Sweden Part 2
Ashley: Midsommer (mid-summer) is celebrated differently in Sweden than Norway. On previous visits to Elin when she was in Norway I attended the summer solstice celebration on June 23, which involves a bonfire burning a fake witch on a stake, for reasons unknown to Elin. Here instead they celebrate always on a Friday and the whole country takes the day off. Traditionally females make flower head wreathes they wear and there is dancing around a maypole (see video of Elin’s daughter Emily who celebrated with her friends). A family that is good friends with Elin’s came over with their kids and we had a huge feast for lunch including two kinds of herring (which were fine if smothered in sauce), smoked salmon (yum!), Swedish meatballs, and new potatoes. As I enthusiastically dove into my meal I remembered that we bought ribeyes from a local farm for today and they were not present which meant another larger meal was still coming. Whoops, there goes my diet!
Midsommer lunch spread
The afternoon (it stays light here in midsummer until after 11 so by “afternoon” I mean 4-9) we sat around and chatted with Elin’s friends who had come over, using the pool to escape the unusually hot day. Cosmo also got a nice cool walk in the woods. Dinner was an amazing assortment of roasted veggies (new potatoes, beets, carrots, white and red onions) and meat, the fresh grown ribeye and sausage from the local farm. It was the best meat I’ve had excluding some wagu restaurants in Japan or a few top notch steakhouses with aged beef. Certainly far better than anything I’ve made and I do a pretty good ribeye!
Midsommer Dinner
Cosmo: For me, this thing called Midsommer basically meant there were extra people and extra noise in the house. I hid under a chair in the “quiet” bedroom until Ashley found me with her beeping locator. Then I hung outside on my leash all day, occasionally getting Churu, and having one nice walk in the woods. The next day Ashley actually let me out to wander on my own. I found a cute white cat with gray markings. She kept running away from me so of course I chased her…until I couldn’t find her. I’m pretty sure Ashley was laughing at me the last time that happened so I refused to come inside even though she called to me and truthfully I was a bit hungry, but you can’t reward humans when they do something wrong or they will never learn.
Cosmo finds a white and gray cat
Elin and Andreas take me to the train station
Ashley: The World Cup is going on and the US has a surprisingly good team. The last time I paid attention 20 years ago, the men’s team wasn’t that good. We watched them beat Australia 2-0. Sadly the next day Sweden got clobbered by the Netherlands 5-1, which made for a somber evening my last night in Gothenburg. The next morning I got packed up and Elin and Andreas took me to the train station in Gothenberg and walked me to my train. Andreas carried my bags in and put my large backpack above me seat which was really helpful because it is super heavy. I will need to remember to make that lighter before the next train ride.
Jenny met me right at the train when I got off and we walked to her car which was literally 20 yards away, talk about service in a smaller town! Though with 100k people Eskilstuna is hardly a town. We got Cosmo settled into her apartment and caught up a bit before heading to dinner.
Sweden is so much nicer and cleaner than the US! On the way to dinner Jenny mentioned they have had a lot of shootings here in Eskilstuna the past few years and we were driving through a bad neighborhood. She pointed out a bus stop where an 18 year old shot a 22 year old and all I could think was “wow, this sure looks nice for a slum!” When I enquired, she showed me several “slum” areas which all look very nice, but the key to identification is that they will be high rise buildings, and most Swedish houses should have flowers and/or a lamp in the window with nice curtains, so these will be absent in the bad areas, but honestly their worst urban places look our nice urban areas. See pics! Note: this is not an exact science as we sometimes saw high end places without lamps and flowers.
How to identify a "slum" in Sweden
notice the flowers and lamps in
the windows, not a slum
Much prettier than speed bumps
My fortune, which I somehow expected to be
in English or maybe Chinese
Dinner was semi fast food Chinese and I opened my fortune cookie, somehow expecting it to be in English, but Jenny translated for me “Your stubbornness will open doors to success” which could easily apply to me since everyone knows how stubborn I am. When we were done, since I had seen the tray bussing area on the way to the bathroom I confidently said “sit down, I got this.” However when I walked up to the bussing area, I saw all the signage was in Swedish so I had no idea what went where. Oops! I could figure out the discarded food pile since I could see it, but the rest was hopeless. Luckily a worker was waiting to clean the restrooms and she explained where everything went so I didn’t have to return shamefaced to Jenny.
uh oh, where does everything go?
The next morning we went to Jenny’s mom’s house for a late breakfast then took Cosmo for another walk by the river where we had walked last night. On the way to the river, there is a patch of grass with a sign with a picture of a dog. Also there is a large metal box with the word “sand” on it. Knowing that sand is what you call cat litter, what would you think? (see pic)
Sand... for cats?
But I asked Jenny and she laughed and said that no, it was sand for when it snows to give traction. Oh well, I guess I can’t expect the world to revolve around cats!
Jenny's mom collects dala horses
Cosmo: We got on a train and I watched out the window for a bit. It’s a lot like a car only faster and with better, closer views of wonderful woods and fields that I can’t wander in, hmph! At least it was a pretty short ride, only a few hours, then I got a short walk and we moved into a new house. This one is much quieter and I set to work exploring right away. Ashley and her friend Jenny overreacted when I walked over some item on the windowsill and frantically started putting all breakables away. I barely nudged it! And who is Lisa Larson anyways. Soon they left me entirely alone and I got some real peace and quiet with the run of the house. I’d forgotten how much I miss my alone time!
The next day I got a short walk, not nearly long enough, before I was popped into a car for a drive to a new place called Stockholm. I enjoyed the drive as Jenny let me put my paws on the wheel and drive for a bit, and I reciprocated by sitting in her lap. The new place has a giant aquarium with dozens of fish. I will have to examine this closer at night when I can roam about on my own. There is also a balcony that has fences that lead to a roof! My favorite place to go. I’ll have to try that later.
Cosmo in Jenny's lap on the drive to Stockholm
"the grandmother" Burger
Ashley: We packed up and drove to Jenny’s boyfriend Ansi’s house outside of Stockholm. We barely got settled in and then got ready to head into the city to visit her friend. Belatedly I remembered that we were going for her friend’s birthday and I was in a t-shirt and shorts, which Jenny politely did not ask if I wanted to change. She said not to worry since I was on vacation from another country. We took the train into town to avoid traffic and grabbed a burger at Mormor’s lillo. I got a Mormor burger, which is “grandmother’s burger” which I think should be renamed the “kitchen sink burger.” It had both BBQ sauce and thousand island dressing, red and white onions, tomatoes, lettuce, beets, and pickles which I usually don’t like but these complimented everything perfectly! It was the best burger I’ve had in at least a year.
Mormors burgers, delicious!
Cool fishbowl balconies
We proceeded to her friend’s house where she greeted us in a beautiful formal blue dress. Others had on formal dresses as well and I was just a bit underdressed, but no one seemed to care. They all were enjoying practicing their English, which was extremely good! I sat with Jenny in a small glass enclosed balcony, similar to one we sat in at her mothers and like some others across the way. These little fishbowl balconies seem very popular here! See pics. We had some great conversations about politics in the US and Sweden, taxes (theirs are 50% but everyone gets health care and care when they are retired), football (soccer) in Sweden and the US. Obviously they think as much of Trump as I do. I also found out what the “Swedish candy” craze is. It’s not just the candy itself, it’s the fact that you have stores with dozens of different bins you can “pick and mix” from. The one I saw with Elin had various types of gummies, sours, chocolates, chocolate covered items, gumballs, you name it. Someone posted on TikTok about it and it went viral.
the railing that
Cosmo went over
The next morning at breakfast I tethered Cosmo with about 12 feet of lead to the umbrella pole and went in to prepare my breakfast. I heard a crash and Jenny exclaimed so I came running thinking Cosmo had knocked something over. Instead he was hanging off the edge of the balcony on his leash 12 feet down. The balcony below was about 15 feet down from the railing so he was hanging in midair in his harness. I grabbed the leash line and started hauling him up, which wasn’t easy since he weighs 13 pounds and the leash line is very thin, but with Jenny’s help I got him up. Embarrassed, he immediately ran inside but didn’t get far since he was still on leash. I thought he had jumped down, but it turns out he was on the side fence jumping back down to the railing a few feet below and somehow missed, which is when he fell.
where Cosmo was hanging by his leash
there are a lot of large boulders in this Stockholm suburb
Cosmo: Despite what Ashley says, I was NOT embarrassed, I was simply annoyed. I finally get outside for some fresh air and I’m exploring a bit but when I went to jump down, the stupid leash threw me off and before I knew it I had slid over the edge and was swinging around dangling helplessly from the leash. Then Ashley hauls me up like a sack of potatoes. I just wanted to relax under the bed but she left me chained to the leash for 15 minutes before she let me go downstairs and pout under the bed.
Later that day we walked to the train station and I got to explore a little (not enough). I climbed up some boulders. It seems much of this suburb is built on or around giant rocks. I graciously allowed a nice lady to feed me Churu and pet me. We walked around the touristy Gamla Stan area, the heart of Stockholm, where Ashley bought a fresh squeezed orange juice and was surprised when it cost $10. That will show her to buy without looking. But she said it was very good and the juicing machine reminded her of Bilbao. We took a boat tour and I popped out of my backpack to watch for awhile as we cruised around the waterways of Stockholm. On the way back I got a too-short walk in the woods behind Ansi’s house.
fresh squeezed OJ and pomegranate juice
Cosmo and I in Stockholm
Cosmo meets a giant cat
Cosmo in the woods right below Ansi's house
Cosmo: The next day I got another blissful day all to myself! Ashley and Jenny went into town for most of the day, then came back in the evening where I got a nice long walk in the woods. We encountered the black cat, that someone said was “king” of the neighborhood. But after a stare down he first walked, then ran away from me. Ashley had a firm hold on my leash or I’d have been right behind him!
Cosmo takes on the black cat, King of the neighborhood
Jenny and I with Abba in the background
Ashley: My last full day in Sweden Jenny and I went to the ABBA Museum! It was super fun and I didn’t get a chance to go in 2018 since I was the only real fan in our group and $30 seemed like a lot back then. Now after Covid inflation, $35 seems quite reasonable. I learned a lot of history about them. Before they became a group they were all famous singers/band members in Sweden. Then they were two couples with the guys collaborating on songs. It makes more sense now that after the couples broke up the band was destined to break up as well. We also got to take fun pictures which I will include.
Jenny and I in the ABBA picture
view of Stockholm
This featured blog entry was written by nutmeg2000 from the blog Europe 2026.
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