This Week: My Students and Swedish Holidays

Peter is a CPA and in order for him to keep the title he has to take courses from time to time to get x-amount of credits. Yesterday he got his text book for a test he has to take. The book has over a 1000 pages. I am so happy that I am not the student. Peter does not work as a CPA either, so he has a lot to catch up on. He is more of a finance guy than an accountant for a French conferencing company, at their head quarters in Tyson’s Corner here in Northern Virginia.
Yes, now Peter knows what he has to do for little while. He has got to study!!

Karolina is a student, too (of course). And with lots of home work and SOL (standard of learning) tests coming up we sure have a lot to do right now.
Karolina’s middle school placement is based on her grades and her SOL score. We want her to be placed into several “honor’s classes”, so we have our work cut out for us.
As I am writing this Peter and Karolina are going over her social studies home work.

I am a blogger, and I am not taking any classes. I should take a few, I know. I should so take a class and learn more about, say, Photoshop, or I should take a photo class…OR…

Well, tomorrow is a big day back in Sweden. It is the Walpurgis celebration. The Swedes are celebrating that spring has finally arrived again.
What you do tomorrow night is to eat a nice dinner and then people are gathering around bonfires. At the bonfire, a choir is usually singing spring songs and the crowd usually sings a song or two as well, a sing-along. At the end of the night there will be fire works. It is a regular school day and work day, but you can probably leave work a tad bit early.

Here you can listen to one of the most famous of the Swedish spring songs. A song that for sure will be sung tomorrow night everywhere.



Thursday is the First of May, also known as May Day or Labor Day, the (blue collar) workers day. All people are off work, and you can see lots of demonstrations everywhere. It is a big day for the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party. May Day is celebrated thru out Europe.

This year May 1 happens to take place on the very same day as another huge Swedish spring holiday-- Ascension Day. It is a Christian holiday, but being a Swede you are probably not giving the religious aspect all that much attention. It is the long weekend you are celebrating. And this year Ascension Day and May Day just happen to take place at same time.

Do I miss the Walpurgis (Valborg) celebration? No, not that much. But it would have been nice to be with my family, to eat and drink something good and then go down to the big bonfire together (usually it is COLD outside).
Do I miss the May Day? Not so much. But I used to enjoy listening to all the social democratic songs that were sung in the demonstration processions. And I do think that it is an important day for all the workers everywhere.
Do I miss Ascension Day? No, not from the religious aspect since I am not very religious, it does not mean that much to me. BUT, what I do miss is the celebration of spring that comes with it. When I was a kid my parents used to organize a so called “gök otta” on Ascension Day. We met up with a huge group of people (friends of my parents) early in the morning around 4:30-5:00 and we went out in the nature and had a big breakfast together, and after breakfast we went on a nature trail, and we usually ended the morning playing soccer or brännboll (burn ball, Sweden’s answer to soft ball, and all my Swedish readers know my take on brännboll).
I think we got home around 9 AM or around that time. So, yes, I miss that…

Basically I miss the Swedish spring, and to see the happiness in the people as soon as the weather turns warmer and the light returns. There is nothing like people in the far north come spring.

Have a very nice Tuesday!

Pics from DN.se