I think I've posted some slice-of-life photos in Sweden before... but I never got around to finishing it up. So dish of the day: VALBORG. Spring Fest in Sweden. And no prizes for guessing where the celebrations are centred in Sweden, judging by the crowds thronging the streets in Uppsala!
Oh yeah. People from all over Sweden, gee, people from all over EUROPE come to the sleepy town of Uppsala just for this! So the highlights...
They come to watch man-made floats survive the treacherous currents of the Fyris river! Okay. Maybe it's not as simple as that. These people are from various different institutions in Uppsala. Like maybe a certain faculty in the University, etc etc. So this Valborg thing is a chance to show off their boat-building skills (and also design, definitely, the Scandinavians have these thing about combining form and function :)) You could call it the dragon boat race of the west, except there are no dragons. OK, actually there was one, the Asian Cultural Club or something? I spotted one dragon like boat floating past, I think. Well, you get my drift.
And this is where the participants go 'ahhhhhhhh my boat's not made for this!'. This is the supposed climax of the boat race. Seeing whether your man-made boat made of scrap materials can withstand the sheer strength of the rapids in the Fyris river. Heh heh. Most boats break into pieces by this point, and the ones who get through usually get to the finish line.
And they have this really strange ceremony. The chancellor of the University is somewhere amongst this crowd. Current and previous grads of Uppsala University are supposed to wave their caps at people at a certain hour. It's all very strange actually. But it's cool to see the really old students come back with their own caps and waving for all their energy's worth!
So here are all the Uppsalite Singaporeans, with the addition of people from other parts of Europe who came to visit (yes, just for the festival). The guy in the front is someone who randomly decided to hijack our photo.
What's spring without a picnic under the long anticipated sunlight? I love picnics in Europe. Or actually, picnics that are held in places that aren't anywhere near the equator and during Spring and Summer are amazing. It's sunny, yet its also really cooling!
And on this day only, the Uppsalites love to celebrate in a really unique, close to decadent, way. They call it the champagne gallop. And what is done there? Basically, student clubs bust out their best champagne and people pay to get in - and get this - buy a bottle of champagne, shake it really really vigorously, pop the cork, and start spraying at random strangers (who paid to participate of course). To lots of trance music, of course. hahahahha. Here you see the aftermath of us having the cheaper version of the champagne gallop - the BEER gallop. We bought cans of beer, shook it up a lot, and started spraying at each other. I know, such cheapskates we are. But we did have fun and that's what matters!
Can't call it Valborg if you don't check out what's going on in Uppsala at night. We were at Saluhallen, apparently one of the clubs catering to the more mature, working crowd. And it was obvious it was more high end - the stupid cover fee and alcohol were at least 1.5X the usual price charged by the rest of the student clubs. Anyway. Saluhallen is Swedish for 'Market Hall'. And this place is pretty interesting in that in the day, it really is a market hall selling meat, fish, and what not. But at night, it turns into a nightspot. So one of my friends was joking that Saluhallen was apt indeed, 'cos it was Uppsala's 'Meat Market'.
And we were all dancing happily in the R&B cramped room (with lots of making out going on around us but by now we were allllll numb to it. We kinda just elbow them out of the way somehow.) Then suddenly, the fire alarm goes off. So we were all shooed outta the club and we were standing there in the freezing Spring air. The girls all grabbed a smelly blanket and wrapped ourselves up in them!
So that was Valborg, in a nutshell. Exciting stuff :) And now that I look back on these photos, there's a part of me which misses my long hair. Heh.
Labels: events, exchange, friends, photolog, sweden, travel
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