Yet another big trip! The people in Växjö decided that they wanted to go to Dalarna (mid-Sweden) to celebrate 'Midsommar' there, and they asked me to come as well. We rented a minivan, got some people in it and drove all the way up. It rocked. This is what we did on...

THURSDAY! (21st of July)
I went by train in Växjö, to meet up with the people who would go on the trip: Fred (France), Fabio (Italy), Clara (Austria),  Davide (Italy) and Evelina (Sweden). We said goodbye to Rupi, who was going to move back to Austria in the weekend, and headed to Jönköping to pick up Steffi and Johannes (Germany). We drove and drove and played Man-o-War and Richard Cheeze (what a horrible man!) and drove, untill we came to Falun, Dalarna. We went to Evelinas grandparents, who had picked up Manja (Germany) from the station, and had some evening-fika, before we all went to our camping, the wonderful 'Smednäset' in Svärdsjo, where we were the only people from the hundreds of visitors not to come from Sweden. We built up our hyper-cool tents, went for a midnight walk (without it being really dark offcourse) and went to sleep, untill...

Friday! (22th of July)
After breakfast, we went swimming. And after swimming, we had lunch. Traditional Midsommar-lunch!
Some of the campings guests had found out about our strange, international group, who were sleeping in tents (everybody brought there caravan, garden gnomes and lawnmowers... and we were the strange ones?). So they invited us for this lunch. We had sill (yucky herring) and sprit (booze), and felt really Swedish. And we sang Swedish songs, or tried to play-back a little. And said 'skål' after every song. Our own Man-o-War song was, offcourse, the best. 'Born with a heeeeaaart ooooooof steeeeeeeeeeeeel...skål!'.
And then it was time to do some exercise! We rented some boats, and went on to the lake. My boat (with Davide and Clara), was the fastest, so we were the first ones to reach the far-away island. We were really proud (except for Clara who was just really scared). And we looked quite cool in our orange life-suits.
After this adventure, we wanted to get some of Swedish Midsommar Culture. So, we got into the minivan and drove to the town of Svärdsjö, to see the raising of the May-pole, and to dance Smågroderna (the dance of the small frogs) and many other dances around it. We had so much fun, eventhough we didn't have any traditional clothing on. Evelina introduced us to some other family members, and then we went back to Smednäset to paaaaart-ay! And barbecue with hot spices, next to this. We danced all night to Swedish Schlager, with it's wonderful waltzes and beautiful Cha-Cha-Cha rythms. But, this being Sweden, the music stopped at 2 o'clock (and it was still quite light!), so we went with the local camping youth to the island of the cows, and had funny conversations there. And then came...

Saturday! (23st of July)
We woke up with hang-overs, but still enjoyed our breakfast. Today, the plan was to leave the camping for ever, and head to the Falun Coppermine, to have some underground activity. And so we did. Finally, we saw a bit of darkness, as we were going lower and lower beneath the earths surface. We had nice orange clothes on, and big hats against the stones falling on your head, and we listened carefully to the strange stories of the Finnish Guide, about her adventures in South-America. She also told us about 'the Lady of the Mine', who could make accidents happen if she didn't like the attitude of the people in it. The miners couldn't wistle, swear, or talk about her, otherwise she would get upset. So the miners called her 'mormor' (grandmother), because then she wouldn't know they were speaking of her. 
Also we wondered why there was a christmastree at the place, where a miner once got lost and was 'preserved in the sour water as a pickle'. We saw a lot of stone, and red mud, and cool mining stuff. I had a song of Belle & Sebastian in my head, so I whistled it. But then it came to me: 'oh no, I whistled! The Lady of the Mine!'. Clara said: 'you should say mormor! aargh!', so I said: 'oh, f#"%ck!'. But, unlike the unlucky miner, we made it alive out of the mine, and went away, to a wooden cabin deep inside the forest. here we would spend our last night in Dalarna, in an area where there were wolves, bears and elks. Offcourse we only saw the mosquitos, but it was exciting to know that there could come a bear any moment around the corner to eat you. Or a wolf. Or an elk. We grilled, got stung by the mosquitoes, and discovered the forest, that was still untouched by human hands. We made a fire in the house where we were sleeping (this house was especially build for this, so nobody got hurt) and went to sleep on the wooden beds, untill we woke up on...

Sunday (24th of July)
Au. Mosquito bites. Bee bites. Wooden beds. No pillow. Au. Rain. Wine. Usch.
Well, enough with the moaning. We had some rainy breakfast, before we went to the car and drove back! It was another long journey, but we got to see the place where Steffi and Johannes live (Eksjö), and I had to sleep in a real bed in Växjö, as my train had already left. We had a nice trip. Pictures online now.

The music tip this time is, offcourse, Man-o-War, with their triomphal war-song 'Stand and Fight!'. Skål!