Midsummer

 

 

I can't let Midsummer pass without trotting out a few of my favorite pictures from 2007 when we celebrated "Midsommer" in Sweden. I was reminded of our trip by an article in the newspaper this morning that quoted a Swedish tourism website describing Midsommer as a holiday "dedicated to eating, drinking, dancing and assorted pagan rituals, second only in significance to Christmas".

 

 

Those Swedes know how to party (but BYOB - they don't sell it at the festival).  Nothing says fun like doing the Swedish Frog Dance with 20,000 new friends! A few other memorable moments were being invited out to the bars by a Norwegian guy, the perfect timing of a young Swedish lad who mooned the crowd just as the maypole was raised and watching a teenage girl steal a Swedish flag from a church at about midnight.

 

We won't judge the Swedes by their behavior at festivals! (That's probably a good life lesson for anywhere in the world) They were wonderfully hospitable people. We chit-chatted (in English) with a young  construction worker on the train for several hours and a young man working at the hotel we stayed at picked us up late at night since the trains weren't running.

 

This is our last picture (sometime after midnight) where the sun never sets at midsummer. Tonight's sunset here is at 9:04pm following 15 hours, 37 minutes of daylight. The Pfeifers are coming over tonight and we'll toast the Swedes with American burgers on the grill, German Potato Salad, Tanzanian Jicama & Pineapple Salad and perhaps a little German Bier und Wein.