I celebrated the Midsummer in a city called Gälve. Before coming back, I did not even know it is further than Stockholm, hah! It was a long drive to get there, but the scenery in the country side of Sweden we passed through was so green and beautiful. It was sort of a compensation to the fatigue trip.

My friends stopped at the city Avesta to show me the biggest Dalahäst (Dala-horse, which it would be in English) statue in the world. It is called Dalahäst because it is from the area named Dalarna in Sweden. I am not sure that if it is correct that the statue is six meters hight. I felt it was higher than that.

In Sweden, the midsummer is a big festival. The closest Friday after the summer solstice is the midsommarafton (midsummer evening), on which the celebration is. The tradition for midsummer evening is to have a big pole with two rings, decorated with flowers and branches, around which people dance and have fun. The event organized by the community was in the central park in Gälve. Performers in traditional clothes started to dance first, then everyone joined. The traditional clothes were said to be very exclusive, all hand-made.

There is a myth, probably just a myth, that the pole stands for genitals. So that is to say that the whole ceremony has derived from the worship of fertility.

People danced around it, imitating piggies, frogs, birds and possibly other animals. It was really really fun to watch.

It is indeed a romantic festival, Swedes say. An old tradition is that people pick 7 kinds of flowers and put them under the pillows in the midsummer evening. Then people will dream about the ones they are going to marry.

The traditional food are herring (sill in Swedish) or salmon (lax in Swedish), fresh potatoes and strawberries as desert.

Midsummer of this year is over, the sun sets earlier and earlier each day. I did not dream about anything special that night instead my back hurt a lot because of sleeping on an air mattress. Despite all these, it is unforgettable experience of Sweden. The taste of fresh potato and sweet strawberry will be the good memory of a whole year.

On the way back to Halmstad. Home, sweet home.

/Carmen

Yesterday, 21st June, is the Summer Solstice. In Swedish, its name is Sommarsolståndet.

“A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun’s apparent position in the sky reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes.” (Wikipedia) Hence there are two solstices in one year. One, when the sun reaches its northernmost, is called Summer Solstice to people who live on the Northern Hemisphere, in another word, the northern part of our earth. The other one to us is called Winter Solstice. It is the opposite to the people who live down there.

In Sweden people only celebrate the summer solstice. I can understand that for I also don’t see the point of celebrating the winter solstice… The few days around the summer solstice is midsummer. The celebration is usually on June 21, 24, 25 or a date close to the Summer Solstice on June 20–23 in some countries. In Sweden, the celebration is on the closest coming Friday. This year, the midsummer celebration will be on 25th of June.

An article about Summer Solstice on Hallandposten

We don’t have equivalent festivals in China. Well, it doesn’t make sense to celebrate the steamy hot summer when the temperature can reach 40 degrees, let alone the humidity… If nothing goes wrong, I will go to the middle of Sweden to celebrate the Midsummer. I have heard about traditions like people dancing around a stick, and putting flowers under their pillow etc. I will write more about it when I come back.

/Carmen

It is not far to drive from Prague to Vienna, takes about 4 hours.

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The most fancy street is called Der Garden. You can find all the top brands in the world.

The fountain where I stand at is called four lions fountain (Löwenbrunne), the purpose of it was for putting off fire. It has a history with more than 450 years.

The fancy fountain decorated with gold is called Pestsäule, it is about 100 years younger than the one I am close to.

There are so many artists on the street, doing painting, pretending to be sculptures. One of my favorites is Charlie Chaplin. He looks exactly like Charlie, and moves the same way, very funny. Too bad that I did not take a photo.

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But I have taken the picture of the invisible man!

And the musicians. The Czech artists were playing some Hungarian music.

The end of the street leads to the famous St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was under maintenance.

Not far away from the street is the Palace. I did not stay for too long there. But the rose garden behind the palace with hundreds of different kinds of roses made me forget about leaving.

Vienna is so charming. Such a shame that I only stayed for one day. For sure I will be back!

Note: the official language in Vienna is German, but everyone speaks good English.

/Carmen

One fantastic thing about studying in Sweden or any other country within the Schengen area is that people can travel freely around in most parts of Europe. Many of my classmates have traveled a lot.

I went to Prague last week. It is an historical, beautiful, dynamic, and crowded city. I stayed in a nice neighborhood area, the name of which means grape in English.

The streets in the center are all covered with bricks, with hundreds of years of history possibly, which make driving pretty hard, pretty pumping.

It was so crowded with people in the center, the old town square, at night. One of the most popular attractions is the Czech Astronomical Clock, as well called Czech Orloj, located at the square.

The famous Charles Bridge is close to the old town, named after the King Charles IV. It says it is a quiet place at night on wikipedia. In fact it was so packed with tourists the night I was there.

Another attraction one has to visit is the St. Vitus Cathedral. It stands on the hill, beside the castle. Magnificent.

One back door of the cathedral.

After the tour to the cathedral, it was great to have a little rest at the wine place enjoying the view from the top. It was a lovely trip. Before I went, i thought Prague was more like a mysterious place, old and quiet. It turned out to be quite crowded and dynamic.

/Carmen

The weather of the last one week was so lovely!! Walking along the city, you can smell the Syrén everywhere. I guess it is called Lilac in English. One French friend told me that this kind of flowers can be found in France as well.

My Swedish classmates, no matter girls or boys, all have told me so many nice things about Syrén. It has a sweet strong fragrance; it blossoms at the early summer and the end of school. It is sort of like a sigh of the beginning of the great time of a year.

The night when we had the graduation party, we were walking back home through the area full of Syrén. How wonderful life can be!

/Carmen

This morning, when I opened the google.se page, it appears:

Today is the Swedish national day observed June 6 every year. No wonder yesterday I saw the building decorated with yellow and blue ribbon at school, girls holding blue and yellow balloons and the Sverigebukett in Hemköp!  (Hemköp is a supermarket in Halmstad.)

More about this holiday, please go to the Swedish national day page on Sweden.se .

/Carmen

Party, party, party!!

Last night was the big night! We had the party for the graduates of both the first year and the second year MoIBD program with the support from our school.

I guess everyone bore the same feeling as being happy for the coming holiday or ending of student life but sad for the friends who were leaving. That was probably the last time in our life for most of us to meet each other.

This year had been great with the company of everyone. The only way to get rid of sorrow was to get drunk, and JUST DANCE! Gonna be OK…. j-j-j-just dance!

/Carmen

In today’s Hallandposten (the local newspaper that comes everyday from Monday to Friday), I found a little brochure with lovely bouquets of only yellow and blue flowers. And the name for those is…hmm… Sverigebukett.

Sverige means Sweden in Swedish; bukett means bouquet; Sverigebukett therefore is Sweden bouquet.

Well, here is the Swedish flag. I think it is easy to see the point now why the bouquet is called Sverigebukett.

Right after my arrival in Halmstad, the flags that scattered in the neighborhood caught my eye. I have read a book about the cultural differences, which is written by a British author. He says that Swedes love their flag. Surprisingly he finds out that Swedes even have napkins with the Swedish flag pattern.

Now it is the season of graduation. In Sweden, it is a tradition to give souvenirs with the “Swedish style” to graduates. I have seen one fine candle holder with a yellow and blue ribbon at a friend’s home, which he got from his father.

So that is probably where the Sverigebukett concept is from. Good marketing idea, thumbs up!

What is funny is that there is a term in Swedish “gul och blå” (yellow and blue), which equals “black and blue” in English. In China, people use the colors green or purple to describe a bruise. I asked my friend, why you guys say that it’s yellow and blue, while it is green, purple, or black. Why yellow? He said, it is yellow sometimes.  … REALLY??…I am wondering what colors other nations see when they look into a bruise…

/Carmen