On Friday morning Jessie & I were up early to join the rest of the Swedish population heading out of Stockholm for the weekend to their summerhouses in the archipelago to celebrate Midsommar. Midsommar is the celebration of the summer solstice in Sweden, which is the longest day of the year. In a country that only gets a couple hours of light during the days in winter, this is definitely a reason to celebrate!

We piled onto the bus with dozens of other people carting over night bags, then onto the metro, onto a train, & finally onto the ferry boat that would take us out through the archipelago to Mefjard where we would meet Jessie's friend Tess & her family. At the dock where we were catching the ferry we met Tess's other friends who be joining us for the weekend: Niclas & Sidrah (recently married 2 weeks before), Jessica & her boyfriend Joakim, & Gustav and his American friend Bob. The boat was packed but Jessie & I each managed to find a single seat for the hour long journey.

When we arrived out at an island nearby Mefjar, Tess's boyfriend was waiting to meet us with a smaller boat to drive us back to the island where we would be staying. Because the island where the Bojler's (Tess's family) have their house is so small, there are no roads or cars there, & the ferries don't dock there either, so you basically need to have a boat to reach it! We were greeted on the dock by Tess & her younger sister Zeb (who has been living in Sydney for the past year…btw Zeb is short for Zebine!), & by their two dogs Honey & Elliot. They are the most gorgeous dogs, bear dogs I call them - giant & fluffy with gorgeous teddy bear faces. They are a little shy by nature though, & Elliott (despite looking kinda tough) is the biggest scaredy cat I've ever met! He's only 9 months old & has been living with the family for about 3 weeks now & has some serious trust & anxiety issues (Rod & Kay, he is worse than Dug!!). He wimpers every time anyone so much as moves a foot under the table & will only let Marilyn (Tess & Zebs's Mum) pat him.

We met Marilyn & Tjell (pronounced like "shell", Tess & Zeb's Dad) up at the house, which is just gorgeous. There are three tiny wooden houses on the property all painted a deep terracotta red with white window & door frames (which is a very traditional Swedish thing) & they are just so quaint & cute. Zeb, Jessie, & I were staying in the middle house so we dropped our things there & got settled in before returning to the main house to get ready for lunch.

We drank wine in the sun & gathered round the big table on the deck to have a big Swedish Midsommar feast. There were meatballs, boiled potatoes, & the weird fermented herring stuff that Jessie had been telling me about ever since I made my plans to come to Sweden. Not particularly liking fish at the best of times I was skeptical but I agreed to try it anyway as part of the cultural experience :P Hmm…slimey…haha Well, that's that experience experienced! :P But the rest of the lunch was amazingly delicious & they had about 5 different types of Bearnaise sauce, which seemed to be a very popular accompaniment to pretty much every type of food we ate. There were special toasts & Swedish songs, and the whole meal had a really special, celebratory feel to it.

Marilyn is American but has lived in Sweden for about 30 years now & can speak both English and Swedish, & most of the other Swedes there were fluent in English as well, even though some of them (Jessie included) insist they can't speak it very well! Well, it sounds pretty damn good to me! Every now & then they would slip into a babble of Swedish & I would just quietly listen to a language that doesn't even sound like words to me & has so many different sounds to it when compared to English. It was just so cool to be in such a truly Swedish place eating authentic Swedish food with lovely Swedish people!

In the afternoon we moved down to the deck behind the middle house the read & laze about while people took turns playing games on the lawn. There was the average volleyball game & then an interesting traditional Swedish game involving 2 teams of 3 people standing opposite each other & trying to knock down little stakes of wood by throwing other chunks of wood at them…hmm…interesting! Haha So the cultural experience continues! Later on, sleeping from the sun & the wine, Jessie & I napped for a couple of hours with warm sunlight streaming through the windows of the cottage.

In the evening we gathered around the table on the deck again for more potatoes, Bearnaise sauce, & other scrumptious foods. We talked & drank & laughed for hours before finally retreating inside when the sun dipped below the horizon late in the evening & it almost instantly began to feel freezing cold. Marilyn lit a fire & she, Zeb, & I huddled around it, warming our toes. Marilyn having grown up a California girl, & Zeb having spent the last year in Sydney (+ me being an Aussie), meant both they & I were all really feeling the cold! Eventually we made our way back down to our cabin, full, warm, happy, & satisfied, for a lovely, long night's sleep :)