The ARC, Part 2

...(If you haven’t read part 1, I highly suggest starting there, if only to become familiar with the characters involved, read the disclaimer, and see some epic photos).

(This photo does not factor into the story, however, it does warn you to beware of Extreme Dancers. I think it means Ricky Martin.)

(Oh, this is what it warns you not to throw your children into. Though the tiger also does not factor into the story below, I betcha didn't know there were tigers in Sweden, didya? Didya didya?)

Now, it’s time to tell you all about Midsummer’s Eve! Waking up particularly hungover the morning (okay, it may have been early afternoon) of the festivities, we tucked into a giant breakfast and wandered down to the center of the village, less than 5 minutes away. There, we discovered the most interesting sight – a giant, naked maypole laying on the ground; a huge pile of young birch trees, recently cut down; and a ton of villagers, busily stripping small branches adorned by pretty green leaves off of the trees, making neat piles which other villagers were attaching to the maypole using metal wire. We immediately joined in, the Aussies adapting their method to allow for simultaneous beer drinking, Bjorn stripping entire trees with his Swedish efficiency (and tree clippers) at the same rate that it took the team of 3 foreigners to strip half a tree, and Mikael decorating the pole in very questionable positions. We returned home once we got bored to drink more beer and eat more food and shower and take part in a fun Swedish game we had learned called Kubb, whose basic rules were to toss round sticks at square sticks and knock them over. Our own private festivities lasted until we heard music from far off, and Lena (Mikael’s sister) ran off down the lane in a traditional Swedish dress, disappearing around the corner carrying a violin. We assembled on the edge of the road, when around the corner appeared… a tractor, pulling a platform, on which a minimum of 20 villagers sat playing instruments, while hundreds of villagers paraded behind them. They passed us and called out various Swedish greetings, cousins we had met waving and shouting “edge”, some in Swedish garb and some in jeans, everyone heading to the center of town. We joined the end of the procession, and found our previously-spacious center square packed with the entire village come to view the raising of the maypole, socialize, and listen to music. Beers in hand, we watched as the men of the village employed long sticks in an ingenious method to raise the even longer maypole; and when raised, a call went out for dancers to complete the festivities. Sara and I joined the children and other grown-ups holding hands around the maypole, and I followed clumsily along to 10 or 12 dances that everyone in the village had been doing since childhood (my favorite one required us to act like tadpoles and frogs and skip about). The entire village then dispersed, heading to set up big house parties all over the village that would go on all night, the old and young alike drinking, dancing, and generally celebrating the summer’s arrival!

(The Village. Looks like a horror movie mixed with halloween mixed with a ren fair.)

(The Aussie method. Hold the tree between your legs. Help a friend out. Done and done.)

(Bjorn, a picture of Swedish Efficiency.)

(Mikael, decorating. Good Swede.)

(The village, raising the maypole. Cool.)

On to Peace and Love, then – sadly, Bjorn and Sara and Dannyboy had to leave us prior the festival, jobs and a very pregnant wife requiring the ARC to break up. However, Sperm and Mikael and I pulled ourselves together, and after a day of rest (and watching “How To Train Your Dragon”, a particularly cute movie) headed to the city of Borlange, each year home to the Peace and Love Festival, Sweden’s biggest musical event. The festival took over the main streets of the city – 7 music stages were arrayed all over town, food trucks of every variety were everywhere, and a rather sparse array of beer tents were accompanied by tons of porter potties and 50,000 scantily clad youth, this year’s festival bringing with it the most amazing weather. Sperm was around for the first 2 days of the 5 day festival, and seeing Kings of Leon play was the highlight of his festival experience. Mikael and I stayed on, and over the course of 5 days saw Volbeat, MIA, 30 Seconds to Mars, Deadmau5, The Ark, Kings of Leon, Jimmy Eat World, Ziggy Marley, All Time Low, Social Distortion, The Strokes, Soilwork (ick), Petter, Looptroop, Architects, Bob Dylan, Foreigner, Journey, TwinFlower Band, Engel (bah), Mimickry, Bad Religion, and The Haunted (ew). We were both super excited to see one of our musical idols, Bob Dylan, but as my sister correctly pointed out a few days before he played: “Bob Dylan sounds and looks like he’s going to die. You’re better off taking some ‘shrooms and hallucinating that you’re back in the day when he was good.” His performance was disappointing, but hey, we saw Bob Dylan in Sweden, so I’m not complaining.

(Crowd at Kings of Leon.)

(Volbeat. Isn't the stage sweet? We're in the front.)

(MIA, on video screen, because we were NOT right up front. She's crazy, you know.)

(Deadmau5. He's not dead, but he is a mouse DJ.)

(THE STROKES. Single coolest stage set-up at entire festival. Yummy.)

So, that brings me to somewhere around the past week or so. We’ve been using Garsas as a homebase to drive all over Sweden with Mikael’s trucking job (and to spend a very boring day in an office, which reminded me why I’ll never have an office job). The most interesting trip was this past weekend, where we drove a truck a million hours down to the south of the country, but got to stay 2 days and visit before returning. I even managed to get a sunburn during the picnic we had on the coast, which probably doesn’t bode well for my time in Africa, if I sunburn in Scandinavia. And now I’ve spent a quiet two days in Garsas, typing this blog (4 pages takes a long time to write, you know) and waiting… waiting… waiting… until Thursday (that’s tomorrow), when we’ll start our travels down to Malawi!! That’s right – by 9am tomorrow morning, Mikael and I will bid this lovely village adieu, and head back to Stockholm where we will catch “the party boat”, an overnight cruise-ship-turned-ferry destined for Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. We will visit Tartu, a city about 270km south of Tallinn, where I’ll meet with members of the Semiotics Department at the University of Tartu to learn more about their international masters program (and specifically the ecosemiotics research currently underway – I’ll let you look that one up yourself). We’ll then spend 3 days couchsurfing and exploring Tallinn, which I’m happy to say is about a million times cheaper than Sweden. We fly to Istanbul on the 19th, to reconnect with some couchsurfers Em and I stayed with at the end of 2009 and spend 4 days sightseeing and eating mountains of baklava. And on the 23rd, we leave for Africa – flying to Dar Es Salaam in my most-favorite Tanzania, spending anywhere between 2 and 5 days there trying to catch the train to Mbeya, a small town in the south of the country located conveniently near the Malawian border. A few busses later, and we’ll be at our home for the next 9 months – The Mushroom Farm! Am I excited? You bet your a** I am! 

Well, that pretty much does it for now folks – if you made it to the end, I’m proud of you, and if you just skimmed the photos, that’s cool too! You’re all welcome in Malawi anytime before April – if you’re considering making the trip, let me know and I’ll advise you on travel details (and be super, super excited to hear from you). There IS a mailing address in Malawi, which I will post once I learn the details, in case anyone wishes to send us anything J. And, as always, I appreciate reading your comments, answering your questions, and am happy to dedicate an entire blog to anything ya’ll request – so please, please, pretty please let me know what YOU want to know more about!

Until next time, your faithful servant,

Jess Face (WTS)

A few more photos that haven't yet made the cut...

(This family sized kebab pizza was meant to feed 3 of us. We ate it for 3 meals.)

(Awww. I made all of the headgear with Sara's help decorating. We're a cute gang.)

(In the words of Dannyboy: "Nice scenery much, Sweden?")

(Rock. On.)