stockholm weekend pics, midsummer celebrations

in a country with long, dark winters, the summer solstice is cause for celebration, complete with flower picking, crown wearing and dancing around the maypole.  

midsummer is second only to christmas in sweden.  it always falls on the third friday of june and is an official holiday.  big 'welcome to summer' celebrations take place in and around stockholm.  despite the rain, stefan, kai and i headed to grinda, a small archipelago island just 1.5 hour ferry ride away.  the ride out there was lovely and very picturesque, the ocean dotted with little islands all around.  

 

grinda itself was lovely. we enjoyed roaming around the island, lunching and dancing around the maypole.  the maypole (symbol for fertility) is an important part of the festivities, decorated in greens that were picked earlier that day.  it's a lovely moment when you are holding hands with a flower-topped stranger and dancing around a leafy pole to silly swedish songs.  thanks stefan for indulging me.  kai was too cool for such an activity :)

 

strawberries must be eaten on midsummer so stefan made a strawberry pie served with whipped cream, of course.  delicious.

midsummer is also the time of our anniversary.  18 years with him.  his goofy rhymes make me laugh, his swedifing (i.e. smearing pickles from a tube on his sandwiches) amuses me so, and his "boy" humour antics make me so incredibly grateful that kai has him.   we are a lucky two, kai and i.

hope you had a lovely midsummer weekend too.