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!

Sunday February  the 11th
Packing luggage for Mid-term-training in Stockholm, where a lot of volunteers gather to talk with eachother and have fun. Hardly having any sleep.

Monday the 12th
We woke up to early, because the train left at frickin' six in the morning. I felt sick. We got a little sleep there, before we reached the 'outdoor activities' (playing in the snow and then discussing it) in Stockholm. Fun with our mental coach Ian! After that, we went into town with a group to drink some expensive beer. Late to bed,not much sleep.

Tuesday the 13th
Woke up early. Again. My voice was gone. But it cameback during the presentations we had to give and listen to all day. It was actually interesting to hear how everybody was doing. I gave a rather negative presentation about Zokker (nothing much to do) so I decided to get another project next to it, something with making documentaries about the volunteers in Sweden. It will be fun! In the evening we went to the lake we visited during our on-arrival, and now it was completely frozen, so we walked on it (pictures online NOW). Went to bed late (well what do you know!)

Wednesday the 14th (the day of la-la-la-llove)
Aaargh, getting up early again. Having a boring morning (a lot of discussion about the mid-term, and our dreams. I was not in the mood). Ending mid-term by saying 'groenloooooo' and drinking hot white chocolate (it exists!) somewhere. After that, we (Matt from Austria, Nikki from Luxembourg, David from France and me) went to other volunteers (Onur, Natalia, Cordula and Karim: thanks so much!) in Stockholm to spent the night there. Maria and Rupi were there as well, and they told us they would go to Talinn (Estonia) the next day, and said that it was really cheap.And so we decided to go as well. How cool are my friends, eh? If you say: 'let's go to Talinn tomorrow'  and they all say 'yeah, sure!'. They're great! Went to sleep late, but slept a bit longer.

 Thursday the 15th (Birthday of Rupi)
Woke up a bit later for a change, and felt somewhat better. We said goodbye to the volunteers we spent the night with, and headed for different places. David and me went to the Wasa-museum, which is really cool because it has this big ship from the 17th century that sank and had been dug up in the fifties in it. It was really big. And we bought tickets to the 'MS Romantica', which was kind of creepy because we heard Celine Dion singing 'My heart will go on' and because of the lost glory off the Wasa-ship. People died when it sank! And people died on the cruise ship 'Estonia' (see the link?) which also was on the Baltic Sea! But we're still alive now, so everything went alright.
In the evening we were almost late at the check-in, but we managed to get on board anyway. After we had dumped our stuff in the cabin, we went to the tax-free shop (to buy Digestive Cookies ofcourse!) and checked out the deck. Later there was Karaoke (which we had to flee from), the Moulin Rouge Playbackshow (which was not that much better than the Karaoke), and the disco (party!), but then Maria and Rupi already went to bed (they had partied to much in Helsinki the week before). Almost all people were drunk and it was very interesting to observe their strange behaviour. And we also went onto the dancefloor ofcourse (except for Matt, because he's such a big wussie). There were funny bimbo-ladies. And a drunk grandmother who fell to the floor, hahahaha. Went to bed reallly, realy late.

Friday the 16th
We were woken up by a strange language in the speakers. We left our cabins to have breakfast in Talinn! Yeah! After breakfast, we went walking through town, seeing the sights (Russian-orthodox church, Toompea, where you can see the whole city, tourist shops) and made a lot of coffeebreaks, because it was minus seven. Talinn is so cool. It is really colorful,and nice, and not big-city-like. Go there! Really! Take a warm coat!
At 18.00 we went back to the boat, and we slept untill 20.00 (because we needed that). Then we had the same ritual as the night before, only now the showdancers did a poor version of Lord of the Dance, and we skipped Karaoke. The waves were rocking the boat, so we couldn't say if we were drunk or not. We played Halli Galli untill the break of dawn (well, really late anyway). And then we slept.

Saturday the 17th
Woke up in Stockholm! We left the Rrrrrrromantica, said goodbye to Rupi and Maria and went to the Hardrock Cafe (because I wanted to tease Daan. Ha! I went to the Hard Rock Cafe Stockholm! Ha!). It was hours walking and quite expensive, but the food was great and the waiters were funny. After that, we went back to our own lifes again, Nikki in Viksjöfors (or somewhere near), David in Östersund, Matt in Avesta and me in Mörbylånga. Yes. Thanks guys, for the wonderful week (maybe the best one in Sweden yet!) I had. It was really fun!

Now I am slowly recovering, despite the fact that I don't have money left to buy oranges. The music tip of today is for.... (tromgeroffel).... Eelkje! On the cruiseship-disco,the DJ played a mash-up between Orinoco Flow of Enya (Sail Away,Sail Away,Sail Away!) and Smack My Bitch Up of The Prodigy. Get it! It's cool!