My luggage is sitting behind the front desk when I check first thing in the morning. Fantastique. Blair, Schultze, Gast and I go to get breakfast before Gast, Schultze and I get the train from Stockholm C to Flen (pronounced FLEE-ahn, but sort of as one syllable). Once we arrive we wait an hour and a half for Rastko to pick us up because he had hit traffic on the way down (no complaints here--we were grateful for the lift). We arrive Rockelstad, the castle on beautiful lake Båven, to a rousing Midsummer Celebration in full progress on a gorgeous sunny day.
Games, mostly led by Loe and her friend Kattis. Dancing around the Maypole with Mats Larsson, Loe's father, playing the folk tunes on his violin.
Pickled herring, spiced boiled potatoes, and Swedish meatballs plus some sort of strong Swedish drink are all on the menu -- excellent. Alex, Ted and I struck up some tennis on the clay court, Buffy. More games followed; field day events. Later we did some bowling in the ancient bowling alley on premises where people at the other end reset pins and send balls back to the bowlers on a gutter/ramp that slopes down toward the bowlers.
I prepared dishes for dinner with my "Team," led by Loe's maid of honor, Pernilla. Dinner was wild boar at picnic tables down by the lakeshore, and there was singing from each country at the suggestion of Mats Larsson, so I sang "God Bless America" on behalf of the Americans, not being able to come up with any other suitable Americana folk song. Songs from Sweden, Taiwan, New Zealand (in Maori by our token Kiwi Blair),
and back to Sweden for a very impressive, unrehearsed, four-part harmony tune by Erik, Emma, Linn and Magnus. The party that night stayed down at the "boat house," which was my quarters: a nod of confidence to all of us staying there that we had the lasting power to close down the party since there would be no sleeping before the very end (of course, I believed myself to be a good selection for this commission). Sara Matuszak DJed the iPod and managed through its skipping. Late night sauna (with more singing) that included jumping into the chilly lake (very Scandinavian). To bed as the sun came up at 3:57am.
Games, mostly led by Loe and her friend Kattis. Dancing around the Maypole with Mats Larsson, Loe's father, playing the folk tunes on his violin.
Pickled herring, spiced boiled potatoes, and Swedish meatballs plus some sort of strong Swedish drink are all on the menu -- excellent. Alex, Ted and I struck up some tennis on the clay court, Buffy. More games followed; field day events. Later we did some bowling in the ancient bowling alley on premises where people at the other end reset pins and send balls back to the bowlers on a gutter/ramp that slopes down toward the bowlers.
I prepared dishes for dinner with my "Team," led by Loe's maid of honor, Pernilla. Dinner was wild boar at picnic tables down by the lakeshore, and there was singing from each country at the suggestion of Mats Larsson, so I sang "God Bless America" on behalf of the Americans, not being able to come up with any other suitable Americana folk song. Songs from Sweden, Taiwan, New Zealand (in Maori by our token Kiwi Blair),
and back to Sweden for a very impressive, unrehearsed, four-part harmony tune by Erik, Emma, Linn and Magnus. The party that night stayed down at the "boat house," which was my quarters: a nod of confidence to all of us staying there that we had the lasting power to close down the party since there would be no sleeping before the very end (of course, I believed myself to be a good selection for this commission). Sara Matuszak DJed the iPod and managed through its skipping. Late night sauna (with more singing) that included jumping into the chilly lake (very Scandinavian). To bed as the sun came up at 3:57am.
No comments:
Post a Comment