The Anderssons have been keeping me busy and they have gone out of their way to show me around Sweden. Each day I do something different. Last Thursday I stayed home with they boys and we worked in David’s garden pulling weeds and then made chocolate chip cookies, which they had never made before, but they seemed to really like them! I also taught the kids to play Slap Jack, which was a bit of a mistake because now that’s all they want to play, especially Elise who is 7. It’s nice though because it’s an easy game that doesn’t require a lot of talking.

Friday was their Mid Summers Celebration, this is a huge deal in Sweden. It was a national holiday so everyone was off work. Mid Summers is a very old holiday that was originally to celebrate the longest day of the year and the first potato harvest. However, they’ve changed it so that it’s always on a Friday and they said it was even later this year because of the princess’s wedding. In the afternoon we went to a traditional celebration in a near by village or small town. First everyone helps to build and decorate the Mid Summers Day Pole with branches and flowers. They make flower crowns for the little girls and then we danced and sang songs around the pole. Then they had people dressed in traditional Swedish costumes come and do the same thing, only more “professionally” you could say. That night the Andersson’s had three of their good friends over for dinner. We ate potatoes, herring, and meat balls (the traditional Mid Summer’s meal). It was fun to meet their friends who all spoke English very well. After dinner we played a game called Ramball, it’s kind of a mix between baseball and cricket, I think.

Saturday was actually Mid Summers Day and Elna took me and Elise down to the South Coast (about an hour away) to see these stones that were put in place by the Vikings. It was really cool to see and the coastline was beautiful!! Down on the board walk they sell sill i mos, which is Swedish for smoked herring and mashed potatoes (another traditional Mid Summers meal). It was very good, a lot better than the cold herring! That night they had arranged for me to go to a BBQ and festival/concert with some of their good friend’s kids who were around my age. I was a little nervous at first and later they told me that they were nervous about it being weird with me too, but we actually had a lot of fun and we’re trying to make plans to see each other again before I leave!

Sunday I went with Lars to Elna’s brother/parent’s dairy farm and helped them put up hay. I met their nephew, Gustaf, he is 14 and spoke English very well, so we had fun telling stories about growing up on a dairy farm. Then Monday I went to Malmö and found my passport and wallet, as I told you in my last blog.

Tuesday I went with one of their good friends, Sven. He had been one of their friends that I met on Mid Summers. He is an older man (and by older I mean like my parents age) that manages a large farming operation near by. Sven is very interested in the United States and likes to quiz me on my knowledge of our history, geography, and agriculture. I think I’ve passed most of my tests, but I still left with a list of questions and his e-mail address because I was scared to answer some of them without knowing for sure! I really like Sven though and we had a good time driving around and looking at all the farms in the area. We stopped and talked to one of the dairy farmers and he too had lots of questions for me about what I thought of GMOs and all the hormones we use in the U.S. to farm. They seem more interested than judgmental though. This farmer also gave us some ice cream and Sven said it was just because I was from the U.S. haha, but he was very nice.

Today (Wednesday) Lars had the day off so he took the kids and I to what they called a Market. It comes once a year to their village, Hörby, and it is just a bunch of vendors and a carnival. It was fun and I tried several differant types of Swedish candies and found a new pair of sunglasses to replace my $10 ones that were stolen with my ADPi frat strap on them:(. Tonight we went over to one of their neighbors house who farms a lot of ground, mainly potatoes. He does a lot of his own sorting and storage of his product and tries to sell directly to consumers so it was interesting to see his operation.

Tomorrow I’m going to big farm show, they are all very excited about it so I’m sure it will be fun!