Valborg - 30th April 2009

Every year in Sweden on the 30th of April, the Swedes break out of their quiet shells and celebrate the end of winter and welcome in the spring. This day is known as Valborg day and if your a student in Malmö or Lund, then the place to be is Stadsparken in Lund. So that's where we were yesterday.

A group of us met at central station at 9.30am and boarded the train bound for Lund, pumped and ready for a day of partying in the sun. We reaches Lund station at about 9.50am and, along with the masses of other students, made the short walk to the park. When we got there, about 10am, there was already thousands of people and not a lot of space left to throw down a rug and sit in the sun. We did managed to find a place off to the side of the main section, however we weren't there for long. Vera managed to get in touch with a friend of ours, Dani who we'd met on the Russian trip, and who was a student in Lund. She managed to set up camp in the middle of the sea of people and in the sun, so we relocated.

The rest of the morning was spent taking in the sights (and yes there were many attractive looking Swedish boys everywhere you looked) and going for a wander around the mass of people. If you walked up to the stage, at the front of the crowd, you could look back down and see all the people crowded in the small section of the park. In the centre of the people was also a large pile of wood which was to be lit later that night at about 9.30pm in the traditional ceremony of scaring away all the bad spirits of the winter and welcoming in the spring. Vera also received the news from home that there had been an attack on the Dutch Queen. (For those who are unaware, the 30th of April in Holland is the Queen's birthday and there are huge celebrations all over the country and one town is chosen by the Queen to visit as her birthday gift). Some guy had tried to drive his car into the bus, on which the royal family was traveling. None of the family had been injured however five people who had come to see the Queen had been killed and another 13 or so injured. So that made for some interesting discussion for a while. Never a dull moment!!

The rest of the day was also spent either sitting and relaxing in the shade (as our sun had vanished behind a tree by lat morning) or breaking it down on the dance floor. So nothing of much excitement or importance really happened for the whole day.

At about 6pm we decided it was time to call it quits in Lund and head back to Malmö to take a shower, get some food and then head to the park near sommarstaden to watch the lighting of the bonfire and the fireworks.

After spending the day in the park, where the wind kept blowing dust and leaves on us, it was great to take a shower and clean myself before heading out again. The changing of clothes was also in order as it wasn't so warm at night. Kim spent most of the time on my computer reading and watching all the news on the happenings in Holland. Then at 9.15pm we headed across to the park.

It was a really cool place where they held the bonfire. The trees surrounded a circular field and were really high. I'll have to go back and take a photo in the daylight to show you all what I mean. At the front there was a stage which had a choir singing. Then they had a fire show, and the flames were timed to shoot up in time with the dramatic music they had playing to get everyone pumped up for the lighting of the fire. Finally they had a countdown (which started at 19!!) and then the bonfire was lit. It was quite fun to watch and being there with thousands of people, the atmosphere was really too hard to describe!

Kim and I stayed to watch the fire burn until it was just about out, before meeting up with the rest of the group. While we were waiting we got chatting to a Swedish guy who was telling us about how there had been a fire ban in Sweden and so that was why there were firemen there spraying water on the fire to make sure it didn't get too high and catch alight on the trees surrounding us. I thought it was ratehr amusing that they had a fire ban as in Australia, it has to be very hot for that to happen, but here it was only about 24 degrees, and at night it got down to about 10 degrees! When we met up with the group, Kim decided to head home because she was tried but I decided to keep going so headed on with the group to a pub on Möllevångstorget, about 15 minutes walk from sommarstaden. I found it extremely difficult to stay awake, after being up since 8am that morning, so at 12.30am had to call it quits and crawl into bed.

I can hopefully get my hands on a video that one of the girls took of the celebration in the park so that you can all see what the fireworks and bonfire was like. But otherwise, that's all from me for now.

Coming up next...VIENNA and BERLIN!!!

Puss och kram,
Alice
xo