I'm going to be back blogging for a bit. Perhaps as long as the next 30 days. We'll see. My thought is that I will post a picture a day along with a little bit of information about my/our trip. And perhaps, with any luck, over the course of the next few weeks, you'll all get at least some idea of how our journey was and what we saw and who we met and what we learned and all those kinds of things.
I realize this could be really boring. But I'm hoping that it won't be really boring. I'm hoping that at least some of you who happen to land here when you're searching for naked jennifer aniston photos or more information about organic juices from england, will stay just long enough to have a look at the picture from our holiday and read about what it all means.
Or not. I suppose the choice, in the end, is always up to you. I can't make you stay. I can only give you an offering and hope for the best.
So today's offering:
As I've said here before, we went to Sweden because our dear friends, Michael and Mikaela were getting married. And we were invited. I've known Michael for what feels like forever, but if we're going to be honest, I've really known him about eight years or so. We used to work together back in the dark ages when I was a worker bee at SCO. I can honestly say that no one else in that entire company made me laugh longer or harder than Michael. And that laughter was often the only thing that kept me sane while we all toiled away there.
When he declared his intentions of actually marrying Mikaela, I told him that I expected to be invited to the wedding. Actually, I believe I told him that I expected to be the Best Man. Being that Michael is a very good brother and rather traditional, he gave that job to his brother, David, and while I actually did rib him about this and pouted for about seven minutes, I did understand.
The wedding was in a rotunda in Haga Royal Park in the north of Stockholm. M&M were quite stressed about the weather in the days leading up to the wedding, but I assured them that they didn't have to worry. DearSweetDave was coming from California and would be bringing Santa Cruz weather with him. They looked at me like I was quite daft (the weather forecast clearly said cold and rainy!), but Saturday dawned bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day for a wedding, just as I had promised.
The wedding itself was positively lovely. M&M wrote their own vows and each spoke them in their native tongues giving the international crowd who had gathered a real reason to pay attention. a poem by e.e. cummings was read, rings were exchanged and then it was done. They were wed.
We all gathered on the lawn for quite some time for photos and lots of champagne and kissing and laughs. And then we took a lovely meandering walk through the park to the restaurant where we were all gathering for a celebratory dinner.
It was at dinner that we learned all about the Hell and Gore.
In all honesty, it's helan gar. But when we arrived at our places at dinner, there was a piece of paper with the words to a song on it that said: Hell and gore,
shun gop, Father Allan,
lallen lay.
Hell and gore,
shun gop, Father Allan lay.
Oh, handsome in the Hell
and tar,
hand, Ay Hell are half and
four.
Hell and gore -
- Shun gop, Father Allan
lay!
We soon learned from our table mates, who were Swedish, that it was just a phonetic translation of one of their most popular drinking songs and that it had been provided to the non-Swedish speakers so that we could participate before we all drank the Elderberry schnapps.
Well, of course it was! How positively silly of us to think otherwise!
There was much drinking, much eating, much merriment. I got to tell my table mates all about Nakedjen and what it really meant (as M&M had actually written my place card as Nakedjen and that meant questions from those seated around me) and Bob, especially, was quite intrigued and agreeable about my philosophy that all bodies are beautiful no matter what size or shape. (Hi Bob!).
We finally left all the merriment and the disco well after midnight and actually walked from the restaurant back to the nearest T-bana station to find our way back to My's apartment which was our home away from home for all the days we found ourselves in Stockholm. And what a lovely home it was. Absolutely perfect.
We met everyone the next morning for breakfast at Bern's Hotel (the very location where M&M had first met on New Year's Eve so many years ago) and said our goodbye's to the Bride and Groom, but made plans with Michael's parents for dinner later that night. And then DearSweetDave and I went off to find exciting things to do in Stockholm. There was a whole city to explore. And we were emboldened with the Hell and Gore.
