would be banned once and for all. This marked the beginning of a series of endless debates about whether or not to add pineapple to pizza. The director made this statement at a meeting with students, in which one of the children asked him what he thought of the popular ingredient in pizza.

Why not paint crosswalks like this around the world? On the one hand, it looks beautiful, and on the other hand, drivers are motivated to reduce speed.

Every year in July, in the Finnish town of Sonkajärvi, something incredible happens: people from all over the world come to compete to see who can complete an obstacle course carrying their wife on their back. The sport has its own rules: women need to be over 17 years old and their weight must be at least 49 kilograms. And what attracts so many people to participate in this eccentric competition? The winner receives the equivalent of his wife’s weight in beer.

During the doctoral degree in Finland, every scientist goes through a ritual: a doctor’s hat is put on and he receives a sword. The custom symbolizes the fact that the new doctor of science is ready to defend truth, knowledge and good.

And you, have you ever visited Scandinavian countries? What was the most unusual thing you found there? Would you like to visit them?