Traditional Midsummer celebrations
I’m not a great fan of the Midsummer holidays. Mainly because of the pressure, growing up, to go to some great party on Midsummer’s Eve, get really pissed and preferably make out with some great looking guy. But most of all, the notion that unless you do those things, you are a failure.
I’ve always felt rather rebellious against such notions, and have on several occations avoided doing anything in particular for that very reason (same thing goes for New Year’s). But this year I actually participated in some traditional Midsummer celebrations. In the daytime, though, so none of the booze/make out. :-)
K, my mom and I went to K’s mom in Rimbo for lunch, then headed to Tolvmansgården – a hembygdsgård nearby. For those of you not familiar with Swedish, a hembygdsgård is a building/buildings kept by a society that works for the preservation of the area’s old buildings, items and traditions. There the midsummer pole was up, of course, and people were dancing around it. I’ve never been fond of participating in the dance around the pole, but watching it is okay. We had coffee and checked the old houses and items in them out. It was almost like a museum. Lots of old farming tools, furniture, coffee tins etc. Nice.
Later on a folk dancing team arrived in traditional costumes. They did a few dances. One old guy could hardly move, but he participated none the less.
Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera.
We also went to Norrtälje, but all the restaurants and cafés were closed, so we ended up in McDonald’s. :-)
The countryside is nice up there. Lots of small farms and animals grazing.
Wednesday I went to an event hosted by Namni – the first ever (?) interactive Internet concert in Sweden. Patrik Isaksson was to play to a small group – 15-20 – of specially invited people, all the while the concert was broadcast on the Net and people could send him song requests and questions. I’m not a fan of Isaksson’s, but it was quite nice. The small room brought an intimacy that you don’t get on larger events, and the beer and chips were good. :)
Of course there were technical problems. No live event is complete without them. ;-) The ISP’s servers went down when Patrik was half way through the set. He told us some stories about life on the road, recording etc and played a few songs just for us.
A couple of months ago I joined an organisation called the Hospitality Club. The idea is that members – 16500 of them worldwide – visit other members for free, get tips about what to do and see, get invited for dinner etc. It’s a great idea, I think. When I joined I was very busy with moving, so I haven’t thought much about it since. But today I got an invitation to a member meeting in Stockholm. Should be interesting.
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