Europe 25: Stockholm, Day 2

Midsommar for Swedes is roughly the equivalent of what the Fourth of July is for Americans, except without the political overtones. It’s not exactly the same thing, of course – there’s no independence from another country to shout about, it’s blessedly free from people shouting, “Sweden HELL YEAH!” or wearing flag-colored tank tops, and you need to swap out the fireworks (which don’t really work when the sun doesn’t set until after midnight) for a large and oddly shaped pole that everyone is supposed to dance around instead – but the larger focus of the day is much the same. It’s the big holiday in the middle of the summer where everyone gathers together to have a good time, eat too much food, drink too much of whatever’s in front of them, and have a grand and glorious day.

It does take some preparation, though.

Our plan for the day was to head over to Hågelbyparken for the community festival there during the day and then return home for a big dinner with extended family and friends. We’d done a bit of preparing the previous day, but once we’d all finished breakfast we split up to take care of a bit more. Sara left to get some extra chairs for all of the people expected to show up, Kim, Lauren, and Frieda stayed home to take care of things there, and Mats and I headed out to get the smörgåstårta, a dish that has entirely too many diacritics for the American mind to comprehend.

Smörgåstårta is basically a seafood cake. It has layers of shrimp, salmon, and probably other things – I’m not much for seafood, so I let others have my share – and apparently the best ones come from a little shop about a 20-minute drive from Mats and Sara’s house. That secret is out, though. We got there about ten minutes before the place opened and the line was already fifteen people deep. Fortunately our smörgåstårta was already reserved and waiting for us so we didn’t have to worry about missing out. The place is a deli, though, so there are a lot of other things you can grab while you’re waiting for your smörgåstårta and we ended up with some nice bread and some spreads.

We didn’t get any of these, but I was sorely tempted.

I’m not entirely sure why they only spelled it out for the basil one, but I assume there’s a reason. There must be, right? Fucking basil.

One of the things you’re supposed to do for Midsommar is wear a flower wreath in your hair but that can get somewhat fiddly with real flowers so Sara found some knitted ones for everyone and we looked festive indeed.

The community festival at Hågelbyparken has been going on for a long time now – we went to it back in 2004, for example, when we were all so very much younger – and it’s a lot of fun. The first thing you do once you arrive at is try to find a bit of open space for your group so you can spread out your blankets, set up your chairs, and establish a base of operations for the rest of the day. We ended up on a nice little patch not too far from where the pole would be.

It was also right by the parade route, so when the parade of people in their traditional Swedish outfits came rolling by to provide the official start of the day’s events we were there to see it.

Once they come in, of course, the next big event is the raising of the Midsommar pole. Kim, Lauren, and I wandered over to a little spot where we could stand and see it pretty well, which was a victory in itself. I spent a good deal of time trying to balance on a one-brick-high wall in order to get a couple more inches of height to see everything and thereby remembering why I was never a gymnast.

It’s quite an undertaking, raising the pole. There was a bit of ceremony beforehand where some of the parade members addressed us in Swedish for a while. I have no idea what they said but the crowd seemed pleased so I’m going to assume it was something worthwhile. And then a motley crew of people descended on the pole and slowly hoisted it up into a vertical position, a process that took a surprisingly long time to accomplish for what I assume were ceremonial reasons. They seemed to be having a grand time, it must be said, and it’s always fun to watch people who are enjoying themselves.

After it’s up, there’s a sort of lull where everyone goes back to their picnic spots and hangs out for a while. It’s a pretty low-key sort of event that way. We brought sandwiches and various beverages and snacks, and some of Frieda’s friends found us and sat with us for a while. We also collected a former exchange student of Mats and Sara’s named Storm, who has since moved to Sweden with their family – a vote of confidence if ever there was one.

This was also a good opportunity to wander around and see the place a bit. They had traditional Swedish dancing over at the pavilion, for example, and you could head over to the house that was built by Lars Magnus Ericsson and Hilda Ericsson – the phone people, yes, them. Their children sold the land and buildings to the Swedish government in 1964 and it became a public park in 1975. It has to be said that the lines for the bathrooms were much shorter at the house than anywhere else in the park and that has to count for something.

At some point there was a signal given – probably in Swedish, which is why I missed it – and everyone knew that it was time to dance around the Midsommar pole.

In theory what happens is that some of the costumed parade members will stand by the pole and explain how the dance is supposed to go while everyone else gathers in a big ring around the pole and listens, leaving a decent amount of space in between themselves and the pole. It’s a slow but active sort of dance where you go around the pole in a big circle, and there are bits where you’re supposed to pretend you’re a frog, which makes sense to the Swedes. We’ve done this before, both at Hågelsbyparken and in a small western Swedish town called Sillerud, and it’s a lot of fun.

In practice, what actually happened was a Swedish version of the hajj. You know those videos they put on the news that show vast numbers of faithful Muslims marching slowly in ever-tightening circles around the Kaaba in Mecca? Kind of like that, only with more blue and yellow. The open space that was supposed to exist between the Midsommar pole and the circling crowd collapsed quickly into a solid mass of humanity as the dance slowed to a crawl, and it was fun in a different way at least for us outsiders who weren’t really invested in a particular form of dancing (i.e. the proper form) and were just there to enjoy the day. You have to enjoy the situation you’re in.

When the crowd got too thick and stationary we retreated back to our picnic spot and watched it from a distance for a while, happy to have our snacks and conversation in our own bit of open space.

Getting out was a bit of a trick because it always is when you have that many people at an event – it involved making a right turn out of the park and then a u-turn a bit down the road because otherwise the park would have backed up with people waiting for the car at the front of the line to be able to turn left – but we made it home in short order and set up for the dinner part of the day’s events.

We set up the smörgåstårta as well as a raft of other food, much of it seafood but not all.

I was prepared for this, as someone who doesn’t particularly care for seafood. At the grocery store the previous day I’d invested in some Swedish hot dogs and buns, which I cooked for those who wanted them. They’re very tasty, but they’re not really like the ones you get in the US. For one thing, the hot dogs are very long and skinny. And for another, the buns come in two varieties. There are tiny buns that are basically just wheat-based dog holders, where 80% of the dog hangs over the edges. I once commented to Sara that you could probably get rich in Sweden by selling buns that actually were big enough for the dogs and she said no, you probably couldn’t, because a lot of the time people don’t even eat the buns. They’re just grippers for the hot dogs. The other kind of bun is a roll that has been hollowed out so you can just insert the dog into it, and while I understand that in theory it is an odd thing to see in practice. I didn’t get any photos from that night, but the next night Lauren demonstrated how the second bun worked in operation and it seems right to put those photos here. You know, for science.

In addition to eating, there was a lot of just hanging out, which is how you know it is a good event. Storm came over from Hågelsbyparken to join us, as did Mats and Sara’s friend Ann. Tomas (Mats’ brother), Edelia, and Sandra were visiting Sweden from the US for Midsommar and they also came over. They brought Mats and Tomas’ mother Moa with them as well. It was a large and happy group.

One of the more entertaining parts of a Midsommar dinner is that at certain random points someone will just start singing. They’ll do a short song and everyone joins in if they know it, and then everyone drinks. They sell little variety packs of liquors at the System Bologet just for this – mostly aquavit in an assortment of flavors – and we made short work of the port wine sampler packs that we’d carried over from Porto as well.

It was a fairly late night, and the cat did her best to make herself comfortable with as many people as she could.

Happy Midsommar!