Nordic Adventures

I'm about to transform to a more Nordic surname, Ingebritson, so I thought an event for "Nordic Jazz Week" at the Embassy of Finland would be a good chance to learn more about Nordic culture.

The Ambassdor said that Finnish jazz is "unique" and by that I think he meant it sounds like playing a piano with ice picks accompanied by a yelping puppy, because that was essence of the two fifteen minute pieces we heard.

Photo: Staircase in Embassy of Finland down to event space. View of Rock Creek Park out the windows downstairs.

In my view, the event was one of my best finds of the year. On a Tuesday night, this was a free chance to see the inside of an Embassy, meet people from all over the world, sample bounties of Finnish food and Finlandia vodka, and watch live music in a beautifully designed setting with Rock Creek Park in the background.

Combined with the Nordic hook, the Finnish Embassy is also the first "green" Embassy in the U.S., so it was an environmental tour, too. The Embassy received its Gold LEED status last year. Tom is LEED certified, so I thought that would be another reason he would like to see the Embassy. He was not disappointed and took photos everywhere.

Photo: Kari Mokko, press secretary and spokesman of the Embassy of Finland. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

The Finnish Embassy is famous for its sauna, which Tom really wanted to visit, but that was not part of the jazz event. The Washington Post wrote a nice feature on the dignitaries visiting the sauna, link here.

Graduation Speech Season!

May makes me giddy, because I love to track the line-up of celebrity graduation speeches. Most are not noteworthy, but there's usually one or two worth checking out.

This year, I marked Amy Poehler's speech at Harvard on my calendar, video above. She calls Harvard grads "wicked smott" and has many funny lines.

The gems of past years include Samantha Power's inspirational speech and Will Ferrell's hilarious one, where he pretends to arrive at a boat show, dressed as a captain.


I started my hobby of following graduation speeches when I first read Will Ferrell's address at Harvard's Class Day in 2003. Text link. Video link.

If you have the graduation speech fever like me, here's a link to CNBC post on "The 10 Best Graduation Speeches."