Valborg!

So!

Bart and Nicole visited us last saturday till wednesday, to experience a typical swedish Valborg, or at least Valborg as experienced by the typical Uppsala student. But first it was time on sunday for them to get to view the city center of Stockholm again, after almost three years had passed. So many 'oh ja!' moments, and actually also something new where we hadn't been before: Sodermalm, where you can find old houses dating from the late 18th century and where you can get some fantastic views on gamla stan and the rest of Stockholm.

And then on monday, it was Valborg time. The tradition of Valborg throughout the country is to light big fires and maybe throw that old crap chair of yours from the attic into it. Well, in Uppsala, we haven't seen one single fire, let alone someone throwing a chair in it! Nevertheless, a very interesting day indeed! We were meeting Kristin, someone that Bart met during his study in Groningen. We set out from stockholm on monday morning with the 7:30 bus to arrive in time for the first activity in Uppsala, namely breakfast! And when you say Uppsala-Valborg breakfast, that doesn't mean bread with cheese, no way! It's strawberries with champagne! And also 'havregryn' with 'lingonsylt' and 'mellanmjolk' (or in other words, porridge with jam and milk), to actually fill your stomach. I was kind of happy I had my first breakfast at 7 in the morning before this one, unlike some other people in the room :-).
After that, it's time for lunch (yes, time goes quickly!). Traditionally this consists of potatoes with sil (herring), raw and in any particular sauce you fancy. Since some stomachs already start turning when hearing the word 'sil', we made sure the potatoe salad alone was enough as well. The lunch was outdoors, on a large open field. Apparently there was a band playing as well. We only heard someone trying in vain to get the attention of the crowd, which was mainly occupied with talking to eachother and listening to the music coming from their soundblasters. Although there was quite a cold wind, there was quite some sun as well, making it a relatively nice day anyhow.
So, lunch is finished, the day isn't over yet, what to do now?! Easy enough! Let's go to the 'champagne-galoppet' (they do like champagne, the uppsala students). This is quite a bizar and hilarious phenomenon, where everyone goes to their nation of interest, buys bottles of champagne and sprays everyone completely wet with champagne. It officially starts at 3, but by then many people are so drunk that when they start shaking their champagne bottle they fall over on the floor. We spent most of the time during this event observing all the swedes, and me and bart participating once as well, which was quite fun actually.
Then when everyone was soacked with champagne we went back to Kristin's place, so they could take a shower to get rid of all the champagne, we weren't really that wet. Then it took quite a long time until we went on for the bbq, mainly because Kristin and her boyfriend sort of past out on their bed for some time. But at last, after some time we went for the bbq, having our sausages and pork chops and homemade garlic sauce, after which the evening ended for us and we went back to Stockholm.
So all in all, a very interesting day and experience, and a nice relaxed day afterwards.

So, that was our first Valborg for us! Maybe next year we'll see some fires :-). Bart and Nicole, thanks for bringing the 'ouwe kaas', the 'fietstassen' and for coming over!

Byebye,
Jeroen