Glad Midsommer! - by Jenni

Selfie in Sweden.

And a full view of The Jacket

We are now 1000 miles further from home, and home has followed us, in the form of news reports, anguished FB posts and inches (OK, kilobytes) of columns written about the racist terrorism in Charleston, SC. I don't have anything profound to say; I can't express my grief and anger in words. Here in Sweden at this time of year, there isn't any real darkness. In the US....well, I'll leave the metaphor to you. I had to acknoweldge the tragedy at home before saying any more about our adventures abroad.

Deep breath.

When I remember the Swedish countryside, I will think of lupines.

photo credit to David

We used to have lupines in our garden, and I've always loved them. I love them even more now that I've seen them growing over the hillsides and ditches and roadbanks and in the yards everywhere. Emma used to have a picture book about a woman who planted lupines the make the world more beautiful. I've been thinking of Mrs. Rumphius all day (and of Meg Tuttle, who gave us the book).

We arrived here (Kristinehamn, two hours west of Stockholm by train) after a long day of travel through what is clearly the Swedish equivalent of the day before Thanksgiving. Imagine Grand Central or Union Station or your local equivalent on that Wednesday, with the added fun of not understanding any of the annoucements or signs, and that's what it was like in the Central Terminal of the Stockholm Train Station yesterday. Luckily, the train ticketing machines have English screens and helpful attendants and we found our way to a warm welcome from Gunilla and Leif.

Gunilla is my sister-in-law's mother (Joe's wife Susanne is Swedish). She and Leif live just outside of Kristinehamn and they have been excellent hosts. They have fed us traditional Swedish food, toured us around this gorgeous area, and explained the traditions of Midsommer.

Kristinehamn sits on the edge of Lake Vänern, a popular summer tourist destination. I can see why.

The lake is huge and magnificent and full of sailboats and motorboats and fishing boats. The shores have little cottages and huge elegant homes and campsites. And flowers - so many flowers. Flowers are very important in Midsommer. The legend says that if a young girl picks seven kinds of flowers and sleeps with them under her pillow, she will dream of the man she is going to marry.

Emma didn't pick any flowers.

Gunilla and Leif picked us up today at the hotel in Kristinehamn and took us to see the lake and some local historic sites (mostly closed for the holiday) and then we visited Jacqueline.

Emma for scale. She's 5'4".

In the mid-1960s, Pablo Picasso was experimenting with large-scale sculptures using concrete, and a local Swedish artist convinced him that Kristinehamn was the perfect place for one of his pieces. Picasso agreed, and this tribute to the artist's wife was dedicated 50 years ago.

We had a preview of coming attractions near the statue.

Traditional Swedish dress varies by region, county and even town. Gunilla says you're not supposed to pick the one you like best, but rather choose one that you have some family connection with.

After we visited Jacqueline, we had ice cream. Leif has a sweet tooth and Emma was a perfect excuse for a treat. The ice cream was good - not as good as Paris. Then again, it was ice cream. We drove around and looked at more of the lake - always gorgeous.

Then we stopped for a fika - coffee and snack. The weather has been unusually rainy and we took our raincoats and umbrella with us into the field for the traditional Midsommer rites.

This is a very awkward picture of the Midsommer pole. It should look like this

picture taken from a Swedish tourism site

There was a procession of townspeople in traditional dress, followed by a strenous and somewhat terrifying pole-raising. I was too entranced to take any pictures (plus it was drizzling). Then there was folk dancing around the pole. I'll have to do some reading about accordions, or accordion-like instruments, which seem to show up in folk music across many different cultures. There were two accordions and a few fiddles accompanying the dancers.

The dancers, apparently members of the local folk-dancing society, performed four or five different dances and then left to raise Midsommer poles in other towns, and the field was suddenly full of children and their grownups dancing in loosely organized circles to melodies that all sounded vaguely familiar. I swear, one was a dead ringer for "Itsy-Bitsy Spider".  I'll have to do some reading about the history of accordions, which seem to show up in folk music across of lot of different cultures. The dancers were accompanied by two accordions and several fiddles. They ran in, they ran out, they went one way then the other. They hopped and skipped and sang along and at one point they all fell down and laughed uproariously. Leif said "It's 3:30 and everywhere in Sweden, everyone is dancing". Emma said "We don't have anything like that in America. There's nothing we do all together, not even Thanksgiving".

We left there just ahead of the end of the dancing - beating the traffic is a cross-cultural experience - and went back to Leif and Gunilla's "the old way". The dirt road through the forest left us with no doubts about why they usually drive the new way; it also gave us gorgeous views of the lake and lots of familiar-but-different birds. We saw deer and Emma caught a glimpse of a fox's tail. We didn't see any elk (I think we might call them moose) or bears (phew) or beavers.

Dinner was traditional Midsommer food.

note Midsommer pole on the table.

"Traditional Midsommer food" includes several different kinds of herring, salmon two ways (gravlax and poached fresh salmon), potatoes, schnapps and strawberries.

Then we rolled back to the hotel...

and said good night. It's currently 11:30 PM and it's twilight. 

Good night.