Life has to go on. We can’t live our whole lives in fear.
– from the film “Stranded”
Monday
The Fourth of July is for Americans what Midsommar is for Swedes. An excuse to get together and picnic, relax outdoors, and celebrate in general merriment as a community and family, it’s all universal. Except for lighting off fireworks and shooting some guns, it’s pretty much the same.
No store quite gets into the spirit of the holiday like the ever-ready Dollar Store. Before I left Provo, I made sure to stock up on essentials like baby wipes, eyeliner, and a hairbrush. (Weirdly enough, I’ve used the other items more than the hairbrush. . .) But because the dollar store is semi-omniscient in predicting our needs before we even know what they are, their Fourth of July spread had nothing but gleeful items to endure a holiday of delight. Determined to celebrate, even abroad, I bought American flag paper cartons to remind me of the auspicious occasion. Should I find a cool crew to party with, sure, but if not, I could still shin some dig in my own way.
Turns out the Soderala crew was the just the one.
I’d told Olle I could BarBQ for dinner, offering my services as chef for the holiday, to share a bit of American culture. He happily agreed, and away he, Ellie and I went to the store for supplies.
Now, we had made plans to celebrate on the actual Fourth (Tuesday) but because Olle had to be in Uppsala for a thing and Ellie and Victor had opposing work schedules, we settled on Monday dinner. With T-minus three and a half hours to go, it was game time, and it was a race to the finish line (the finish line being a delicious meal.)
Twas a miraculous moment indeed when what did I find but Sweet Baby Ray’s BarBQ sauce on the shelf, as a heavenly harbinger of the holiday itself. I took that as a good sign.
Cooking was rushed but fun, and I enjoyed doing it solo. But later, the whole crew pitched in slicing, dicing, and lighting the BarBQ pit, even taking turns with the corn and meats.
A grand feast indeed: hot dogs of two types (heck if I know which), hamburgers, grilled corn, cheese-stuffed/bacon-wrapped peppers, summer salad, Southern-style baked mac ‘n cheese, s’mores, deviled eggs, lemonade with sugared glasses as a classy garnish, the sparkling non-alco wine, and schapps for the boys as treats. Oh, and the carrot cake with the obligatory berry flag. Because it’s Sweden, the red stripes were lingonberries and the blue parts were currants, which tasted delicious, except for the berries melting in a little pool of imitation blood.
Still, what a win.
Tuesday
Took a day off to rest my foot. A cow got out, so when Olle and I were fixing it, I walked where I normally would not have and fell into a pit. And not one of those figurative ones, but a literal, stone-lined pit. Messed up my ankle, so was limping around on Monday because of it. Have a monster bruise on my right knee. I tested it out on a bike and was fine, but have been reluctant to walk on it for hours. I was honestly so nervous about it being wrecked, especially before the Camino even started, so I iced it with a bag of frozen macaroni pasta and elevated it, and it’s done well since. Funny enough it’s the same ankle I wrecked when doing the Rim to Rim hike at the Grand Canyon back a few years ago; same ankle, different side.
Highlights:
-Didn’t really sleep. So found a free streaming of the film Stranded, and watched that all night. Apparently before Chase was a doctor on House’s team, he had an island romance as an English kid with Aussie-standard swimming skills.
-Toasted to America. It was weird, because not I don’t think of my home as a place founded on freedom of speech or expression. When did it become a place of others telling you what it okay to be free about, or expressing yourself only if approved by others. What a death to be told to hold back oneself in such a state of hypocrisy, not union.
-Found strawberry sparkling non-alcoholic wine. God bless Sverige and its obsession with strawberries.
-Francesco told me he told his friends he tried mac ‘n cheese, and it actually was pretty tasty.
-They did not believe him.
-Victor found a banging playlist with Fourth-themed songs. We laughed that Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” was indeed about holiday, as well as other pop songs we wouldn’t have guessed, but did have a lyric or two about it. So we rocked out to “American Pie” and “America the Beautiful” jazz, the sounds of forks scraping plates a welcome cacophony in the coolness of the summer air.
