Swedish Summer

No sane person would travel to Sweden for business in end June and the entire July. Why? because no one works :) . Yeah, i learnt that the hard way yesterday. It was mid summer break. Next to christmas, this is the next biggie. Except for transportation, nothing else is alive! No food, not even fast food. Dont even think about shopping complexes as they are closed throughout the weekend.!

Almost every soul around stockholm, whom havent left the city, would congregate at Skansen, the heart of the swedish mid summer festivity. In short, the Midsummer celebrations are one of the highlights of the year, and at Skansen it lasts for three days. They make garlands of flowers and raise the maypole together with Skansen Folk Dance Team, fiddlers and perform ring dances. It is followed by singing, music, games and dancing round the maypole. In the evening there is a folk dance display and dancing on Skansen's outdoor dance floors. Okay, as usual, i'll shut up and let the pictures talk! If you cant listen, crank up the volume!

Summer flowers from the lawn are picked up and made into head bands. Everyone does it! We too, me and my colleagues Zurina & Tock Keong. Our friend Ida, a malaysian, married to a swedish, came along with us and helped us.

Once everyone had made their girly headbands, they congregate in this open area where a traditional pole erection ceremony takes place. It's supposed to be done culturally by ancient farmers those days. Before the pole is erected, it is decorated with summer flowers from the garden.Everyone will cheer and chant some swedish term....sounds like ooooovuaiii.... oooovuuuuaai ....while the native family slowly brings the pole up to erect position.

Now the pole is up, here's where the fun starts. It's dancing around the pole for hours. NO NO..not that kind of pole dancing you pervert! This is the traditional pole dancing around the skansen pole.

Some of these dances were so funny. I've uploaded one of it on you-tube. Go ahead and watch it.

>> Video removed as it severely degraded the performance of this blog! , stupid blogspot >>

It was funny & fun. How better to express summer if not for the bird, bees and the flowers?

This one was taken by the riverside.

His royal higness...again!

Next project..to take before and after shots. I took some pretty nice shots during winter. If you didnt see them, try this link. I'm revisitting some of these places and will show you a comparison of winter and summer, hopefully from the same spot.