Thursday 17 February 2011

Parade of teenagers

Today there was a parade of teenagers on trucks celebrating going on study leave for exams. There seemed to be a truck for every school and they drove around the center of Turku making noise and throwing sweets to everyone. It was so cute watching younger children running up the street after them because they wanted the sweets. Seeing a cheeky policeman, who was probably supposed to be keeping order, picking up all the sweets and eating them was also a highlight.
I think it's a very nice tradition because they all seemed so happy, and all the pedestrians were happy to watch them pass. They held up all the buses, were very noisy, and it was a very cheerful morning. Nice one teenagers.
When I was their age my school had a tradition of allowing the ones about to go on study leave to pull pranks, dress up, and generally be a bit cheeky. I think that officially the practice was banned the year it was our turn, because previous years had got a bit out of hand, although I remember there were still a few stink bombs and some interesting interpretations of the school uniform. It's a shame because when I was about 13 I'd already planned that when it was my turn I was going to put condoms over the exhaust pipes on the teacher's cars...never got the chance, unfortunately.
I thought this was a nice one though because lots of schools were involved, they all had colourful banners (including one with Gollum on it...), and it was all good-natured and fun. They were all waving and singing songs, and people in the street seemed to enjoy seeing them. Walking to the supermarket was a bit difficult because the kids had attracted a pretty big crowd. Good for them. I don't think this kind of thing really goes on in England but it was a nice thing to watch.

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