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DC 2017, Helsinki 2017, Montreal 2017, or Nippon 2017, advocate your preference


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Mormont,

Who were Finns? Or who came from Sweden, Denmark, or Norway? There were Danes in the Danelaw. Should LonCon supporters have said "Come to Loncon and see Vikings"?

This brings a question to mind, are the North countries kind of blurred together by the rest of Europe similar to the way the MidWest and Plains states are in the US?

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And for the record it would be cool to see Helsinki I'm sure it is a wonderful city with great people. I'm not bashing Helsinki when I say Finns don't have the Viking tradition. I'm sure they have their own traditions that are wonderful Finnish saunas are a thing I've heard are cool to see, the Finns stopped Stalin cold when he invaded Finland.

Further, DC is a wonderful city in its own right. There are few museums on Earth that can rival any one of the Smithsonian Museums, much less all of them. You can take a vacation to DC and spend a day in each different museum and have had an incredibily full trip.

There is amazing food in and around DC. You name the food and four times out of five there will be a high quality restaraunt serving it anything from Soul Food to a Mongolian Grill, an Argentinian Steak House, or an Ethiopian Restaraunt will be available to you with high quality in DC.

The monuments and history (if you have an interest in US history (particularly the American Civil War)) in and around DC are beautiful and profound. As an American standing in Arlingtion National Cemetary ia incredibly moving. Walking among the fields at Manassas (Bull Run), or Sharpsburg (Antietam) is profound in ways I can't expound upon. Mt. Vernon is just across the Potomac and a little south of Alexandria were they've created a living history monument of Washington's home. You can even buy some of the Whiskey they make there based on Washington's own recipe.

World class performances of Ballet, Opera, Orchestras and any and all other cultural entertainments are to be had in DC.

And all of this is on top of a Worldcon set up and run by an absolutely top notch concom and crew.

I'm excited about a Worldcon I could get into my car and drive to where I don't have to beg, borrow, and steal for a place to stay (I have close family in DC) and were I could actually get there early and really help out.

I think Helsinki will do a credible job when they run their first Worldcon. I would very much like to travel and see Helsinki and its countryside. Just not in 2017.

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Not to derail... but, Finland was for a long time ruled by and part of Sweden. There were settlements of Swedes, Norwegians and Danes for a while before that. Whether they were native Finns or not seems irrelevant to me: there were Vikings in Finland for centuries. It's not a stretch to say that Finland has Vikings, historically speaking.

(Technically, by the way, Viking is something you do, not something you are by birth. If you go raiding, you are going 'viking'. So ethnic origin is doubly irrelevant.)

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Not to derail... but, Finland was for a long time ruled by and part of Sweden. There were settlements of Swedes, Norwegians and Danes for a while before that. Whether they were native Finns or not seems irrelevant to me: there were Vikings in Finland for centuries. It's not a stretch to say that Finland has Vikings, historically speaking.

(Technically, by the way, Viking is something you do, not something you are by birth. If you go raiding, you are going 'viking'. So ethnic origin is doubly irrelevant.)

And thus concludes our history lesson. btw that is a great point about Viking being an action not just a descriptor.

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Mormont,

But the cultural tradition was Norwegian, Danish, or Swedish, not Finnish. Therefore, saying "Helsinki has vikings" could be applied to Dublin as well, given that it was founded by Vikings. What if Normandy wanted a Worldcon couldn't they say "come see the Vikings (and have some amazing butter while your here)"? Heck, if the Ornkey's ever bid for a Worldcon they could say with great accuracy "Come see the Vikings".

Helsinki, will be a lovely place to see when it hosts its first Worldcon without attaching Swedish historical stuff to the capital of Finland.

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And for the record it would be cool to see Helsinki I'm sure it is a wonderful city with great people. I'm not bashing Helsinki when I say Finns don't have the Viking tradition. I'm sure they have their own traditions that are wonderful Finnish saunas are a thing I've heard are cool to see, the Finns stopped Stalin cold when he invaded Finland.

Further, DC is a wonferful city in its own right. There are few museums on Earth that can rival any one of the Smithsonian Museums, much less all of them. You can take a vacation to DC and spend a day in each different museum and have had an incredibily full trip.

There is amazing food in and around DC. You name the food and four times out of five there will be a high quality restaraunt serving it anything from Soul Food to a Mongolian Grill, an Argentinian Steak House, or an Ethiopian Restaraunt will be available to you with high quality in DC.

The monuments and history (if you have an interest in US history (particularly the American Civil War)) in and around DC are beautiful and profound. As an American standing in Arlingtion National Cemetary ia incredibly moving. Walking among the fields at Manassas (Bull Run), or Sharpsburg (Antietam) is profound in ways I can't expound upon. Mt. Vernon is just across the Potomac and a little south of Alexandria were they've created a living history monument to Washington'a home. You can even buy some of the Whiskey they make there based on Washington's own recipe.

World class performances of Ballet, Opera, Orchestras and any and all other cultural entertainments are to be had in DC.

And all of this is on top of a Worldcon set up and run by an absolutely top notch concom and crew.

I'm excited about a Worldcon I could get into my car and drive to where I don't have to beg, borrow, and steal for a place to stay (I have close family in DC) and were I could actually get there early and really help out.

I think Helsinki will do a credible job when they run their first Worldcon. I would very much like to travel and see Helsinki and its countryside. Just not in 2017.

Scott those are all great points.

One thing I would also ask is to look at the map of the site location. Off to the NW you can see some of the National Zoo. All the trees... and directly to the south is Rock Creek Park, with walking and bike paths to take you down to the Potomac and the Mall.

One of the growing businesses is Capital Bike Share. Allowing riders to go between their locations all over the city.

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Scott I've never been to Helsinki either. There are parts of the US that I'd like to one day spend the money to visit but DC just isn't one of them. I'm certain it's lovely but I'll never get to visit half the places I'd like to so unless I somehow come into a great deal of money there needs to be some prioritising.

However the reason I'm not going to pretend to be objective is because if Helsinki loses I would almost certainly spend the holiday money visiting Sweden again because family matters more than sightseeing alone.

Combining the trip I'd do anyway with seeing a bunch of great BWB people is hard to turn down.

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You're talking to the wrong half of the couple if you want to sell a place with heat :p

karaddin and I each spend about 50% of the year complaining about the temp so you may have better luck with her ;-)

Sydney has a pretty mild climate but mid-summer is still too hot for me! Especially since I seem to have developed an allergy to nearly all brands of sunscreen.

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On the subject of Vikings my brother was telling a story about some of his in-laws that made it sound like the urge to go Viking is still only shallowly buried :p maybe this is why Swedes are so nice and conflict averse.

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My brother is the much better story teller in the family sadly, you'll have to make do with my poorly remembered account.



He was sitting around at dinner with his extended in-laws (they are all Swedish - he lives in Sweden) and his aunt-in-law brings up how sometimes when she's walking down the street she will see some guy and just feel a random impulse to stab him in the neck with a big knife. My brother was sitting next to his sister-in-law and as the conversation goes on and all these other people chime in with "yeah I have random impulses to murder strangers too" he and Josefin (that's her name) are looking at each other going "I'm...a bit creeped out by this conversation, I don't have these feelings". One of them noticed and asked him what he thinks about when walking around the city and he's all "what am I going to have for lunch? that woman is beautiful, I wonder if she would have sex with me? etc but never I want to kill that stranger for no reason".



So now you too are clued onto the violent viking impulses at the heart of the wonderful Swedish state :p or alternatively my brothers in-laws are almost all psyhos, but they are wonderful bleeding heart lefties at the same time! I say almost all because Josefin was clearly with my brother lol


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