BIG update (and Midsummer!)

Hej!
Sorry I’ve taken so long to update, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy- lots of softball, events, and then Midsummer this weekend, which is a major holiday here in Sweden.

So let’s recap! A couple weeks ago I went to a High School graduation ceremony in Västerås, which was very interesting to watch- the graduates start with a champagne breakfast, then meet their families out in a courtyard in the middle of town. The families all make signs for their children, with varying levels of detail, some were very elaborate!

As you can see, it’s traditional for the graduates to wear hats that look a little like sailor uniforms. So after this meeting the grads then get on huge carts pulled by tractors, and ride around the town playing loud music and getting fantastically drunk. It was pretty funny to witness, though as they kept going around (for over two hours), they got drunk enough that some of the graduates thought it was funny to spray beer out at the crowd, etc., which was gross.
After that we went back to Jonna’s house (her brother was the one graduating) and had a party for him with a bunch of their friends. It was a good time, lots of good food and fun people, including a family that’s half American and loves baseball- so I was grilled about my coaching styles and softball for awhile, which was fine by me!
That weekend we played Skvöde, the best team in the league and winner of the class B European Cup last year (they’ve since moved up to Class A). They had an American who played in Seattle at an NAIA school a couple years ago as their pitcher in the first game. We ended up winning 2-1, which was very satisfying, considering how good a team they are. I pitched much better than I had thus far in Sweden, so I felt good about that.
Sunday after the games I went with Ingrid, Vidar and Freja to the King’s palace that he actually lives in (the one in Stockholm is just for work, obviously…). I liked this castle much better, it was very pretty and had beautiful gardens. After the castle we went to Ingrid’s mom’s house, which is on an island next to the island the king’s palace is on- Stockholm harbor is surrounded by a network of islands connected by bridges. It was a very relaxing afternoon, we walked down to the lake and had a fika and just lazed around.

The week was mostly softball and coaching stuff, I went to see a chiropractor to help with pretty intense lower back pain I’ve been having trouble with- now, almost two weeks after my first visit, I feel pretty much back to normal, which is wonderful. I was highly skeptical when Ingrid suggested it, but the woman I saw was great.
Last weekend was crazy busy. We drove two hours up to Leksand to play on Saturday- they were a pretty bad team, so we took care of them pretty easily. It was a nice opportunity to play some of the pitchers I’ve been working with and let them see some live batters. Jonna did well, Ida had some trouble and walked several people- but we’ve made a lot of progress this week so hopefully she’ll do better next weekend when we play Norrköping (who’s even worse than Leksand).
After the games we drove directly back here to run to a 50th birthday party for the stepdad of two of our players. 50th birthdays are a big deal here, so they had a pretty big shindig, with a band and open bar in the restaurant owned by Lewis, the New Zealander whose birthday it was. He’s married to a Swedish woman whose daughters play with me. It was a very fun party, I made good use of the open bar and talked a lot with several Australians, Irishman, and a Welshman who were there.
Sunday was the christening for Agnes, Maria and Emil’s baby girl. I’ve never been to a christening before, so it was fun, and the church in town where it was performed was really beautiful.

So it was a busy weekend. This past week has been primarily preparation for Midsummer and softball. We don’t have games this weekend because of the holiday, which is close to Christmas-level in its importance and how much it’s celebrated- everything shuts down for a couple days- Friday, which is when all the eating and drinking etc. is done, and Saturday, which is a recovery day when most of the country is hungover (and that’s not much of an exaggeration).
So Ingrid decided we should host Midsummer rather than going out anywhere, so we had Maria and Emil and Agnes over, as well as the family of the New Zealander who owns the restaurant. His wife has four kids from her first husband, including two girls on the team and Erik, who, along with his girlfriend Cissi, took me to Stockholm to show me around a couple weeks ago and invite me out pretty regularly to hang out or go to parties. So it was a good crowd, about 15 people or so. Before all them came over, however, we met in the town lawn and went to the Midsummer festival and danced around the Maypole (that’s not what they call it but that’s essentially what it is). It was fun, I danced mostly with Vidar and just tried to copy what everyone else was doing, with moderate success.

So the festival was very fun, they had petting zoos and amazing roasted almonds and horse rides, which Freja and I did together. Around 3 we went home and ate a TON of food.
I ate the traditional sill (raw herring) with sour cream and chives, which you then wash down with snaps (which made my eyes water profusely, it was strong). The sill was a little gross, but I’m considering it a cultural experience.

We had potatoes and homemade meatballs (which I helped make), hardbread and sausages, and more. Then we sat around in food comas until everyone else arrived, and we had a fika with birthday cakes for Maria and Emil (whose birthday’s were yesterday and Monday), and biskvier (beesk-vee), an almond cookie with chocolate crème on top, coated in chocolate (I also made those, I practically have the recipe memorized by now since we also made them for the christening). Birthday cakes here don’t have frosting, instead traditional Swedish cakes are white cake in three thin layers with whipped crème and strawberries in between, with strawberries on top as well.
We played Kubb in the evening, a traditional Swedish game in which you throw sticks at the other team’s pegs and try to knock them over (that’s the very basic version, but you get the idea).
Agnes!
So, right after Kubb was when I posted last, and as I said it was pretty light out, as you can see from the pictures. We barbequed and ate more (I was still full from lunch), then people started drifting out around 11 or so. Traditionally you’re supposed to stay up until 4am on Midsummer, or all night. Erik and Cissi invited me to come with them to a party at a friend’s house, which turned out to be really fun- there were some people there who were just annoyingly drunk, but there were also a bunch of great people as well, and I ended up staying until 5am or so before getting a taxi home. I met Micke when I came in the house, who was on his way to work (poor soul), Ingrid was up as well, so I was made fun of a bit for coming back so late, but then was told it was a perfectly respectable time to be arriving back after my first Midsummer’s Eve.
Today we’re all just lazing around, watching movies and eating leftovers. If it’s nice we might go to the lake and have a fika later. So, all in all, a wonderful Midsummer! This week we get ready for two doubleheaders back to back against Söder on Saturday and Norrköping on Sunday. And, most exciting of all, mom and dad get here on Saturday morning! They’ll be here for a week, and I’m sure many adventures will ensue!

Alright, time to get back to my relaxing, hope you all having a wonderful summer thus far, and I’ll try to update sooner this time!

HAPPY MIDSUMMER!!
It's 9:30, still plenty light out (like 6:30 at home), and barbeque and snaps (schnapps, except stronger) are still to come!
I promise I will update for real very soon, with some pictures!

Quick update

Hey everyone,
I'm exhausted, so this really will be short- yesterday we beat Skövde (which is pronounced huev-deh. Go figure.), the best team in the league 2-1 in the game I pitched. No one's beat them in the past two seasons, and Enköping has never beat them, so everyone was pretty excited. I finally started pitching more like my old self, and had a pretty good outing against them. The girls played great defense behind me, I was so proud of them- we worked on outfield cutoffs and infield plays on bunts and slaps for the whole week, and they executed beautifully and made two double plays over the game. Emil, the husband of Maria (our third baseman and Agnes' parents) bought all the girls ice cream, he was so happy. So it was fun. We lost the second game, and Ingrid had a tough game pitching-wise, but overall everyone felt pretty good about the day.
I'll post longer and with pictures later, but Thursday I went to Västerås (vest-ar-oas) to watch a typical Swedish graduation ceremony (Jonna's brother was graduating), and stayed overnight at Jonna's house till Friday afternoon. Pictures and more on that later. Today Ingrid, Vidar, Freja and I went to the series of islands in and around Stockholm to visit the king's other palace (the one he actually lives in, he just works in the one in the middle of the city), and to go to Ingrid's mom's house, which is on the next island over. She has a summer-home-turned-year-round house that's very pretty, so we ate lunch and then walked to the lake with the kids and had a fika (reminder- a snack with sweet pastries, juice,and/or coffee and tea). It was a very relaxing day, and the castle was beautiful- again, I'll post pictures later.
We came back and had an American cultural experience by making s'mores. I had a discussion with Ingrid about smores awhile ago- she thought they were gross, and I was horrified, until she told me she'd made them with European marshmallows which, like those available in New Zealand, are kind of fruit-sweet and not at all like jet-puff ones in the US. BUT, a couple days ago Ingrid found American-style marshmallows, so I showed them how to roast them and stack with chocolate, we used a type of cracker called a Marie, since they don't have graham crackers. It worked pretty well, everyone got very marshmallow-y and had a sugar high for the next hour.
Okay, that's all for now- I'll post with pictures soon!

The past week, and Stockholm!

Hey All!

So it's been awhile since I updated, my apologies, but I've been settling into life here and am trying to get myself back into game pitching shape, which is proving more difficult than I'd hoped. We played this weekend on Saturday and split with Karlslund, they had a DI American pitcher and shortstop from UNBC (who plays in the same conference as UMaine and UVM), they both were excellent hitters, and the pitcher was also good. We lost that game, but walked all over them the second game. My pitching left something to be desired, but I went 5 for 8 and drove in a few runs, so that was good at least. This weekend we play the best team in the league, the one who's going to the European tournament in September, so those should be some good games.

Prior to Saturday, I had a pretty relaxing week. Practice Monday Wednesday and Friday, pitching lessons on Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday Ingrid had a business meeting in Stockholm until late in the day, so I dropped off Vidar at school and Freja at daycare, and picked them up in the afternoon. Vidar wanted me to stay and watch his classes in the morning- which is pretty common here, parents are allowed to sit in on classes whenever they want- so I watched his gym class and smiled a lot at the children running around all over the place. Vidar told his gym teacher who I was at least four times, and told him a lot of other things about me in Swedish, I have no idea what. The teacher didn't give me any wierd looks though, so I assume it wasn't too bad. I watched the kids until Ingrid came home at 7 or so, and everyone was still alive and happy when she got here, so I considered my first Swedish babysitting endeavor a success.

Wednesday I went to Stockholm with Cissi and Erik, the same people who showed me around Enköping my second day here. They're both a little younger than me and have been great about inviting me out places. We went to see the changing of the guard at the Swedish Palace, which was exceptionally cool for multiple reasons: Once every two weeks or so they have a guard change that's more ceremonial, and involves horses and bands, etc. (see video).

On last Wednesday the new militia trainees were performing with the horses for the first time, which was slightly nerve-wracking (they came REALLY close to us and some of them didn't have complete control). Another cool thing about it was the fact that Erik, who's in the military, served a year with his regiment as palace guards, so he knew all the inside info on the routine, the officers, when they were messing up, etc. It was funny to hear his commentary, and some of his stories about being a guard.

For those of you who've been to London, you've seen guards at posts like this:

In Sweden most of the commanding officers don't require that their soldiers be quite as stoic as the London guards (though some do), so if you needed directions or had a simple question then you can ask, as long as you stay outside of the painted semicircle around their little box. If you step inside that then apparently things can get a little nasty, though according to Erik no one's really tested this in awhile. He did say, however, that not once but multiple times he's been flashed by girls walking by- all he would say about that is that it helped break up the boredom (though maybe that's because Cissi was right there).

Anyway, so the guard change was cool, the band was really interesting- I felt bad for the horses, particularly those who had to carry the percussion section, but apparently they're treated like kings and have earplugs (those must be interesting to see). Here's a couple more cool pictures from the guard change:

I couldn't resist this one- c'mon, it's a guy on horse playing a tuba! How often do you see that? I have to admire the guy, I'd be terrified- he's barely hanging on with his fingers to the reins.

After the palace we went to the old part of the city. It's very European-looking, I suppose- lots of narrow streets broken up by the occasional breathtaking cathedral. The picture at the top of me with that really attractive troll was taken there- Cissi insisted I needed a picture with him.

After the old city we went along the harbor and around the front of the palace towards the new part of the city. We got lunch as a Chinese place and then had to head out so I could make it back for practice. For more pictures you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/Jen.Williams.21 to find ones I don't post here. The album is Sweden Additional photos, the other album with the orange blog symbol is an album of pictures posted here (ps I love google, they make anything possible- this is all done using their blog, e-mail, and picture programs).

Well, other than that not much is going on! I worked with pitchers for most of the afternoon today, and we have practice tomorrow,and I'm babysitting for Agnes for an hour or so while Maria gets her hair cut. Thursday I'm going to Vestarås to throw and hit with one of our players, Jonna, then watch her sister graduate (apparently it's a very entertaining ceremony) and spending the night at her house. She and her mom are super excited to have me over- that's basically the reception I've been getting everywhere, and I'm invited to hang out, have dinner, spend the night, etc. at more places than I would have believed possible considering I've only been here three weeks! Ah, the benefits of being a novelty... so much for the Swedes being standoffish! Hope everyone's doing well, the weather here has been beautiful the past two weeks- I hope you all can say the same!

I'll update again soon,

jen

By the way, if anyone wants to send me mail (which I would of course love, but no pressure, since I'm told it's pretty expensive to mail things here) here's the contact info:

Jen Williams c/o Ingrid Törnberg

Jordhumlagatan 17

SE-745 44 Enköping

Sweden