LAST POST (PROBABLY)
Sweet raspberries, this last week has been insane. Utterly insane. Iäve expereinced nothing like it outside the U of Chicago Scavenger Hunt. And to highten the whole excitement/anxiety/emotion, I'm leaving the counrty tomorrow morning. Let us, as we are able, recap.

VALBORG
I did a little looking on Wikipedia (to which I am becoming addicted, btw) on 'Valborg', and found the article quite lacking. But I did gleam a little history. Valborg (written Walpurga in English, taken from the German I think) started out as a super old pagen festival celebrating the beginning of summer. It is the 'eve' before summer (May Day), when witches and the devil are supposted to walk around and stuff. It is summilar to and has ties to Halloween, which is the same sort of thing except 6 months later. Traditionally the Germanic peoples made big bon fires to ward away the evil spirits and welcome/celebrate the incoming summer. The holiday was co-opted by Christianity only nominally. Fast-forward several hundreds of years. Valborg is a minor holiday in Germany, but is one of the biggest holidays of the year in Scandinavia (and in Uppsala, is THE biggest). The university towns of Uppsala and Lund in particluar developed elaborate traditions tied in with the student body, but everybody in town participates.

THE PARTICULARS
First off, people travel from all over Sweden to come to this thing. Uppsala had to be twice as populated as usual. Every other person I knew had guests from out of town. The partying offically began on Friday. All the nations had special events and later hours. I myself worked at Kalmars "Pangmusik" night on Friday, in which we got a real live Swedish band which has appeared on MTV called the Concretes. (I've never heard of them either, but my Swedish friends assure me they are big). Hearing them they were quite good. Working that last night was super-fun. It was me, Catherine, and Tony in the kitchen. We have worked together often before at fikas and we have dubbed ourselves the Kalmars Dream Team. We were in fine form shelling out fancy dishes left and right for the upscale dinner being held. As it was a special Valborgs weekend, we didn't end until 2 AM and stayed cleaning until 3.

Pere had some friends from Catalonia who were quite cool and we hung out often, going out to Nation clubs both Saturday and Sunday nights. Much (oh so much) dancing was had and drinks were drunk. Any suggestion at moderation was quickly dismissed by the phrase 'but this is VALBORG!'

Having stayed out till 3 AM the previous night, everyone awoke at 7:15 on Monday morning to make sure we got good seats for the morning boat race. We made it down to the river by 8:30. It was packed with everybody in town. People were drinking champaign breakfasts (though not most of us, as we were still working to kick unpleasent hangovers). The boats themselves started coming at about 10:30. It was highly entertaining. The boats were all student constucted and manned. Various boats were the smurfs on a floating mushroom, lobsters in a cooking pot (with utensal paddels), and a cop car dubbed the 'pool'-ice. We had a spot right over the first falls they had to go over. The crowd cheered whenever a boat didn't maintain intergrity from the small jostle.

Finishing this we wandered over to the city park and had a picnic. The very large park was packed with people, and there was a band in the band shell. It was a lovely day. By this time the hangovers were gone and we open the champaign to start again. We lounged in the sunshine for hours.

At 3 PM the nations held 'Champaign gallops'. The others had to line up at 2 to assure they would get in, but I had free tickets that allowed me to bypass the line because I worked at Kalmars on Friday. The gallops were the the climax of the insanity of the weekend. All the nations were filled with people. You could only buy champaign (100 sek a bottle). The Kalmars courtyard was amuk with people popping corks, shaking bottles and spraying everybody. I was soaked. Drunken euphoria was in the air. It is an event which must be experienced to properly understand.

They kicked us out at 5 pm. We went back to Ekeby to rest before the evening. I was bushed, but neither passed out nor vomitted (unlike some others I know). I had some dinner and watched the Princess Bride. Some time later everybody went out for the nation parties starting at 8 PM. I didn't want to go to Stockholms (the nation of choice for many) so stayed back. I planned to go to Värmlands with some other Ekeby folk a little later but then realsed that I was very, very tired. I went to bed at 9 PM. I woke up some 12 hours later. Valborg was over.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY
Wow, so that's over. These past couple days I've just been tying up loose ends. I packed, returned library books, turned in my room key, and decompressed. Tonight is my going away pub crawl, and tomorrow I leave at 8 in the morning for the airport. I don't wish to draw any artifical conclusions, but at the same time want to say something. Let me see...
Here we are; traveling rocks. Living abroad rocks. Do it during your lifetime. It is unlike anything. I myself must do so again someday.

Uh, bye. When I get back home, give me an email (sebastian_ellefson AT yahoo.com) or phone call (952-807-6261). I'll be in Chicago from the 5th through the 14th, Minnesota from the 14th through the 17th, and in Alaska after that. I know I'll want to talk about Sweden a lot so if you want in on the action, contact me and I promise to talk your ear off. I do so love conversation.

(also check back here, as I will post some Valborg pics. But then that's all, I promise)

-The Wandering Norseman-