Midsummer

Midsummer at the island was as enjoyable as ever. We left on Thursday morning, to a slightly cloudy sky, but with promises of sun all weekend according to the newspaper meteorologists. Nearly as soon as we arrived at Ramsen, my aunt and uncle's island, (map at right) it started drizzling. Nevertheless, we set up camp and by the end of the day there were more than twenty of us there. Amit got to enjoy several firsts, including the real Swedish sauna experience, complete several chilling dips, as well as a canoeing adventure around the island. While we were on the other side of the island we could see the large trans-baltic cruise ships...then we saw them get swallowed by the pea-soup fog. So we sped up our pace to make sure we could find our way back.
The weather on midsummer itself (well, technically Friday is midsummer eve, but that's when the fun happens) was beautiful. We woke up to rain falling on the tents, but only a short while later the sun burst through the clouds and graced us with its presence all day. Amit enjoyed the sill (pickled herring, another first) and got to sing Helan Går in the appropriate setting with the appropriate imbibement. I heard some new nubbevisor myself, so hopefully I can pass those along.
The centerpiece of the day was surely the roasted lamb. We brought our 15kg friend with us all the way from Ängby, and as the pictures will (soon) show, even on the boat ride over. After some initial trouble getting the fire started, our grillmasters Johan and Ludvig grilled the meat to perfection.
Of course, no Swedish midsummer (or any other day, for that matter) would be complete without a game of Kubb. Or several. We did play one that made us quite ashamed to call ourselves founding members of the NC State Kubb Team; an hour and a half later, the game ended when Johan knocked down the king prematurely.

We have plenty of pictures of the weekend, but we don't have a way to get them off the camera. We tried though, we found an old sony handicam that would accept sony memory cards, but we think it was incompatible with this newer card. So part of our mission for tomorrow is to find an internet cafe where we can upload them. We'll also be sure to update you about our adventures in Stockholm over the next few days, until we leave for Helsinki and Tallinn on Tuesday. Yes, we did manage to get tickets, and yes, we learned nothing about "voting with out wallets" and went with the company that gave us such poor service.

Costomor Survise

....because they can't even spell "Customer Service"

Twas the morning before Midsummer and all through Sweden not a customer rep was available to answer any of our questions regarding boat rides from Stockholm to Helsinki and Tallin.

Amit made first contact with a costomor survise representative at about 10:30am. The first rep we spoke to was Martin. This guy was great. Amit asked about the pricing scheme for the night cruises to Heslingfors. What Amit did not realize was that the customer can only ask one question per phone call. Upon enquiring about further travel to Tallin, we were asked to hold so we could be transfered to the Estonian booking office. Amit interjected, "Excuse me, we have been transfered 4 times alrea..........beep" and was promptly interrupted by the lovely violin tunes of Sibelius. After a few minutes of being serenaded, a lovely Estonian man picked up our call. [Estonian man] provided us with a quote for travel from Stockholm to Tallin. He even checked for travel options between Tallin and Riga. Amit then asked about return cruises from Riga, but this required being transfered to a Latvian representative. Amit conveyed my dissatisfaction with the number of transfers required to gather these trivial pieces of information. Although [Estonian Man] empathized with our plight, he placed us on hold for a Latvian rep.

"[Random Latvian colloquial greeting]," said the pleasant sounding representative.

"Hi, Do you speak English?" Amit inquired to which the Latvian rep responded "Hai!"
"Yes, we would like more information about fares from Riga to Stockholm." "-Click". And we had been hung up on again.

We redailed the Swedish ticket office, were promtly transferred several times, and then placed on hold for ages. We concluded that the problem was that we were speaking English, so I called back and decided to use the Swedish menu options. But, alas, I was still transferred several times. I eventually did get a quote for our trip, 4082 SEK, so we'll see if we end up booking it.

Now we're on our way out to the island, hopefully we'll be able to send an update from there. And we'll look out for the Others.

The Derby

Johan G. informed us that there was going to be a 'Derby' on Tuesday. That is to say, an inter-city soccer match, in this case between Djurgården and Hammarby, two of Stockholm's biggest soccer clubs.

To sum up the contest, I'll put it like this: as soon as Thomas put on his Djurgården jersey, everyone we saw asked him earnestly if he really dared wear it. I assumed it was meant as a joke, but as I picked up the day's newspaper, I read about the most recent match between these two teams. Last year, at the Hammarby home stadium in southern Stockholm, Djurgården got out to a strong 3-0 lead, at which point angry 'Bajen' fans stormed the field. The Hammarby club was docked 3 points in the league standings, and as further punishment were forced to play the rest of their home 'Derby' games at Råsunda stadium, Sweden's national soccer stadium, and ideally a sort of neutral field. (picture at right courtesy aik.se)

The game was exciting to watch, we sat high up on the Djurgården-end of the field. It was interesting to compare it to the MLS game I watched recently. Here, the referee called virtually no fouls, which I found surprising, and those that he did call more often than not ended up being yellow cards. The Hammarby players seemed to spend more time lying on the ground whining than actually playing, but the ref bought it so I suppose it was the right strategy. Though I thought Djurgården was the stronger team, especially in the first half, they were unable to take the shots they needed. They were also missing their star defender, which showed clearly. Djurgården lost 0-2.

But the real excitement seemed to be outside the stadium. The daily Dagens Nyheter reported that the police suspected that Djurgården and Hammarby fans were going to have a planned fight, so when Hammarby supporters showed up enmasse to a region where the Djurgården fans usually congregate, police were on the scene and told them to leave. At about the same time, the pub 'The Londoner' was filled with Djurgården fans, preparing to leave for the game. When the police told them they would be escorted to the game, to prevent any altercations, they revolted and trashed the bar. 110 people were arrested at the bar. (picture at left courtesy dn.se)

Fortunately our experience was disturbance-free. Wednesday, my friend Amit will be flying in from Cambridge and we will go straight to Solvalla, the horse track to bet on my Uncle's horse, Tina Cape. Then Thursday we will be going out to Ramsen, the island where Åke and Helene have their incredible summer paradise.

Arrival in Sweden

So Thomas and I arrived in Sweden on Sunday morning. We had trouble sleeping on the flight, so we took a long nap, which meant that we couldn't sleep well that night. After trying to fall back asleep, we got up at 6 and played soccer for a while.
Sunday evening uncle Åke, aunt Helene, cousin Lars, and cousin Monika along with Johan and their adorable new baby, Cornelea all came over for dinner.
On Monday Thomas and I went downtown to the Royal Armoury, which is now a museum that holds weapons, suits of armor, clothes, various royal artifacts, as well as old state coaches that belonged to various kings. In the evening Johan T. had the cousins over for a nice dinner on his roof terrace. Incredibly, the sun came out for the first time since we had arrived.