Påsk

For those of you are don't speak Swedish the title of this blog is Easter. Easter time in Sweden has been really interesting because it seemed to me like a combination of Halloween, Christmas and Easter all thrown into one.

Halloween because on Thursday the children dress up. The girls as witches, complete with broomstick, and the boys as gentlemen, they paint beards on their faces and wear old fashioned clothes and hats. Then they carry a kettle on the end of a stick and go knock on peoples doors asking for sweets in exchange for handmade cards, painted eggs, for singing a song or reciting a poem. It is very cute because its funny to watch lots of little people walk around dressed up as old people.

I did not see the kids trick or treating, but I did see them walking around at the Easter market I went to on palm Sunday in Gamla Linköping. This was a smaller version of the Christmas market, but they still had tons of stalls selling sweets and food. There was also live entertainment including a local square dancing team complete with record player and cowboy outfits that had everybody tapping their toes. Now I don't know if it was just at the market or if its a tradition, but there were also elderly couples all dressed up in clothes from way back when? Even though it was a little cold, it was still a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Nothing really special happened during the week except a sushi night with some friends as well as a good old night out to celebrate Easter, student style! Saturday morning I caught the train to Stockholm to meet up with Donna, a Rotary scholar from Scotland who is studying in Lund, and Daun, a friend of hers from South Korea.

As I arrived early in Stockholm I took advantage of the beautiful weather, it was 12'C, to sit in the park and enjoy a fika while tilting my head skywards to soak up as much sun as possible. This is a really Swedish thing to do whenever the sun is out. No matter where you go there are people just sitting facing the sun with their heads raised. I felt like a local! It was a fantastic little solo fika and it made me look even more forward to the coming summer.

After a little shopping, I mean I was in Stockholm after all, I met up with the girls and we spent the afternoon exploring the old town as well as the southern suburbs. It was great fun just chatting, shopping and enjoying fika. It was nice to be able to share stories of Swedish life with a fellow scholar.

While exploring the southern suburbs we came across another interesting Swedish Easter tradition. While walking past the graveyard of an old church we noticed that it was very colorful so we went in to have a closer look. All the graves had been decorated with colorful feathers, flowers, pictures, teddy bears, etc. I'd never seen anything like it and it was quiet moving.

This is also when I realized the similarity to Christmas because they have, what I have dubbed, an Easter tree. They decorate the leafless trees or small dry sticks with brightly colored feathers and display them outside shops and in their gardens, there is even a large one in the middle of the town square. It is easy to see why because now that the snow is gone, but its still cold, everything is a little brown and boring. The colored feathers really bring life to what would otherwise be a rather dull time of year.

After our day of walking the city we treated ourselves to an excellent Asian buffet. It was an amazing selection of sushi, Chinese starters and Mongolian stir-fry...very very yummy! After supper we went to a corridor party at Stockholm University to visit friends of Daun. Its a pity it was dark when we arrived because I would have liked to have seen some of the campus, but I had a good time at the party discussing soccer with an Italian and cricket with a Pakistani. All to soon we had to leave and we made our way to our accommodation. A couch surfer by the name of Chris put us up for the evening and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

After sleeping late and eating a late breakfast, Daun went off to visit her friends again and Donna and I spent the day exploring the rest of the city, especially the beautiful Djurgården. A park island in the middle of the city. It was another beautifully sunny day and we even had the opportunity to sit on the docks, with our faces skywards of course, eat ice cream (the Swedes love ice cream and the only requirement is that it must be above 0'C) and feed the swans.

I was really sorry to have to say good bye to my new friends, but luckily I know I will see them again in May when I go to Lund for a student festival. So ended my Easter weekend and now I'm back home and once again working on exam assignments and all sorts of other little things. I trust you all had a good Easter break? To all my South African readers I hope things don't get too "cold" now that winter is around the corner and too my Swedish followers I hope you are enjoying the "heat" as much as I am!

Hej då