MissZooropa
Refugee
So, here I am at WORK!! When everyone else is celebrating my favorite holiday, midsummer. So I just thought I do my own little celebrating by giving you a thread about this fabolous and lovely holiday since Sweden is pretty much the only country in the world having this holiday (Finland and Denmark have something fairly similar).
First off, an ironic explanation by an englishman how midsummer is celebrated.
This is celebrated on the weekend coming closest to the real midsummer day, 24th of June. A mass exodus takes place just before with thousands of Swedes evacuating the towns and cities and heading for their weekend cottages in the country. They erect a maypole, erect being the operative word as in fact it is a pagan symbol of fertility. It looks like a long thing with two round dangly bits! They dress it up in leaves and flowers (the maypole, that is) and then spend the afternoon dancing around it pretending to be small frogs. It's true.
Swedes eat new potatoes and pickled herring (of course). Before long, it is not only the herring which is pickled as they do end to
imbibe large quantities of beer and akvavit. No wonder they dance like frogs afterwards.
Another important dish on the menu is fresh strawberries and cream. No foreign watery, tasteless EU-regulated
strawberries, but large, curvy, juicy, sweet Swedish ones.
The maypole:
The traditional flower ring in the hair
Midsummer is the holiday of romance (but not like Valentines day at all) This is the holiday when ALOT of people meet , at the parties, next year they get engaged and the year after that they marry, kind of. This is a romantic holiday not only for couples but almost more for those who are single.
It's the shortest night of the year and where I live it gets dark around midnight and gets light again at 2-2.30. As a girl/woman you should pick seven different kind of flowers and put them under you pillow and you will dream of your future husband. But you should do it between sunset and sunraise and you are not allowed to talk to anyone while doing it.
There are two days of the year when the weather can't be more important, it's christmas, we want snow of course and it's midsummer when we want sun and warmth. Some years the weather have been the same on christmas and midsummer, 8-9 degrees and rain, NOT fun. It looks good for today though, at least sunny, not too warm.
As mentioned above, what EVERY swede eat on midsummer is new potatoes, pickled herring with sour cream (a special kind) and chopped onion. And the strawberries with cream or vanilla ice cream and it's real strawberries, also as mentioned above, tasty, juicy swedish ones. This is the menu, take it or leave it pretty much. I usually leave the pickled herring, but new potatoes is so tasty that's enough. And it leaves more space for strawberries. Of course it's the snaps (scnapps) which is heavily drunk.....
So this is what everyone else does today, while I'm at work. Hopefully at least the company will provide us with some strawberries.
I know swedish organisations around the world usually arrange smaller midsummer celebrations, I think it usually is one somewhere on Manhattan in NY and in Minnesota I have no doubts you can find it. If you have a chance, go and check it out and don't forget about the seven flowers girls... who knows who might show up in you dreams.
Cheers everyone and happy midsummer!
First off, an ironic explanation by an englishman how midsummer is celebrated.
This is celebrated on the weekend coming closest to the real midsummer day, 24th of June. A mass exodus takes place just before with thousands of Swedes evacuating the towns and cities and heading for their weekend cottages in the country. They erect a maypole, erect being the operative word as in fact it is a pagan symbol of fertility. It looks like a long thing with two round dangly bits! They dress it up in leaves and flowers (the maypole, that is) and then spend the afternoon dancing around it pretending to be small frogs. It's true.
Swedes eat new potatoes and pickled herring (of course). Before long, it is not only the herring which is pickled as they do end to
imbibe large quantities of beer and akvavit. No wonder they dance like frogs afterwards.
Another important dish on the menu is fresh strawberries and cream. No foreign watery, tasteless EU-regulated
strawberries, but large, curvy, juicy, sweet Swedish ones.
The maypole:
The traditional flower ring in the hair
Midsummer is the holiday of romance (but not like Valentines day at all) This is the holiday when ALOT of people meet , at the parties, next year they get engaged and the year after that they marry, kind of.
This is a romantic holiday not only for couples but almost more for those who are single.It's the shortest night of the year and where I live it gets dark around midnight and gets light again at 2-2.30. As a girl/woman you should pick seven different kind of flowers and put them under you pillow and you will dream of your future husband. But you should do it between sunset and sunraise and you are not allowed to talk to anyone while doing it.
There are two days of the year when the weather can't be more important, it's christmas, we want snow of course and it's midsummer when we want sun and warmth. Some years the weather have been the same on christmas and midsummer, 8-9 degrees and rain, NOT fun. It looks good for today though, at least sunny, not too warm.
As mentioned above, what EVERY swede eat on midsummer is new potatoes, pickled herring with sour cream (a special kind) and chopped onion. And the strawberries with cream or vanilla ice cream and it's real strawberries, also as mentioned above, tasty, juicy swedish ones.
This is the menu, take it or leave it pretty much. I usually leave the pickled herring, but new potatoes is so tasty that's enough. And it leaves more space for strawberries. Of course it's the snaps (scnapps) which is heavily drunk.....So this is what everyone else does today, while I'm at work. Hopefully at least the company will provide us with some strawberries.
I know swedish organisations around the world usually arrange smaller midsummer celebrations, I think it usually is one somewhere on Manhattan in NY and in Minnesota I have no doubts you can find it. If you have a chance, go and check it out and don't forget about the seven flowers girls... who knows who might show up in you dreams.
Cheers everyone and happy midsummer!
