Lifecruiser

1. Tomorrow, Friday the 23rd of June, we celebrate midsummer here in Sweden. Many workers begin their annual five weeks vacation now, so of course we like to celebrate it :-)

2. From the beginning it was more of a way for the farmers to celebrate the start of the summer and the fertility season. They offered floral decorations to the nordic goddess of fertility, Freja, to get healthy growing crops.

3. Now it has become the most Swedish of all traditions. If we ever really appreciate and love the Swedish Flag, this is the day. You see it every where, even as a table decoration.

4. Mostly the festivities is held out in the countryside, which means that Swedish citys - even our capital Stockholm - is more like ghost citys this holiday. People is deserting from the city at the latest the day before. It’s rush traffic out of town.

5. The main traditional thing to do, is to go out picking flowers and making wreaths to place on the maypole. The maypole is a tall pole with a cross on it, which we dance (quite silly :-) around singing some very traditional songs. This is so traditional that we do it even if it rains. And it does. Often. Not only where I am…*lol*

6. Midsummer is also the time when the swedish people which still is left with some folk costumes, dust them off and wears them. Once in a year time. Maybe also for some wedding event or something similar. It’s very popular with weddings at Midsummer.

7. Now we comes to the next most essentials besides Love: The traditional Midsummer Menu. It is boiled new potatoes, different sorts of pickled herring, red onion and soured cream to start with. The main course is often some grilled meat or salmon. As dessert it’s the first strawberries of the summer with whipped cream we really associate with Midsummer - or summer generally.

9. We drink cold beer and spiced schnapps (snaps in Swedish) to that and every time we refill the glasses, it’s time to start singing again. We like drinking songs (snapsvisor), and there are really speedy ones sometimes…. Oh, and did I mention that it usually comes some rain during the festivities? So it’s very common that we carry the tables with all the food in and out between the showers! *lol*

10. In the evening the dance is starting. The ideal is an outdoor dance floor situated some where beutiful, maybe at the shores of one of our 100 000 Swedish lakes. It’s a magical night and also very romantic. Many Love storys in Sweden starts (or ends!) this night.

11. Young girls were earlier practically vacuumcleaning *lol* the meadows for seven different kind of flowers on the way home from the dance, since there is this saying that: if they put the flowers under their pillow that night, they will dream about their future husband. Nowadays I’m not so sure any more, if the girls don’t want to get married or if they just believe in this tradition ;-)

12. Midsummer Night is the lightest day of the year and in Northern Sweden the sun never sets - i guess they get compensated for the dark winters when they hardly have any daylight at all. Here in Stockholm the sun will set, but it will not become completely dark.

13. We’re going to celebrate it with good friends in their home outside Stockholm, more like the countryside, a really traditional Midsummer with it all (so it won’t be any post here tomorrow, Friday). They have two horses at their home too, so they said we even will take a trip with a horse and cart. Awesome!

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The Swedish rush traffic tax is said to impress in New York. I don’t believe my ears….

There was a conference held about our trial with the traffic tax in Stockholm in the end of May, where representatives from many countries attended. Appearently New York’s Kathryn Wylde found the trial interesting and said that they’re in the need of something similar, because the rush traffic costs New York 6,8 billions of dollar per year.

I do hope that they will get something else that will work better in that case, because the trial is very harshed criticized over here. The tax trial haven’t been working as good as they will pretend and it’s costing us tax payers a lot of money: 3,8 billlions Swedish crowns so far. We’re going to vote about this trial later and if it would be a majority of No-sayers, it will still cost us that amount.

Though I don’t think that it will be a No answer, it has come to stay. They always try to sneak new things in like a trial and then it’s too hard to take it away….

One of the thing that disturbs me the most is that - as usual - they haven’t done essential measures to improve the public communications yet. Shouldn’t that be done BEFORE you force people to go by public communications? As well as making sure that the other roads around the city can manage more traffic?

I always find that they start deciding about the wrong things in the wrong ends. Ever heard of the word preventative?

They tax us for everything. Very often totally unnessecary parking tickets. If you aren’t in the way or causing any traffic jams or problems, why can’t I stand there?

Sometimes I wish that we Swedes were a little more like the French and not so bloody bleach. In France they really demonstrate if it’s something they don’t like. I admire them for that.

Or like this fellow I recently read about…

Tue Jun 6, 8:26 AM ET

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb man set his car on fire when he heard how much he had to pay to reclaim it after it was towed away for illegal parking.

An attendant told the daily Press the man was very calm.

“He went to his car, took a few things then opened the hood and set the engine on fire. When it was well ablaze he got back on his bike and rode off.”

I sometimes get a similar urge like him….

Grumpy mumbling: Especially when we get 700 Swedish crowns (about $98) parking tickets on our little street, time after time after time. The problem is: there isn’t enough of parking spots here, so what to do? Park kilometers away and take the bus home? I don’t believe we can go back to a car-free society…

The whole Sweden is celebrating our National Day today, the 6th of June.

The Swedish parliament made it to a national day as late as 1983, before it was just the Swedish flag day, even though it has been discussed since around year 1900. Last year they also decided that this should be a public holiday, which means that people get more motivated to really celebrate it.

We celebrate this day with flagparades, picnics, music events, choir singing, the royal family participating in different ways and speaches hold by prominent persons in the communitys. Even persons that have become new citizens this year are greated welcome as Swedish citizens with a cermony where they get a document that shows that they have become Swedish.

The reasons for why the Swedish flag is blue and yellow is that it’s originating from The National emblem of Swedens colors – a blue shield with three yellow crowns.

The origin of the date is that Gustav Vasa was crowned as Swedish king the 6th of june 1523 and that 1809 years instrument of government was signed the same date, which adopted the constitution of Sweden.

The flag were primary used by the Swedish King and his army, primary the marine. From Gustaf II Adolfs time – around 1620 – we have picture proof of blueyellow crossflags on Swedish ships.

Loudly singing the National Anthem of Sweden:

Du gamla, du fria, du fjällhöga Nord,
(You ancient, you free, you mountainous North)
du tysta, du glädjerika sköna.
(You quiet, you joyful beauty!)
Jag hälsar dig, vänaste land uppå jord,
(I greet You, friendliest land upon earth,)
din sol, din himmel, dina ängder gröna,
(Your sun, Your sky, Your meadows green!)
din sol, din himmel, dina ängder gröna!
(Your sun, Your sky, Your meadows green!)

Du tronar på minnen från fornstora dar,
(You are throned on the memories of olden days,)
då ärat ditt namn flög över jorden.
(When honoured Your name flew over the world,)
Jag vet att du är och du blir vad du var.
(I know that You are and will be as you were,)
Ja, jag vill leva, jag vill dö i Norden!
(Yes, I want to live I want to die in the North!)
Ja, jag vill leva, jag vill dö i Norden!
(Yes, I want to live I want to die in the North!)

Maybe you’ve heard it too often this year when Sweden won both World Championships and The Olympic Games with our icehockey team Three Crowns (Tre Kronor)…. *lol*

The Swedish Anthem instrumental
Wikipedia about Three Crowns

Every where you did go in Sweden, you could see these typical red painted houses. On houses built from wood, not only the peoples houses, but also other buildings - even outside toilets!

We begin to see a big change there since quite a while back, they started to be replaced by other colors and other types of building than the typical red cottage.

I think it’s very sad to see, because for me and for many others I’m sure, these red cottages represented Sweden. Now it feels like Sweden is on it’s way to be blurred out or vanish completely. Don’t take me wrong here, I like changes, but not all of them.

In the 17th century in Sweden it was a sign of wealth and status since bricks, like they had in other European countrys, were very rare at that time.

The red paint originate from a small neighbourhood called Falun, hence the name of it: “Falu rödfärg (redpaint)”. It’s based on a pigment which is a by-product from the Copper minings there.

They have closed the mining, but they say that it’s still enough piles there for making the paint for several centuries more.

So our strong wish is that people start to paint their houses with it again. It is environment friendly and protects the wood, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to make people want to use it.

Maybe we should state it as a sign of wealth and status again to make it more appealing.

Would you like a red color like this?

Today it’s Mothers Day here in Sweden and we’ll be occupied visiting my mother. Sadly enough Mr Lifecruisers Mom isn’t with us any longer. I never had the chance of meeting her, but she was a wonderful mother as I can judge from the nice things I’ve heard of her. I know I would have loved her.

Since my mother is very fragile and beaten by life, there isn’t much she can do to make the day pass. She can bearly see anything, so she can’t read or watch TV and her hands is crooked so she is not able to use them any more. Her skeleton is literally falling apart from the inside. She can’t move around by herself, which makes her days pretty difficult, even though she gets a lot of help at the elderly home.

Of course us siblings are visiting her every day too, but obviously we can’t be there all the time. It’s a pity that she need so much special care, because that makes it almost impossible to take her home to one of us. It’s really sad and frustrating. I do hope that we can take her out a little when the weather is better.

The only thing she can do is listen to music. That’s why she is getting CD’s as a gift from us this year. It’s her favorite kind of music - the kind of music she have danced to in her whole life. I think she will be very pleased with these ones, something new to listen to and remembering her dancing days.

In Sweden the tradition of a special Mothers Day wasn’t started until 1919 and it was moved to the last Sunday in May instead of earlier as many other countries do. That’s probably because it’s easier to find fresh flowers to give to her in the end of May, it’s too cold earlier. We’ll see what flowers we can get here today.

A lot of mothers is still getting coffee in their beds in the morning with a cake and is taken out for dinner besides getting flowers. That’s unfortunately not possible any more with my mother. Another really old tradition is to make a drawing to your mother, that was what they did at the old days, but since she hardly can see it I won’t be doing that either.

Her condition is rather pending from day to day, so we’ll see how she is feeling today. What she can manage or not. She has been extra fragile lately.

As a little girl I always thought that my mother was the most beautiful in the whole world. I still do, because no matter that she’s old and having wrinkles now, she still is the most beautiful and caring person.

I deeply admire her enormous strength to survive and laugh despite all her disabilities. There really is no words for her struggle. She has struggled all her life.

Imagine to be in her shoes, not capable to do ANYTHING (and I really mean anything!) on your own - and yet she is so easy to get to laugh. She amazes me. I’m very proud of her.

I’ve helped her writing a blog (see the link in the bottom of this post), because I think it’s very educating to know how life can be when you get old. We can all learn something from older persons if we just listen to what they have to say. They have great wisdom to share.

It’s my mother that have made me to the person I am and I’ll never forget that, she’ll have a special place in my heart for ever.

Mrs Lifecruisers mothers blog Lifelessions

The night between Wednesday and Thursday, May 25th, at 01.10 we heard like a big explosion, like some one was blowing something up with dynamite. No, it wasn’t us trying to force ourselves into the bank vault…. *lol*

We didnt get worried because it wasn’t that close. Normally we don’t have noticeable earthquakes in Stockholm, so we didn’t even think of that cause, but yeah, they say that we had an earthquake here!!!!

The epi center of it was only about 2 miles from here (3-4 km), so it was close enough to give us a little feeling of the shivering. *lol*

This was only a little baby earthquake at 2.0 at the Richter scale, but it was very scary for the people living close to the center of it of course, which houses were shaking so they had to run out on the streets to be safe.

The whole Sweden only have about 10 per year and they’re small ones. In Stockholm we have only had about 3-4 of them during several hundred of years, so this is a really unique happening.

I’ve never experienced any earthquake before anywhere.

The forces behind the earthquake is the movement of the plates and the landmasses that raises after the ice age.

Shake it baby, shake it ;-)

CONGRATULATIONS TRE KRONOR!!!!

Sweden won the World Champion Gold medal in icehockey today, for the fourth time in the last 16 years, after beating Czech Republic with 4-0.

On top of that, we also became the first nation in history to get Olympic and IIHF World Championship gold in the same year.

I say that very proudly even if I’m not even interested in icehockey, but I am very amazed over the victory.

How can such a tiny little country like ours, produce so many good sportsmen as we have done during the years?

We are only about 9 million inhabitants in this country with a landmass of the size of California. Yet we have a lot to offer whether it comes to different kind of sports, music, design, cooking, technology or inventions.

Is it the cold winters that gives us the fighting spirit?

I’m impressed over little ol’ Sweden…

Saturday evening the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was held in Athen, Greece.

The whole Swedish people (almost *lol*) was watching, to see how the Swedish contribution the song Invincible by Carola was performed. Though we had no doubt that she would be outstanding.

As always, she gave 100% when she was on stage and did a killer performance. She really is impressive in all ways. What an amazing voice she has.

Well done Carola, to end up on 5th place!

And Congratulations to our neighbours Finland who won for the very the first time and with such a strange contribution as a song called “Hard Rock Halleluja” performed by a group dressed in monster costumes…!!!

Though I must admit, it did make me feel very old and antiquated… How on earth can a song like that win the song contest? With a hoarse hardrock voice? My only guess is that it’s mostly youngsters that is voting.

There were a lot of real quality songs participating that should have had better places than they ended up with, Finland took many high points away from them. The competition was tough as always.

Whatever the results may be, it’s always interesting to see the different countrys contributions.

It’s a real show night - really wonderful European music entertainment.

Watch Carolas video here
Carolas official web home
Our earlier post about the Swedish contribution
Eurovision Song Contest website with Finlands monsters

NOTE: They say that they may sell in the idea to the rest of the world too, so in the end we can have a World Song Contest - wouldn’t that be something?

OK, one thing lead to another…. Spa the other day. Flooding champagne. Yesterday visiting my Mom at the elderly home - there was tears of joy which later was exchanged for tears of sadness when we had to leave.

All different kind of water though.

What post to write when you’ve done absolutely nothing except from staring at the raindrops right now?

And this brain po(o)ps out this:

We have a lot of water here in Sweden. No surprise? But did you know that we have around a hundred thousands of lakes in this little country? (Heck, I was surprised over the numbers too!) On top of that we also have about six thousands of other watercourses.

Swedens land mass is about the size of California, just to give you something to compare it with.

Around Stockholm we have both the archipelago’s (one of the worlds largest) with about thirty thousands of islands and the sweetwater lake Mälaren, which actually provides us with our fresh water too.

The fresh water is really good here, but I have to admit: the most excellent water we’ve tasted was in Iceland! Nothing beats their water from the wells or the glaciers. The purest of pure with no taste at all.

I’m strange when it comes to water. Yes, as everything else I can hear you say. *lol* What about it then?

I love to be in the water, but to drink it? No, no. I’ve never been drinking much water, but I guess the time when I drank too much of it just did it to me.

That was in high school. I was exhausted after a long walking day in the sun and probably had too much to drink. Of water. I got sick and throw up. Ever since I have this issue with drinking water, feeling it splashing around in my stomach making me ill. Yes, it’s silly, but hey, it’s me.

You can actually get toxicated if you drink too much water in a short time, but at the same time we have to have it to survive. What a contradiction. You have to balance the amount of water you drink.

There is a Swedish word for it that doesn’t have it’s equivalence in english: Lagom. It means just enough or with moderation.

There is some really fun ways of using water though, as in water wars - the only war I care to participate in!!!!

*splashing a water balloon on you*
Oooops, did you get wet? *giggling hysterically*

(…waiting for the revenge act of yours…)

Paris, december 1795

“I awake all filled with you. Your image and the intoxicating pleasures of last night, allow my senses no rest.
Sweet and matchless Josephine, how strangely you work upon my heart.
Are you angry with me? Are you unhappy? Are you upset?
My soul is broken with grief and my love for you forbids repose. But how can I rest any more, when I yield to the feeling that masters my inmost self, when I quaff from your lips and from your heart a scorching flame?
Yes! One night has taught me how far your portrait falls short of yourself!
You start at midday: in three hours I shall see you again.
Till then, a thousand kisses, mio dolce amor! but give me none back for they set my blood on fire”.

This was a love letter that Napoleon Bonaparte sent to his mistress Josephine before their wedding. This was just one of maybe thousands he wrote.

I personally doubt that he actually felt real love, because he always continued to take on mistresses. He also divorced Josephine because she didn’t give him any children - I don’t believe you do that if you really love some one, not even at this time. I mean, if it only were a matter of children, he could have kept her as a mistress.

The love letters was not quite the reason for his fame, but maybe it should have been? There is an art to write love letters too, more than being a brilliant military leader, won’t you say? I sure would have preferred being famous for love than for war. The old saying “make love not war” still has meaning.

I guess I’m saying: start to write more love letters!!!

The connection between Sweden and Napoleon is that Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte from France, brother-in-law with Napoleons brother, reigned as King Karl Johan XIV of Sweden 1818. The House of Bernadotte is the current Royal House of the Kingdom of Sweden.

France has always been considered as the country of romance, maybe this connection can explain why we Swedes are considered to be so open about love and sex…?

Ah, that must be the reason why I like french kissing so much ;-)

Read more Love Letters of Napoleon
Wikipedia about The House of Bernadotte