Allt för Sverige (All for Sweden) - Midsummer Episode

 

Allt för Sverige is a reality TV show where Americans with Swedish ancestry come to Sweden to compete in a variety of challenges based on Swedish culture.  The winner gets to meet their Swedish relatives.  In case you are interested in being a contestant (I’m looking at YOU Stidolph relatives!!):  http://www.greatswedishadventure.com/

I just learned about this show this weekend, a weekend which also happened to bring a whole lot of unexpected Swedish cultural challenges for me. 

So here’s how my particular episode of Allt för Sverige went.

Midsummer weekend was approaching; the biggest holiday in Sweden, rivaled only by Christmas.  After the long, cold, dark Swedish winter, you sure can’t blame a people for wanting to celebrate the longest stretch of daylight during the summer.  The celebration involves raising may poles, dancing around them, and meeting up with friends and family for food and drinks.

Mom-in-law Lena had planned to host a gathering of family at the families’ summer home in Sätra in the Darlana region of Sweden which is where both she and her husband’s families are from. 

(Darlana Region of Sweden)

(Jonsson’s house in Sätra)

I got a hint of the coming challenges when Lena needed to leave Sweden for a trip a bit earlier than anticipated.  She was bustling around making all the necessary plans and arrangements for her coming departure, when all of a sudden she bursts into my room with big eyes.  “You’ll have to host Midsummer!!”  I must have looked a bit shocked, but she hugged me and laughed and said, “Well, at least David will be there to help you.”  Yeah right, I thought.  I’ll be the one helping David.  He’ll know what will need to be done and he can tell me what he needs help with. 

So Lena left the country, and David and I headed north.  As we drove, I enjoyed the absolutely stunning displays of Lupine that grow thickly along the roadsides this time of year, blissfully  unaware of the coming test. 

Of course, there were the standard challenges of doing a bit of yard work and sprucing up the inside of the house.

(Gathering wildflowers for vases around the house.  You can see the may pole for the little community of Sätra in the background.  They take them down in order to paint them and decorate them with birth branches before hoisting it back up again during the midsummer celebration.)

I thought David just got bored really quickly when he went out with me to get wildflowers  and he spent most of the time lying on this bench.  Now looking back, I see this for what it really was.  A sign that things were not going to go according to my I’ll-just-be-able-to-follow-David’s-lead-for-the-midsummer-party idea.

(“Watchoo lookin’ at?”)

I thought I was doing really great with my Swedish challenges when I finally found a path around the nearby lake that I had been told about numerous time and managed to miss it every other time.

Until it started pouring down rain.  Again. . . another harbinger.

(Yes, those three pictures were taken on the same run.  The weather changed REALLY fast)

Other challenges went well.  I surprised myself and David by actually being decent at swinging a golf club.  And by “decent” I mean that I hit the ball more than I missed it.  (Never mind what actually happened to the ball after I hit it)

I managed to start a fire in the morning without burning the place down. 

Then, things got interesting.  The plan was for David, his grandfather Gunnar, and I to go to the maypole raising celebration in the nearby community of Leksand (Sweden’s largest midsummer pole, by the way), then come back to the house get ready for the party before everyone else showed up. 

Before we left, David was feeling tired, so we both laid down for a quick nap.  And that’s when David started shivering and sweating and was obviously running a fever.  Man down.  I was on my own.

So, the next challenge suddenly became attending a huge festival in the company of a 90-year-old man who doesn’t speak English, while I speak only about 12 fairly useless Swedish words. 

(Grandpa Gunnar and I at the festival)

Navigating was fairly easy as Gunner could just point where I should drive and where we were going to walk next.  We headed first down to the river.  Things got tricky when he kept trying to explain things to me and all I could do was smile and shrug.  Finally, he grabbed a random stranger and asked him to translate. He was trying to tell me that the nearby boats would be loaded up with musicians, then float down the river along with the birch branch decorations that would then be carried to the maypole.  And that is indeed what happened. 

(Musicians tuning up, loading up, headed off, and bring the wreaths into area where the maypole was)

Other language challenges didn’t go so smoothly.  At one point Gunnar pointed to a bridge, saying something about it and pointing to himself.  I was impressed that he had helped to build it.  Later when I asked David about the bridge story, turns out I was a bit off.  Gunnar was actually trying to tell me the bridges is as old as he is. 

But the biggest challenge was to come.  Hosting 10 Swedish relatives of my mother-in-law for a dinner celebrating the biggest Swedish holiday at a someone else’s house. 

Okay, okay, after all this build-up to this big challenge I must admit that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal.  It was a pot-luck affair anyway, so all I had to do was put out the sausage, olive, and cheese tray (souvenirs from our trip to Spain) and everyone pitched into help. 

When I didn’t know how to prepare a particular type of sausage from the region that someone had brought (hot or cold?  Sliced with the skin on or off?) I just asked and the relatives obligingly filled me in.  When one of the burners wasn’t heating up on the stove, I finally figured out that when the oven was on, that particular burner didn’t turn on.  The relatives that felt a more comfortable speaking English graciously sat with me during dinner so I could have someone to talk to. 

One of David’s aunt’s brought a fabulous ice cream topping & shared the “recipe” with me.  I highly recommend it!

Aunt Ing-Marie’s Rhubarb Sauce

• Slice up some rhubarb
• Add sugar, water, vanilla & cardamom to taste
• Heat & add starch to thicken
• Serve warm over ice cream

Although it wasn’t a competition, I feel like I could identify with the Allt för Sverige winners.  When it was all said and done, I certainly got to know my new Swedish family members better.