I don't know.....

[slomove]

Maybe Magnus can shed some light on this....

A Swedish friend living in Altadena has invited us for their Midsommar Party. As an example of what might be going on he provided some YouTube videos links:

Dancing around the Midsommar Pole

Midsommar dining festivities

Celebrating the evning of the longest day of the year

The morning after....

Admittedly this is German IKEA advertising but do you think it is safe going there?

Gert

(actually we went there already last year and everything was excellent, except the fermented fish and the horrible Aquavit hangover)

[magnusfeuer]

That looked more like a documentary than a commercial, apart from the fact that nobody threw up.

Midsummer's eve is usually spent countryside together with friends and abnormal amounts of booze/moonshine. The dancing around the big midsummer pole goes back to the bronze age when we weren't so shy about openly worshiping huge penises.

The fermented herrings are usually consumed up north, and come in cans often football shaped due to gasses generated by the fermentation process. On board an airplane they have a tendency to explode with a very smelly result. At the midsummer party the prize usually goes to the person who drinks the broth that the herrings are rotting in.

For us southerners, we usually go with the pickled herring which is quite tasty, small hot dogs, meat balls, potato sallad and basically anything else we can stuff ourselves with. Fatty food is good at this stage since it coats your stomach lining which slows the alcohol uptake. We are, after all, a nation of proud, professional alcoholics.

The booze of choice is Absolut Vodka. Only the blue original variety will do since we are not girly men who need to flavor our drinks. Beer is also fine, but the most manly of us drink Beska Droppar (Bitter Drops), which is grain alcohol and a lot of wormwood. When you drink this extremely bitter and vile form of alcohol, it is important not to "bita av" (bite off) since leaving alcohol in the glass is considered bad form.

When you have gone through a couple of bottles of the good-evil stuff, you usually have sex in a bush with a complete stranger, followed by a deep coma in a ditch. It is really a back to nature experience for all of us. Nine months later paternety tests are rampant.

I miss Sweden...

/Magnus F.

PS. Gert: can Miwako and I come? Pretty please?

[magnusfeuer]

Another dead giveaway that this a commercial is the Lynx 9000 snowmobile (ah sweet memories) in the last clip. It would surely have been driven into the nearest lake during the course of the previous night.

/Magnus F.

[slomove]

Yhm

[Doug Liedblad]

I for one am embarrassed to have my heritage depicted in such a degrading way.
You can quickly tell that these are poorly researched and not made by anyone born in Scandinavia or of Scandinavian heritage. Doesn’t Germany have the equivalent of a Swedish anti defamation league? This would never happen for it depicts far too much alcohol abuse. I can attest to the fact that the Swedes and Norwegians, who may not get along otherwise, would all agree the behavior shown is far too irresponsible. We coined the original meaning of the term 'alcohol abuse' to wit: no matter how much you consume, you do not, under any circumstances, spill any.

On the other hand, the food throwing bits were quite accurate.

[moosetestbestanden]

A Swedish friend living in Altadena has invited us for their Midsommar Party

Una festa cosi? Madonna! Che schifoso, la gente di Nord! Porti i vostri guanti di gomma.:D

[Sean-og]

This is starting to remind me of "festivus"...
First the pole and the feats of strength as seen in the videos and described by Magnus, and now the start of the airing of the grievances by Doug!
:D

[moosetestbestanden]

So if that was all about mid summer, is this what happens in Sveeden on the Autumnal Equinox

here?:D