Finnish Wife Carrying

So in the middle of all the excitement of getting settled we missed the World Wife Carrying Championship which took place (as it has for the past 14 years) in Sonkajärvi, Finland – about 500km north of Helsinki.

Eager to see what it would take to participate next year, I came across the official site which had a bit on How to Become a Master in Wife Carrying. In typical Finnish deadpan humor, they went into all the details just so you believed they were serious until you came across lines like,

The core of the race is made of a woman, a man and their relationship. The wife carrying and eroticism have a lot in common. Intuitive understanding of the signals sent by the partner and becoming one with the partner are essential in both of them – sometimes also whipping.

Maybe we’ll go next year.

Related crazy Finnish events include:

• World Air Guitar Championships in Oulu – where, by freak coincidence, a fellow Alamedan took home the title last year as Hot Lixx Hulalan.
• World Cell Phone Throwing Championship (pdf) in Savonlinna.