Christmas travel, winter cycling and Hard Rock Hallelujah

Even if you don’t know The Rasmus, you will likely recognise the song In The Shadows. In 2003, the track was everywhere and shot the Finnish band to stardom. Twenty years later, the band met with Metal Hammer to reminisce about their early days and how the hit song came to be.

Planning a last-minute Christmas vacation? CNN Travel has picked the 15 best places to go and featured Rovaniemi, Finland, in the top spot. “Rovaniemi’s Santa Claus Village amusement park is a snow-covered wonderland of reindeer rides, ice castles, snowmobiles and igloo hotels where Christmas holds sway 365 days a year,” the site writes.

The popularity of Helsinki’s 2018-opened central library, Oodi, has surpassed all expectations. Reasons to be Cheerful visited Oodi and found out why: “Instead of being merely a repository for books, it is an alternative working and learning space, a cultural and community centre, and a platform for democracy and citizen initiatives. Anyone can enter and use the facilities.”

RELEX Solutions’ 500 million-euro funding round made headlines in early 2022. Now the company’s founders are using some of their profits to launch a 100 million-euro charity foundation. The foundation’s first focus will be mitigating climate change, lessening inequality and encouraging early intervention to lower the risk of marginalisation for young people. Silicon Canals has the story.

Does cycling in minus 20 degrees Celsius sound crazy to you? Not to the inhabitants of the Finnish city of Oulu. In the self-titled “capital of winter cycling,” most children bike to school all winter. In fact, even in snow and below-zero temperatures, a fifth of all journeys within Oulu are done by bike, writes MalayMail. 

Marimekko has returned to New York with a concept shop in SoHo. Vogue interviewed Rebekka Day, creative director at the Finnish fashion house, about her vision for the shop and the company. 

If snow and ice are your thing, look no further. Metro UK has listed the world’s coolest ice hotels, with Finland’s Arctic SnowHotel among them. At the hotel, you can split your stay between an ice room and a glass-roofed igloo.

Medixine has secured five million euros in growth funding to improve remote patient monitoring. The Espoo-based company has developed a platform for collaboration between healthcare providers, patients and family members. According to ArcticStartup, it’s already used in Finland, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US. 

The New Year is an excellent time to spy into the future. Good News from Finland visited the Slush startup event in Helsinki to get a head start, and found some interesting future-proof innovations emerging from Finland. 

German childcare chain Wekita has turned to Moomins for early English teaching. The chain has struck a deal with Playvation’s Moomin Language School to access over 400 songs, rhymes, stories, drama, movement games, and arts-and-crafts activities for language learning. 

Hard Rock Hallelujah rocked Lordi to a Eurovision Song Contest win in 2006. Now the band has released a new version of the song with “Werewolf” Bürger Lars Dietrich. The collaboration started after Mr Lordi saw Dietrich perform a cover of the track on Masked Singer Germany, BraveWords reveals.

Since the holidays are just around the corner, we wrap up our last Weekend Wrap of 2022 with a Christmas personality quiz.