Charles Gibson and I'm Joan London and we are in Helsinki Finland it is May what 13th is Thursday
and we are on day four of our week-long trip through Scandinavia lands of the midnight sun
15th of May actually I was just counting up
We were off by a couple of days there. There are actually several things that you notice about the Finns as soon as you get here.
First of all we mentioned they've always had one foot in the east one foot in the west that has had an effect on them psychologically.
We value about that also the Finns not as fair in appearance as the other Scandinavians I think you'll find.
And then the other thing is the language. This is one of the most difficult things to master you can imagine.
I mean you all carry one of these right? You have one of these to write with.
What's the word in Finnish for pen?
Check this out. That's the word.
Kule karkikohana.
Yeah a pen.
Want anywhere near close? Kule karkikohana.
Well if you think that's different wait till you hear good morning America in Finnish. You all ready?
Okay one two three.
Good morning America.
Yeah okay so anyway it's not just the east west thing that makes them different though it's also how far north they are.
A quarter of this country is above the Arctic Circle.
So it you know it makes for seasons that are really extreme and lightness and darkness.
I think it got dark last night about midnight maybe.
Takes the whole two hours in the morning America.
It also it really kind of develops the Finnish character which is kind of split.
Yeah I think the Finns are known as being rather somber.
But we have found that when you scratch the surface underneath there's a sort of wild side to them.
We have stopped a young gentleman here. What's your name?
Henrik Rosenberg.
And where are you from?
Helsinki.
How would you describe the Finnish character?
Well we are modest but beneath that we do have a high self-esteem and we are better than the Swedes of course.
Something else we ought to mention about Finland.
This country is taking off technologically.
Yeah.
Many cell phones. One out of every three men, women and children have a cell phone.
Nokia is a Finnish company which I didn't know and this country is more wired on the internet.
Higher percentage of Finns on the internet than any other country in the world.
So we'll show you their technological side.
Right now though we will let our high tech satellite take you back to New York where Elizabeth Vargas is standing by with the news.
Hi Elizabeth.
Hi Joan and Charlie. That high tech world indeed.
Good morning everyone. Here's a look at the news.
The chase is on for Atlantis.
The space shuttle rose with a roar before dawn this morning to begin its mission to catch up with the Russian space station Mir.
At the rendezvous point tomorrow night there will be an exchange of astronauts and a delivery of critical repair supplies.
In less than two weeks NATO and Russia will sign an historic agreement.
Yesterday the two agreed that Russia will have a voice in NATO discussions and will not object to NATO's eastward expansion.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are expected to join NATO in July.
The separation of a vacationing Danish mother and her child is over in New York.
But that does not mean the rest of Annette Sorensen's visit here will be trouble free.
ABC's Juju Chang explains.
Annette Sorensen's smile spoke volumes.
After four days of separation and untold anguish the Danish mother was reunited with her 14-month-old baby Liv, who appeared unimpressed with the media hoopla.
It began Saturday night when Sorensen was having drinks with the baby's American father at this New York City restaurant.
The baby was left in a stroller outside.
As Good Morning America's trip to Scandinavia has shown this week,
it's a practice that may seem odd to Americans but is commonplace in the mother's native Denmark,
where parents often leave strollers with their precious contents unattended.
But this, as Sorensen quickly learned, is not Copenhagen.
The couple was charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
They were arrested and jailed for two nights.
The baby's father, who lives in Brooklyn, say police were unnecessarily rough with him during the arrest.
But city officials say the entire episode is an example of New York at its finest.
This is definitely not a case where New Yorkers turned away and didn't do anything.
They saw a child unattended.
And they did something about it.
As a result, Sorensen can't be with her daughter without supervision until the couple faces criminal and family court charges next week.
It's a lesson about sense and sensibility.
What might make sense in Scandinavia can run up against American sensibility.
Juju Chang, ABC News, New York.
A year after a fire in the cargo hold of the downed value jet Flight 592,
airlines say they will put fire suppression devices in the cargo areas of all passenger planes.
They say it could take five years to install the equipment.
The FAA wants it done sooner.
A sign of the times, ABC News takes to the Internet today.
Good Morning America computer editor Gina Smith looks at the launch of ABC News dot com.
President Clinton has been welcomed now to a meeting from ABC News.
It's a 24-hour news channel.
It's an opportunity to allow the regularly scheduled news broadcasts to finally say,
for continuing coverage of this story, there's some place to go.
And that place is ABC News dot com.
It's a website designed to make available to anyone on the Internet the resources of ABC News.
The site delivers up to the minute news, business, and sports updates
to the growing audience of Americans who are spending more and more time in front of their computers.
According to a recent survey, there are some 17 million regular Internet users in the U.S.
And for the second year in a row, many of them are spending more time on the Net
and less time with such traditional media as TV and radio.
TV news organizations have figured out that the Web competes directly with the television.
And so they need to provide the news wherever people want to get it.
The site displays a running news ticker, market updates, video highlights from the day's top stories,
and regular reports from ABC TV and radio correspondents.
It's enough to send an American political journalist into shock.
The Internet is a growing environment.
By all accounts, 100 million people worldwide today.
By all best estimates, a billion people by the year 2000.
Now let's see how this all works. You've got a computer here.
We do, and we've connected right here to ABCNews.com. Here's the launch date.
You can see this is kind of cool. There's this running news ticker.
Now what I wanted to tell you was ABCNews.com is a joint project by ABC News and Starwave,
which does some of the hottest sites on the Internet.
And every show at ABC gets its own website and or its own web page area.
Including ours. Great. Good morning America, of course.
The handy thing here for us...
...but here in Finland, there are two other sports that may seem a little strange to us,
but they are taken very seriously here. Very seriously.
Life carrying and boot throwing.
And Charlie, we're going to show you what you do with this boot a little bit later.
We've got some of the contestants who are going to perform on compete later warming up right now.
But first we need to show you the weather ramps back home.
It's going to be a nice sunny day for much of the nation, but a stormy day in the northeastern corner,
particularly in New England and the Great Lakes in the Ohio Valley.
Lots of rainfall, some snow over the central Great Lakes. Windy and raw.
The west and the central states will see some widely scattered storms, mostly sunny conditions.
High temperatures will be at near record levels again in the interior western states,
but way below normal in the northeast and the upper midwest where highs will reach only into the 40s and 50s.
That's a look at the national weather. Here's a look at what's happening where you are.
The recent collapse of the Soviet Union left Finland with some economic difficulties.
And so to replace trade with the east, Finland turned to the western fascination with high technology
and has already become a world leader in that field.
And Bill Ritter is here to tell us how they did it.
It is amazing, Charlie. It's small Finland becoming a high-tech leader.
Chances are if you have a cell phone, it's made by a Finnish company.
And if you are in Finland and you are an adult and if you don't have a cell phone,
well, you are definitely in the minority.
In tiny Finland, cell phones are everywhere.
In restaurants, on the street, in cars and taxis, in office buildings.
Even school kids have them.
Believe it or not, one out of every three people in Finland now uses a cell phone.
And if experts are right, by the turn of the century that figure will jump to one out of two.
It is all part of a high-tech revolution that is sweeping this country.
It turns out Finland is not only the cell phone capital of the world, it's also the internet capital.
More plugged in per capita than any other country.
Twice as wired as the United States.
Making all this communication craziness seem a bit out of place is that the Finns have a reputation
for being quiet and stoic. So clearly, this is a new Finland.
One of those slogans is that we should be able to do anything, any time, anywhere.
Computer expert Pekka Sivonen believes high-tech will propel Finland into a 21st century economic powerhouse.
High-tech already accounts for 22% of Finland's annual exports.
That's up just from 4% a decade ago.
The rest of this high-tech boom is abundant.
Dozens of companies have opened offices and factories in Finland, and they're developing some cutting edge products.
Nokia, the leading cell phone maker, has a new and amazing combination cell phone and computer.
It can hook you up with the internet from a cell phone from anywhere.
It'll be available in the U.S. next fall.
A company called Metarex makes a new generation of metal detector, now being used at the Empire State Building, the Vatican, and the Kremlin.
Another company has developed a smart card that lets the Finns buy just about anything with what they call an electronic wallet.
And the government has launched an ambitious campaign to transform Helsinki into the world's first virtual city by the year 2000.
But nowhere is Finland's high-tech mania more prevalent than in the schools, where by the end of the century,
every campus in the country will be connected to the internet.
Virtually all the schools in Finland's capital, Helsinki, already are hooked to the net.
That's where 12-year-old Juho Sorvetala learned how to surf the internet.
He spends at least an hour a day online at school and online at home, which suits his parents just fine.
They, too, work the computer, running a business and the household finances over the net.
Juho absolutely learned English using the computer. We've got a couple of software for teaching, reading, writing, math.
Most of Juho's classmates are as plugged in as he is. Vicky Viochi has email pals in other countries.
If girls don't keep up learning with computers, they're going to drop out and they're not going to have any jobs,
because in the future all the jobs will have to do with computers.
What makes Finland's high-tech effort so unique is that it's available to just about everyone.
Cell phone calls cost only about 20 cents a minute. That's a fraction of the cost in the United States.
As for computers, at the University of Technology, the public is welcome to use campus computers anytime, free of charge.
Ditto at the public library, where preschoolers are learning their ABCs on a CD-ROM.
Now all this egalitarianism has a purpose.
They can visit the guy next door, the guy next village, or the guy in San Francisco.
We never had this possibility before.
And Bill, you brought a show and tell here, right?
I did indeed. These are the phones by Nokia. It's not a Japanese company. It's a Finnish company.
This one is a cell phone, Charlie, and it looks like a regular one, but look at this on the back.
Powered by solar energy, seven days of standby time.
This one has 25 different kinds of music. Listen.
It's things like a Monty Python. It could be annoying, I guess, if you go in there.
Now this one is the most amazing. It's called the Nokia 9000 Communicator.
It looks like a regular cell phone. Look at that, though. This is a little antenna.
This is a cell phone slash computer, the 9000.
We are right now dialed up to the ABC News homepage on the Internet.
You can link up to the Internet, surf it all you want. You can email, fax.
If you want to just work on it as sort of a little mini word processor,
you can actually talk on the cell phone, a speaker phone, hook up anywhere in the world to it.
People here, by the way, I should tell you, someone just came up to me and said they were talking to a friend in Virginia,
watching our show live from here.
There are cell phones. You look out here, everyone's talking on the cell phone.
Now this is a computer and a phone, and therefore a fax and all, email, all that.
Is it available in the United States? Not yet. The end of summer it will be about $1,000.
And of course in a year from now it will be half that price, but about $1,000 by the end of summer.
And the other ones, the solar powered one? That is not yet available in the United States.
The music is still playing. I'm not answering the phone, that's why.
All right. Bill Ritter, thanks very much. Let's go to Joan just a couple blocks from here.
All right, Charlie, I've come over to Esplanade. It's a nice little park where they've got some outdoor cafes
and a band is playing here and people mingle, and they also have a rather unusual sport here.
It's called wife carrying. I'm serious, this is like a national sport.
It's an international sport and the fins happen to be the champs.
And you carry your wife over some obstacles and you go over the hurdles, running and jumping, sometimes even swimming.
And I've got an expert here on wife carrying. His name is Louis Plain. Good morning.
Good morning. All right. Now when did this first come about? How?
Yeah, well it's got its origins in the 1800s when a local robber and his gang of not so merry men
had a habit amongst other things of stealing people's wives, which was quite a common practice in those days.
All right. Now what are the winners last year? Because you guys are the winners who we'll see in a minute.
Yeah, the world champions. What do you get?
Yeah, well amongst other things you get a rye bread, a mobile phone, a thousand marks finished check.
And the most interesting prize is the wife's equivalent weight in beer.
So the bigger the wife, the bigger the party afterwards, I guess.
And I'm told that you can borrow your neighbor's wife.
Oh yeah, you can borrow the neighbor's wife. But she's not too heavy, of course.
Yeah, that's a tough decision, you know, because it's going to be heavier. What if you drop her?
You get a 15 second penalty.
You get a 15 second penalty? All right. So we've got two couples here. And are you ready?
All right. On your mark, go.
We should say that the couple over there on the left are Junie and Tina, and they are the 1996 champion,
international world champions. And over here, this couple, Seneca and Amo, they are their beginners,
which of course they came in second there. And Mindy Moore and Spencer Christian are down there at the finish line.
Can you guys hear us?
Yeah, I can hear you.
You got your winners down there?
We have the winners right here. How do you feel after that race?
I feel great.
You feel great?
How about you?
Same, same.
What kind of technique did you use there?
It's secret.
I think the team over here would like a rematch. Would you like to do this again?
Why? Wait, wait, wait, Spencer. I think we should have a rematch, and I think you and Mindy should join them.
Okay, you know what?
Are you game?
I think I'm up for that, but I'd rather give my competition a little chance to rest first.
Alright, so then we'll take a commercial break. I think that Spencer and Mindy should try this, don't you?
Alright, we're going to take a commercial break. We'll come back, and Spencer and Mindy will join the others in the
wife carrying contest as we continue from Helsinki, Finland.
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Alright we are back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, false start, false start, false start, false start.
You know, well they queued me and the runners thought that they were queuing them.
But that's okay, we should wear them down.
We're the world champions. Wear them down a little bit.
Alright, so anyway we've got our world champions here.
Tuni and Juni and Tina.
And then we've got some first times. I think this is one of the first times they've competed.
And we've got Spencer Christian and Mindy Moore who are really true time first ones.
Now, what kind of advice could you give them, Lewis?
It's not as fast as you can at hold on tight.
Did you hear that though?
Yeah, but it looks like we have an unadvanced advantage.
Because we're taller, we have the long legs.
Okay, but Mindy, he's supposed to only concentrate on running and you're supposed to concentrate on holding on and stay in the middle of his back, he said, okay?
Really? Okay.
Alright, so we have not even practiced this.
Climb aboard, climb aboard.
Alright, so give it a go. Alright, you ready?
Ready.
Alright, and now you guys, you ready?
Do we get a head start?
And whoever wins gets a Good Morning America hat.
Okay.
On your mark, get set, go!
Alright, come on, look.
Around the hurdles.
That's not fair!
One more time!
Alright, that was a little cheating on the Americans part, but you know.
It's the American version.
Are you having fun though?
This is very fun. We're thinking about doing it again.
Alright, who are our champions? You're our world champions.
Yeah, one more time with the champions.
Now, they did not go over the hurdle. How do you go over the hurdle without falling off?
Are you the one that's holding on?
Yes.
Alright, do it. Did you guys get a Good Morning America hat?
Alright, there you go.
Well, should I talk to you now?
Now, let's just take a look at a quick replay of Spencer and Mindy in slow-mo.
Oh no, is that my fault?
Alright, check out the form.
I love the grace.
I wasn't that high enough.
Well, I think just for being a good sport, you get that.
When we come back in our next half hour, we're going to take a look at boot throwing, another big sport here, live from Helsinki.
Which pickup do you suppose has the most powerful gasoline engine, the most powerful diesel, the most cab room, the most available towing, the most available payload, better resale value than Ford, Chevy, or GMC?
If you guessed Dodge Ram, you hit it right on the nose.
Dodge Ram, the rules have changed.
Ah, what a day.
Whole family went down to the lake, including the dog.
Seems like just a few weeks ago, she was too stiff to get up, much less run around.
But then our veterinarian told us about a breakthrough treatment program that could help her arthritis pain.
Help? She's like her old self again. Isn't that right, lady?
Ah!
The sun brings life.
People come to the park to see animals, not weeds.
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Towing weeds is a waste of time.
If you don't get the root, the weed grows back.
We use Roundup.
Roundup kills the whole weed, roots included.
I don't pull weeds at work. Why would I do it at home?
That's the home version of my motto.
Roundup. No roots, no weeds, no problem.
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Your total news coverage from the Cascades to the Columbia Basin.
This is Morning Local News on ABC.
Good morning. Thanks for joining us on this Thursday.
I'm Alex Peach.
There has been an explosion at Hanford so powerful it blew out windows and the door of a plutonium plant.
Doctors have given the workers a clean bill of health there,
but there is still a possibility that those workers have been exposed to dangerous chemicals.
As Trova Hutchins reports with these exclusive pictures, many questions are still unanswered.
Much of what caused this explosion is still not clear, but some of the end results are blown out windows,
a door torn off its hinges, a brown cloud and a ruptured water line.
Joe Hennessy works next door.
I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could, and that's what we did.
It took us about five hours before we could get out.
The plutonium reclamation facility where the explosion took place is used to store chemicals like nitric acid, nitrates, phosphates.
Most likely, workers say some kind of chemical reaction went bad,
but there is no firm word yet which chemicals are involved and which chemicals may have come too close to a worker.
Dr. John Smith treated the eight employees who came in.
All these people were healthy.
They had some very minor symptoms that are not indicative of any one specific agent.
Smith says many workers may suffer from what he calls crowd mentality.
In other words, after the first person complained of a sore throat, a metallic taste in the mouth, a headache,
the others may have been convinced they had those symptoms too.
I did taste a metallic taste in my mouth a little bit.
It tastes like rust to me, but I don't know. I feel fine.
But there is relief for those employees.
The close initial scan for contamination on site did not turn up anything,
but even without health problems, this explosion could be painful all the way to the top of Hanford's chain of command.
That was Trova Hutchins reporting from Hanford.
A press conference has been scheduled for 10 o'clock this morning.
We'll continue to follow this story as it develops and we'll have a complete report on the local news at 5 o'clock.
In other news this morning, a Yakima County judge says a 17-year-old caused the death of two other boys.
Judge Jim Hutton found Enrique Guzman guilty of two counts of vehicular homicide yesterday.
Guzman and four others were riding in a car on I-82 near Grandview last September.
An argument ensued and Guzman grabbed the wheel, forcing the car off the road.
The 18-year-old driver and a 20-year-old were both killed in the crash.
Sentencing will take place within the next two weeks.
Guzman could spend the next three to four years behind bars.
And we'll have a quick look at weather when we come back.
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Here comes the bride. Her first interview since the wedding, Brooke Shields, plus my friend Bill Cosby. Next, Oprah.
Some clouds out there, but it's still pretty present across the region.
Checking out your conditions at your house right now in Ellensburg. It's currently 59 degrees in Yakima. It's 64.
In the Tri-Cities, it's 63 degrees and are partly cloudy skies. In Walla Walla, it's 67. And in Pendleton, it is 61 degrees right now.
Well, that's it for us this morning. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you this afternoon for the local news at 5 and 5.30.
Now we'll send it back to Good Morning America. I'm Alex Peach. Make sure to have a great Thursday.
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Hi, I'm Katrin Sandasala, and I'm here with my family and friends near Helsinki, Finland, and we are getting ready for the summer.
Good morning, Aterica!
And good morning, everyone. Good to have you back. I'm Charles Gibson.
And I'm Joan London. We are in Helsinki.
We are indeed in Helsinki. I'm supposed to say that, wasn't I?
That's okay. I'll say it. It's Thursday. It's May 15th. And this is day four of our trip through Scandinavia, lands in the midnight sun.
They've always really been dominated here by their neighbors, Russia and Sweden, but they're finally starting to establish an identity of their own.
And Judd Rose will take a look at what makes the Finns so unique.
We are headed for an ice cream stand here, which adopt the streets of Helsinki.
Do you feel like we're eating our way through Scandinavia?
We have, pretty much. The one thing I think that people most associate with Finland is the sauna.
They are all over the place. You know, they're a luxury in the United States, but they're an essential here in Finland.
And Ron Hazelton is going to show you Finland's love affair with the sauna a little bit later.
I'm doing blueberry.
You're doing blueberry?
It looks interesting.
Okay, that's blueberry. What are you going to do?
I'll let blueberry sit.
Do something different. No, no, no.
I'm not blueberry.
We're supposed to be unique.
Do I have enough money to pay for that?
I hope so.
That's all they gave me.
That's all you need.
I'm in trouble. All right, we're okay with that.
Pretty good?
It's very cold here in Finland most of the time, but warm in the summer.
It's a beautiful day.
Warm in the summer right now, and people have a love affair with ice cream.
Let's go to the news of the morning. Elizabeth Parkes.
I have a love affair with ice cream. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it.
Good morning, Joan and Charlie. Good morning, everyone.
Looking at today's headlines this morning.
Today's witnesses at the Timothy McVeigh trial will include people who saw the defendant after the Oklahoma City blast.
Yesterday, the courtroom was riveted by a frame-by-frame replay of the minutes before the bombing,
in which a writer truck can be seen heading toward the federal building.
The results of DNA tests from the Jean Benet-Ramsey murder investigation reportedly have been given to police in Boulder, Colorado.
The Denver Post says the results arrived yesterday.
Those results have not yet been revealed, and the Boulder police chief says he still thinks any arrest is months away.
A former Philip Morris scientist reportedly is seeking immunity in a Justice Department probe of the tobacco industry.
As the New York Times reports, the scientist, Thomas Osdeen, has refused to testify on certain matters in a Texas lawsuit,
invoking his privilege against self-incrimination.
Last night's NBA playoff game made news not only because of the Miami Heat's victory over the New York Knicks.
Watch Miami's P.J. Brown flip New York's Charlie Ward's huge brawl.
Four Knicks players left the bench to join the fight, a serious rules violation.
Those players may be suspended when the series returns to New York for Game 6 tomorrow night.
And that is a quick look at the news at 732.
For more, you can check out our ABCNews.com on the Internet in America Online.
Let's go now to Helsinki, Finland and check the weather with Spencer.
OK, Elizabeth, it's a bright, lovely morning here, actually afternoon, our time here in Helsinki.
We showed you one of the more popular sports here a little bit earlier. That was wife carrying.
Coming up in this half hour, we're going to show you boot throwing.
We've got our competitors warming up in the background right now, and while they're getting loose, I'm going to take a look at the weather.
It's going to be a nice, pleasant day for much of the nation, sunny skies over most of the western two-thirds of the country.
Up in the northeast, though, raw, windy, rainy, and stormy, with even some snowfall expected over the central Great Lakes.
It's going to be quite wet and messy up there, and the coastal areas of Washington State and Oregon over in the northwest are going to be rather wet and messy as well.
Scattered showers along that little path you see from the Rockies down along the Gulf Coast, but it'll be mostly sunny in those areas.
High temperatures out west, really toasty.
Up into the 80s in the northern Rockies, 90s and 100s in the desert southwest area.
In the upper Midwest and northeast, under that cloud cover in the stormy area, it's going to be quite cool with highs only in the 40s and 50s.
That's a look at the national weather picture, and here's a look at what's happening where you are.
Music
Okay, that's our look at the weather for now. We will have our boot throwing competition coming up very shortly. I might even try my hand at it. Joan?
Alright, I'm enjoying some ice cream with a lot of kids here or on their way through the park.
And coming up next, we'll take a look at what makes this country so different than the other countries in Scandinavia and the rest of the world when we continue live from Helsinki, Finland.
Music
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This is the perfect way to see Helsinki. There are streetcars running throughout this town.
And this is a specially equipped tram. It has a bartender on board. It has a bar.
It takes about an hour of sightseeing swing through Helsinki and it's very nice.
Now I'm down here in the Senate Square, which is the oldest part of this city.
I'm down to see the Lutheran Cathedral, which dates back many, many years.
It's under repair right now, but a very pretty spot here.
There is a lot to see and a lot to learn when you're in Helsinki, when you're in Finland.
And so Judd Rose is going to give you a sense of it as he sends his video postcard home.
To understand Finland is to see geography as destiny.
For centuries, the Finns lived under the cultural, political, and economic thumb of their neighbor to the south, Sweden.
In this century, this nation of less than five million has had to reckon with the giant on its eastern border, Russia.
The Russian influence can clearly be seen in Finnish architecture.
For example, here in Helsinki's Senate Square, it looks so much like Moscow,
it's been used as a stand-in for such films as Gorky Park and Reds.
But what you can't see is more important.
I'm not sure that Finland belongs to Europe. The mentality is much more Slavic than European.
British-born TV personality Neil Hardwick has lived in Finland for 25 years.
The themes of their plays and their books are often extremely melancholy.
There's a very, very Slavic strain to their way of thinking.
And it appears in their government, too. Their government tends to be rather authoritarian.
The Finns do have a reputation for being grim, glum, and gray.
But maybe they're just misunderstood.
Can I give you a rose?
Well, thank you very much.
I'm supposed to be giving you the roses.
After all, they speak a language in which the average word has more letters in it than your local post office.
What does it mean?
It's sailing trips.
Travel agents?
Travel agents, yes.
It doesn't apply to trucks.
It says that it doesn't apply for lorries.
So in other words, no parking except if you're a truck.
McDonald's.
McDonald's, yeah.
Well, some things need no translation.
And then there are things that defy explanation.
The Finns love, of all things, the tango.
Finnish males have a little difficulty to speak with women.
In tango, we can say everything.
Tango is a very melancholic form of music.
And certainly Finnish tangos are always about the girl that's already gone.
So it does fit in with...
It fits in perfectly, yeah.
Okay, then explain this.
Finnish culture is far from great.
Only great is the trousers in Finnish culture.
These are the Leningrad Cowboys, who proudly proclaim themselves the world's worst rock band.
No argument from us.
And if that doesn't strike the right note with everyone, how about this?
Helsinki's state-of-the-art opera house, just four years old, is a huge success,
recently hosting its millionth visitor.
Finns have a lot of heart.
And among the young people who are coming in big groups,
they think that it's, yes, this is great, so it's nice.
So opera is becoming hip.
Yes, I think so.
Oh, and speaking of pitch, try this.
Finnish baseball.
Unlike the American game, the ball is thrown up, not out.
But the real national pastime here is an indoor sport.
The sauna was invented in Finland more than 2,000 years ago.
So the rest of the world may see the Finns as grumpy, but trust us,
they know how to blow off some steam and chill.
We're going to have more on the tango later.
The Leningrad Cowboys are going to be with us here in Helsinki.
But when we come back, Finland's love with the sauna.
The expression here is, first you build the sauna, then you build the house around it.
Ron Hazelton will give you a tour of Finland's saunas when Good Morning America continues from Helsinki.
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I just met two Americans, Natalie and Shelly from Washington and St. Louis, who came over here visiting.
Met, took Finnish together, and met married Finnish guys.
Now you've opened an espresso shop.
Yeah, the first American espresso bar in Finland.
And you're serving bagels?
Bagels, cream cheese, we have peanut butter cookies, we have oatmeal raisin cookies.
Has it gone over with the friends?
Yeah, actually it has. It's really funny. Now we get people coming in like, bagel day, we want peanut butter on our bagel.
And my mom, I mean, I shouldn't be saying this, but my mom's sending like huge containers of peanut butter.
And her friends come back and like, bring peanut butter and cheese.
So you like it here?
Yeah, it's okay, actually.
She really told me it's awfully dark in the winter.
In the winter, only in the winter.
Alright, well thanks you guys.
Now one thing that they've always had here, they still have in fact one out of every three Swedes, owns a sauna.
Come here, just check this out.
Right inside here, they have stores for everything you would ever use in a sauna.
Like, this is one thing you won't find at home, white birch leaves.
You stimulate your skin.
Right now our Ron Hazelton reports on the love of the sauna.
Music
It may be just heated rocks in a wood-paneled room, but to the Finns, it's sauna.
A verb, an experience, and a way of life.
In this country, the sauna is the town square.
A unique place to meet, to talk, and to relax.
Look, our conditions, our elements here are very harsh.
Cold, you have to work very hard to make your living, or at least you're used to.
And sauna was a very necessary factor to relax your muscles after the day's toil.
The Finnish sauna still follows time-honored ritual.
Men and women sauna separately, unless they're family.
Finns feel comfortable with nudity as a part of socializing.
So are there rules of etiquette for the sauna?
I could sum it up by one phrase, which states from, it's an old saying, it says,
in the sauna one should behave like one does in the church.
No, he's not a masochist.
The Finns flog themselves with birch branches to stimulate the circulation.
It's not only painless, but the fragrance can be a welcome scent of spring.
Here at the Finnish Sauna Society, the traditional way to end a sauna
is with a brisk dip out here in the Baltic Sea to cool down.
So, Cal, what's the temperature out here today?
It's 39 degrees.
Gentlemen, enjoy your dip.
Music
If there's no water nearby, Finns think nothing of cooling off in the nearest snow drift.
Finns will often spend entire afternoons at their saunas,
repeating this heating and cooling ritual over and over again.
If those boiling hot temperatures and that frigid seawater isn't invigorating enough for you,
well, there's one final step in the traditional Finnish sauna,
and that's to be scrubbed down by a traditional scrub woman.
And don't be embarrassed, she's seen everything.
Does all this sauna make Finns healthier?
If you are very critical, the consensus or opinions is that saunas do not have any real health-promoting effects.
So, the main benefit to go to sauna is the relaxation.
Health benefits or not, saunas are so beloved here, virtually every home has one.
And in Finland, sauna is a family affair.
It's their version of quality time.
It's a possibility to go together and have a little chat.
The sauna is really giving our family an extra kick,
and it's very important that we go all together to go to sauna.
In the Finnish business world, instead of a power lunch, they do power sauna.
Some say new compromises can be reached when people are stripped of their clothes and titles.
Others say that sauna is the Finns' secret negotiating weapon.
In the Finnish sauna, you're very relaxed, and in a way, it's not a nice way to say it,
but it's the honest way to say it, you're a very easy target.
But perhaps the ultimate sauna experience is the weekend sauna party, the Finns' favorite way to entertain.
Most men and women still observe the ritual of separate saunas.
But afterward, everybody comes together to feast on the traditional sauna party snack, sausages and beer.
The party can last well into the night, and in Finland, in the winter at least, that can be a very long time.
All right, I must tell you that I had a sauna in my hotel room here.
I've never been to a hotel where I had a sauna in the hotel room, but they say that a Finn will take a sauna anywhere.
How about right here on the street? How hot is it in there?
Well, it's quite cold. It's 173 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's cold. That's cold to a Finn.
Yeah, I think so.
I don't imagine it feels very good with the door open.
Yeah, it does.
Okay. They've got another sport around here though that the Finns are very passionate about, and that's boot tossing.
That's right, they're warming up right now, kind of like discus throwing,
and we'll find out about that sport when we continue from Helsinki, Finland.
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You can't afford to miss it.
Back in Helsinki with a look at another of Finland's more popular sports.
We showed you life carrying earlier. Now we're going to see boot throwing.
That's right. The Finns have won the boot throwing competition.
Every year, world champions since 1992.
I've got a copy here of the rules and regulations.
Six pages and I'm still not quite sure what it is or how you win.
This is a pretty complicated competition.
I'm going to show you how to win.
I'm going to show you how to win.
I'm going to show you how to win.
I'm still not quite sure what it is or how you win.
This is a pretty complicated sport.
Here to tell us more about it and how it started is Anita Bloom.
And we've got Yari and Nina down at the end who are going to demonstrate the sport.
Why don't we step aside Anita and while they're throwing the boot,
you can tell us how this sport came about. Why throw a boot?
In old days when women got really angry with their husbands,
they used to throw a boot at them.
So it started, actually women started the whole thing.
It started as a way to resolve domestic tension I guess.
Wow! What a smart start that was.
Does that count? Does that count that throw?
Pardon? Is that a good throw?
No, no, it's a throw. It started wrong because it went to the left side.
It went out of bounds.
Let's look at this one.
No, it's totally wrong too.
While you're talking to Anita, can I give that a try?
Yeah, let's get to Spencer.
Now what does Spencer need to do in order to win?
Oh, they should be at the right and it's four meters like this.
Here he goes.
Let's see.
Do it properly.
Alright, Spencer.
Even worse, even worse.
That's even worse? She says you're even worse.
I go back to life carrying.
The morning America continues in just a moment.
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Folks, I'm Mike Olson from Mike Olson Dive.
For the last five years, I've been asking people to come in here
and buy a car, buy a truck from me.
And a lot of folks have done that.
A lot of folks really like the environment here.
And basically what I'm telling you today is
we appreciate you coming in.
And I just want to say thank you.
A lot of people ask you to do stuff,
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We have moved now over from the Senate Square to the Esplanade,
just off the water here in Helsinki.
When we come back, we've actually joined the Cafe Society.
Absolutely.
I should say here.
When we come back, we're going to give you a sense of what it's like to live in Finland
with the constant darkness in the winter and constant light in the summer.
We'll also learn how to do the tango, and we will have the Leningrad Cowboys.
They say they are the world's worst rock and roll band.
We'll be back.
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This is morning local news on ABC.
Good morning and thanks for joining us on this Thursday.
I'm Alex Peach.
No one was injured and no radiation was released from an explosion last night
at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Eight people who were checked in overnight at a hospital have been released.
Officials are still trying to determine what caused the blast at the plutonium processing building.
A press conference has been scheduled for 10 o'clock this morning.
We'll have a complete report for you coming up at 825.
In other news, Yakima County Judge says a 17-year-old caused the death of two other boys.
Judge Jim Hutton found Enrique Guzman guilty of two counts of vehicular homicide yesterday afternoon.
Guzman and four others were riding in a car on Interstate 82 near Grandview last September.
An argument ensued and Guzman grabbed the wheel, forcing the car off the road.
The 18-year-old driver and a 20-year-old were both killed in the crash.
Sentencing will take place within the next two weeks.
Guzman could spend the next three to four years behind bars.
After battling Mother Nature for more than a year, work crews have now completed repairs to the Yakima Greenway.
More than 100 people gathered yesterday to celebrate the grand opening of the Plath pathway
and grand reopening of the flood-damaged areas.
For the first time ever, Greenway path users can travel the entire 10 miles of paved trail from Myron Lake to Union Gap.
Spring floodwaters are once again threatening the pathway this year.
While turning to weather now, mostly to partly cloudy skies throughout the region today,
there is a chance of some thunderstorms mostly in Yakima and Kittitas counties,
but otherwise fairly pleasant high temperatures are expected to range from the high 70s in Ellensburg
to the high 80s down in the Tri-Cities.
Well, that's it for us this morning.
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you this afternoon for the local news at 5 and 530.
Now back to Good Morning America.
I'm Alex Peach.
Make it a great Thursday.
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You're watching Cap35 Yakima.
Here's some. We've got a problem.
We don't have any gasoline in our tractor, but anyhow we are going to perform.
Right after this break over there.
Bob, take it away.
Bob.
Bob here.
Good morning America. I'm Charles Gibson.
And I'm Joan Lunden.
And this young gentleman is a member of the Leningrad Cowboys.
They are one of the more unusual rock and roll bands you'll ever hear.
You call yourselves, what is it?
The world's worst?
We call ourselves a mess.
A mess.
The world's worst rock and roll band in the world.
His hair matches his shoes.
A rather distinctive appearance from these folks.
And rather distinctive shoes that he has.
Where did this hairstyle come from?
It's a natural hairstyle for us.
In the village we come from, every second person have this.
I mean the male persons.
Well anyway, they're going to be playing for us a little bit later on and singing.
They are a more unusual group as I say.
But we've talked about the fact that Finland is sort of wedged between Russia and Sweden.
Between the East and the West.
And that name Leningrad Cowboys actually sort of has both an Eastern and a Western reference.
Indeed. It's good for East and good for West.
I'm happy to realize that.
Very good.
Can't miss that in the name.
But they're going to be playing.
And we're going to talk a little bit about how that affects Finland being wedged right between the East and the West.
And they also have such extremes here.
I mean you're in the winter, they have long days, really really dark.
In the summertime they can have 24 hours of light.
I don't know what time it got dark last night, about midnight.
Just before midnight.
So Carolyn will take a look at what it's like to live with those kind of extremes.
And also we will learn how to tango as only they do in Finland.
All that.
I like to know that they can actually walk in these shoes.
That's right.
I'm very impressed.
We'll bring you back a pair Elizabeth.
Right now let's go to Elizabeth Vargas in New York for the news.
Actually I'd rather have the hairstyle.
Could you have him send his hairstylist over?
That is phenomenal.
Thanks Joan and Charlie.
Looking forward to hearing from the world's worst rock band in just a few minutes.
At any rate let's get to the news here in New York.
The space shuttle Atlantis is on its way to its sixth docking with the Russian space station Mir.
The mission that began before dawn this morning may be the most critical yet in the space partnership between the United States and Russia.
ABC's Morton Dean has the story.
The Atlantis is hauling a ton of replacement parts and repair equipment to the Russian space station Mir.
One possible metaphor for the Mir, it's become like an old trailer park home owned by a relative who's broke.