Midsummer Holiday

A cold struck the members of the Allen-Ford household, and we are both sniffly, weak messes. Specifically, one of us is demanding a lot of attention and the other is breaking into long, painful coughing fits (no names). We are also currently hosting our first house guests, who we graciously dragged to Fredriksdal this past weekend for our first Swedish Midsummer holiday.

Midsummer takes place every year around the summer solstice and is one of the most important holidays of the year. It is celebrated over two days, and there are some serious traditions that go along with it.

Food

During Midsummer, Swedes eat strawberries, pickled herring, and new potatoes while drinking snaps -- a strong, unsweetened liquor that is basically just vodka spiced with various things like cardamom, coriander, lemon, and anise. Because I didn't have the foresight to make any of my own snaps like many Swedes do, we picked up a small bottle of Skåne Akvavit from the Systembolaget, the only place to buy liquor in Sweden, just before they shut down for the four-day holiday weekend. Each of us received a dash of it in a plastic cup at our Midsummer celebration, but no one was really able to drink more than a sip because, well, it was gross. To be specific, it smelled and tasted like rubbing alcohol with a slightly spicy flavor.

Dancing Around the Maypole

We found a table near the maypole -- a tall, wooden pole with a conical structure made of rope near the top, all of which is decorated with greenery and topped with a Swedish flag. The maypole has pagan roots and is sometimes called the midsummer pole. I also read something about it being symbolic of procreation, which is actually kind of obvious if you really look at this thing.

  

At the start of the festivities, a horse-drawn carriage rode up with three musicians dressed in traditional clothing who took their place at the base of the maypole and began to perform traditional Swedish folk songs. People holding hands gathered in circles around the maypole and, as one woman led them in song, they began to dance. More specifically, they were circling the pole and doing various hand gestures with occasional hops. Here's a video of one where they hop around like frogs (and please note that some of these songs are literally about little frogs).

We saw one very sweet little boy of maybe three years old dancing around the maypole whose pants did not fit him so well and, whenever he bent over in a certain way, you could see the entirety of his tiny little butt. The whole maypole dancing lasted at least an hour, and it was only the first of several sessions scheduled at Fredriksdal over the two midsummer days.

Flowers

In addition to the food, dancing, and singing, many people weave together crowns of flowers and wear them on their heads. We even saw one dog wearing one, and I personally apologize to each of you for not getting a picture of him. I picked up a bouquet of flowers that morning, and we all tucked a few in our hair for the day at Fredriksdal.

While we unsurprisingly ended our party early and wound up in bed by 9 p.m., we heard people blasting music and celebrating deep into the night. On our midsummer morning walk through the woods near our apartment, Erin and I saw several discarded flower crowns, which either means that a very good or a very bad time was had in Helsingborg.

I hope everyone had a great midsummer holiday and a lovely summer solstice!

Iceland

I have so much to tell you about our trip to the magical, wondrous place that is Iceland.

Hallgrímskirkja in central Reykjavik

We flew to Reykjavik on Friday afternoon and took the Flybus from the airport to our hotel, a 50-minute journey through the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula. The flight from Cophenhagen only took three hours, but the overall journey from Helsingborg was a bit more challenging than expected. Thus, I found myself staring blankly out the bus window with bulging eyes and a throbbing headache when I saw it: a mother goat and her two babies on the lava rocks near the road. Since Erin did not see them and the rest of the bus was utterly silent, I wonder if the natural goat family was just a mirage. Did my mind merely create a nice thing to see at that exhausted moment?

This is what a lava field looks like: rocky, expansive, mossy, barren, eerie, lonely, wondrous. Feel free to imagine a goat family in this picture if you'd like: this blog is a judgment-free zone.

Here are a few facts about Iceland that I find especially interesting:

• Icelanders are trilingual; they speak Icelandic, English, and at least one other European language (usually Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish).
• There is a 100% literacy rate in Iceland, and one in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime. Reykjavik is a designated UNESCO City of Literature.
• Iceland is among the happiest countries in the world and has topped the list in many years. This article explains why Icelanders are so happy.
• The mayor of Reykjavik, Jon Gnarr, dresses in drag for the annual pride parade.
• There are 100,000 horses in Iceland for a total population of just over 300,000 people. That's a ratio of one horse for every three people. The horses live outside all year long and sure seem to have a good life.
• By law, cows are required to spend the entire summer outdoors. 
• Nearly all of the heat and hot water and a good chunk of their electricity comes from geothermal power, which is 100% green energy. Because of this, the hot water smells a little sulfurous. The water in the tap is the cleanest in the world.

Downtown Reykjavik

After checking in at the hotel and freshening up with a shower and a cocktail, we went out on foot to downtown Reykjavik, a mere five-minute walk from our front door. It's incredibly small for a capital city and feels a bit more like a hip vacation town that is filled with people wearing outdoorsy clothing and a surprising number of American and Canadian tourists. We tried to compare it to places like Marquette and Portland, but the truth is that Reykjavik is not like any other. Since tourism jumped from 500,000 visitors in 2012 to 1,000,000 in 2014, Iceland's largest city is full of tourist shops selling crafts, postcards, and t-shirts that say things like, "I wear my sunglasses at night in Iceland." It is filled with brightly colored, quaint houses and sits on the North Atlantic Ocean with a view of snow-capped mountains. It is jam-packed with bars that stay open until 5:00 a.m., interesting restaurants and gastropubs offering a surprising array of ethnic foods and vegetarian options alongside some of the best seafood in the world, and a lot of attractive, tattooed artist types.

Though my weather app claims that the sun sets around midnight and rises again around 2:00 a.m., we did not see a moment of darkness while we were there, and I personally believe the sun merely takes a quick fika and then reappears. It is high in the sky at 3:00 a.m., and blackout curtains are attached to every window. This is in direct contrast to the winters when there are only a handful of daylight hours. Icelanders manage to stay happy, though, even in the dark.

The midnight sun did keep us out later than usual, though Icelanders are known for barhopping all night long on the weekends. We stayed out until 11:00 p.m., and our first meal consisted of a shared tomato flatbread, shrimp mini tacos for Erin, and falafel mini tacos for me. Falafel tacos? Yeah, they were delicious.

The Blue Lagoon

We did our duty as tourists and bussed out to the Blue Lagoon on our first full day in Iceland after a typical Nordic breakfast at the hotel (there are no trains in Iceland, and most travel takes place by car or bus). The Blue Lagoon's website lists it as one of the 25 wonders of the world. Though I wonder which list their marketing department is looking at to make this claim, it was an absolutely amazing experience and I encourage every one of my readers to go there. Like, soon. 

Go ahead. I'll wait.

The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa within the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula. It is filled with salt water that is heated to 104 degrees and that naturally replenishes itself every 48 hours. Upon entry, you are given a plastic bracelet that acts as an in-spa credit card and told to saturate your hair with conditioner and to leave it in the whole time you are bathing. Though I conditioned mine twice, it still felt a bit like hay when we left. 

Bathers are told to shower fully naked before entering the lagoon, an Icelandic tradition that takes place before swimming in any sort of public pool, but we are Americans and so we cheated by keeping our bathing suits on. After showering and then walking out into the 50-degree air outside, the chill on my body was instantly relieved by the soft warmth of the lagoon. Writing that sentence just made me close my eyes and do an internal "aaaahhhh," because that's exactly how it felt.

  

There is a great deal of silica in the water, and there are vats of the stuff in a couple places near the bathing area which you can use to coat your skin, let sit for 5 - 10 minutes, and then rinse off in the lagoon. It's basically a mud mask, and the silica is supposed to have restorative properties. We saw one bald man with his entire head and chest covered so that he looked like a mud man, and another guy with a full coating on his face and his perfectly clean glasses carefully set upon his nose. 

The floor of the lagoon is lava rock with a little bit of sand over the top, though the rock is as smooth as glass from the salt and minerals. There is also a bar where bathers can walk up and order a beer, smoothie, or glass of wine while in the lagoon. You can bet your buns that we had a couple plastic cups full of Gull, an Icelandic beer, while sitting on a glassy ledge in the lagoon and talking about how lucky we are. 

The Golden Circle and Free Nipples

The next day, we took a six-hour bus tour through the Golden Circle, which refers to the three stops we made at a national park called Þingvellir, a waterfall called Gullfoss ("golden falls"), and a valley containing a very active geyser called Strokkur. Our tour guide was a lovely older woman named Fanny who likes to hang glide and who is very passionate about Icelandic horses.

Þingvellir was our first stop. Do not ask me to pronounce this. What's especially remarkable about this national park is that it is where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates come together in the Mid-Atlantic ridge. These two plates are moving apart at a pace of 2 cm each year. Fanny told us that this is also the length that your fingernails grow in a year. We were able to hike out to the edge of the North American plate, which overlooks the largest natural lake in Iceland. Once again, pictures fail to do it justice, but here you go.

Our next stop was at Gullfoss. Pure majesty. I actually choked up here. From here, you can also see Iceland's second-largest glacier, which basically just looks like a vast expanse of snow in the mountains.

Our final stop on the tour was to see Strokkur, a geyser that erupts every 4 - 6 minutes. It is located in a geothermal area within a valley that contains other geothermal pools and another, less active geyser called Geysir. The area around the walkway is roped off, and we were warned ahead of time that the water on the ground is boiling, which was only apparent because the ground was steaming in many places. We hung around and watched Strokkur show off at least five or six times; I may have never seen Erin so happy or excited. We also made a stop at the travel shop, where we each ate a container of Skyr, a kind of Icelandic yogurt.

After the tour, we made our way back to central Reykjavik, which was experiencing the warmest day of the year after a long and difficult winter, and we took our place amongst the crowd. Loads of people soaking up the sun were piled on a lawn in a square near several bars and restaurants where a band was playing. Several women were laying topless on the grass, and many others were wearing t-shirts with breasts drawn on them. I later learned that something called the Free Nipple Movement was happening; it's a campaign against the censorship of women's breasts, and this was their second "free the nipple" event. We also hiked up to Hallgrímskirkja, the Lutheran church that overlooks much of the city.

Though I could probably go on and on about how much we loved Iceland and what an amazing trip we had, I will leave you with one final note: there was a small baby sitting behind us on the flight home. While still parked at the gate, she reached between the seats and pinched my arm twice. On another occasion, she reached through and held my index finger. At one point during the flight, she touched Erin's hair. I was pretty happy with the arrangement until a few minutes after takeoff when she started screaming and did not stop. For three hours.

Happy Midsummer's to my Swedish friends! 

Graduation, Football, and Flowers

Erin through a garden window at Sofiero.

Helsingborg was one heck of a happening place this weekend, starting with a city-wide graduation celebration on June 5. 

Graduation Day

Unfortunately, I missed the start of the event when graduates from various schools come pouring down the Kärnan castle steps. However, I did make it to city center just as a flatbed truck was parking on the main road. Decorated with Swedish colors and tree branches, this truck held a dancing DJ and was blasting club music. Dozens of well-dressed graduates wearing what appeared to be sailor hats climbed aboard with bottles of champagne and proceeded to dance and shout. Hundreds of people lined the streets, many holding large signs of their graduate as a little kid. Eventually, more and more trucks formed a kind of parade, some carrying as many as 50 or more dancing grads who threw confetti, blew whistles, and danced to "Turn Down for What." It was so exciting!

The short video below gives a little taste of the Grad Day parade; if you're at work, you might want to turn down the volume on your computer.

"Don't act like you're not impressed."

Swedish National Day and Non-American Football

The next day was Saturday, June 6 and The National Day of Sweden. I'd read that this day is not widely celebrated, but many shops and restaurants were closed anyway. Wedding ring shopping was postponed yet again.

We had tickets to see our first football game at Olympia Stadium that afternoon, which is a 20ish minute walk from our apartment. I noticed with some humor that the spectators drank coffee instead of overpriced, low-quality beer in plastic cups like they do at every sporting event in the US. They also constantly sang and chanted in unison -- and I do mean constantly. There was one guy with a megaphone leading them all; the poor guy's face was purple 20 minutes into the first half, and I could see the veins popping out of his forehead from 30 feet away.

At halftime, a group of men came out on the field wearing what appeared to be plastic bubbles covering the upper half of their bodies. A sprinkler was turned on, and the men began kicking around a ball while they slipped and fell on the grass. We later met one of the bubble wearers at our favorite bar. He was completely dressed in Swedish colors, including a blue and yellow wig that looked like a mop head. He was super friendly and chatted with us a bit and clinked his glass with ours before turning back to his friends to sing a loud, drunken Swedish song. We didn't realize that Erin had unknowingly snapped a photo of him before we'd even met; that's him in the second pic below. Skål! 

I'm happy to report that Helsingborg beat the pants off Åtvidabergs 3-0.

Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester

After we left the football game and before we met Friendly Swedish Bubble Man, we made our way on foot to the square outside Dunkers Kulturhaus and caught the last 20 minutes of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra performing a free concert for a crowd of quiet observers. One female opera singer came out for a song and gave me the chills. They closed the show with the Swedish national anthem, "Du Gamla, Du Fria," while everyone within earshot stood, many singing along.

This unexpected concert and the Graduation Day celebration are perfect examples of what I love about Swedish culture: there is always something going on here that encourages being outdoors, being active, and being together as a community. It all feels very genuine and refreshing and I'm so grateful to be experiencing it.   

Return to Sofiero

We closed the weekend with a return trip to Sofiero to see their brilliant rhododendrons in full bloom. The first pic below is one I took of the castle in early May; the second is one I took this past Sunday.

This is yet another instance of pictures being unable to capture the true beauty of a place, but hey, I do what I can.

Next week's blog will detail our adventures in Iceland. Stay tuned!

Ystad and Beer

The weather in this town could really stand to get its act together. It factored into our decision to forgo a last-minute weekend trip to Göteborg, Sweden's second-largest city, and has been something of a general killjoy. Instead, we opted to keep our adventures local and try to rest up for the very busy summer ahead.

Ystad

Last week, my friend Julie and I braved the dark skies and hopped on a train to a little town in southern Skåne called Ystad, which is best known as the setting and primary filming location for the British television series Wallander. At their tourist center, you can sign up for a tour called "In the Footsteps of Wallander" or purchase any number of Wallander memorabilia, including coffee mugs and t-shirts. We did not do any of these things. Instead, we walked all over the place, covering most of the town in just a couple of hours, and marveled at the cozy half-timbered houses that line the winding, cobble-stoned streets. Some of the houses are 500 years old!

We also explored the grounds of Gråbrödraklostret -- Grey Friars' monastery -- and its well-manicured gardens as well as St. Mary's church, both of which date back to the 13th century. The monastery doubles as a museum that seemed to have had some sort of anticlimactic textile exhibit going on, though that may be presumptuous of me since we didn't actually go inside. 

Over the centuries, the monastery has served as a church, poorhouse, hospital, granary, and distillery. Since at least the 17th century, a night watchman has looked over the place and blows a horn every 15 minutes from 21:15 until 01:00 each night to let the citizens and guests of Ystad know that they are being cared for and watched over. The Ystad website notes that the watchman "now telephones the emergency services if anything untoward happens," so we can all rest easy. 

The friar below was standing nearby. His face makes me very, very happy.

Helsingborg's Brewery

After extending our usual late-morning Saturday fika to wait out the crazy wind and rain that has basically become a character in our Swedish story, Erin and I hopped on a bus and made our way to Helsingborg Brewery's oxhallen, a small marketplace in which they serve beer alongside other stalls selling produce, cooked sausage, handmade soap, and candles, among other things. (For you Detroiters, it's kind of like a mini Royal Oak Farmer's Market without all the secondhand junk.) While seated at the brewery's unsturdy, handmade bar, we ordered a flight of the four beers on tap -- pilsner, wit, lager, and coffee stout. 

The bartender let us know that the coffee stout was made with Zoéga's coffee, whose roasting plant is located a stone's throw from our apartment.

This weekend, we will be taking care of a big dog named JP, which means that at least one of my wishes will come true. Until next time!