Midsommar and More!

I should really update this more often so that I don't have to cover as much each time I do it.

Friday the 22nd was Midsommar, one of Sweden's biggest holidays.  You can watch a video about it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZLpGOOA1Q.  Basically everything in that video is entirely true!  We did not have a sudden downpour, though.  A few of us made the flower crowns and we all danced around the pole.  It was a great day.  Elin, a Swedish student, lives in the same housing area as us now, so she came with us when we celebrated in Bredang, a suburb of Stockholm.  We got to see people in traditional clothing do the more complicated dances too. Here's a picture of Elin and Rachel being elephants!

Later that night we had a fire down at the beach.  On Saturday, we went out to dinner at Vapiano's, an Italian restaurant.  The food was delicious, and the atmosphere wonderful.  I wish it was easier to find traditional Swedish food here, but there is too much influence from the immigrants.

On Saturday, a group of us took a tour of the Royal Palace.  We also saw the Treasury, the Tre Kronor Museum and Gustav III's antique museum.  All were amazing and beautiful, but pictures were not allowed.  While we were at the palace, we saw the Changing of the Guard Ceremony.  The band from the Swedish Navy marches in and has a sort of concert while the guard changes.  It was really cool.  I took videos, so I'll figure out how to put those up at some point.

Today a few of us went to Hammarby Sjostad, a place on the outskirts of Stockholm that is being rebuilt into the ultimate sustainable city.  It was really cool!  Basically what they did here was tear it all down and start over from scratch.  You can find details about it here.  http://www.hammarbysjostad.se/inenglish/pdf/HS_miljo_bok_eng_ny.pdf.  If I were to live in Stockholm, this is where I would probably choose to live.  Because I love sustainability!  There are very few parking spaces, so as to encourage people to bike or use the public transit.  You can even take a boat as transportation! Sadly not included in my SL access card.  My favorite part was the trash receptacles, haha.  Here they are: