I didn’t go on a big trip this weekend, so it’ll be a shorter update this time around. My big exciting discovery of the week was Swedish pancakes, which you’re apparently supposed to have with lunch on Thursdays. They’re more like crepes than American pancakes, but a bit thicker and more substantial. I like them! I’m still trying to figure out a recipe that I like, so for now I’ll just have to keep going to the overpriced hospital café lunch buffet on Thursdays.
Another nice culinary experience: after everyone in my program went out for pizza, we stopped at a gelato place with some fun flavours. I got pear-ricotta cheesecake and browned butter-caramel rosemary, and both were pretty good! Their menu definitely gave me some ideas for the next time I find myself in custody of an ice cream maker…
My other notable extracurricular endeavor this work week has been to work on putting together a kit for Gimle, the Swedish larp I’ll be attending in the second week of July. It’s a four-day event, so I need more than one outfit (or at least, more than one set of base layers), and their main garb restriction is that everyone should be easy to match to their faction (pretty much their culture, but not always) based on colour scheme. Predictably enough, I’m going with the politically neutral wizard nerd group, so I need to dress in black and white.
I don’t have a great sense for how cold it’ll get there, so I’ve mostly just been trying to find a bunch of black and white bits of fabric I can cocoon myself in and layer up/down as necessary.
I think it’s going OK so far! I need to sort the skirt out, because what you see here is two curtains rather awkwardly folded held on by the power of belts alone. I might also tea-stain some of my brighter white elements so I don’t have multiple shades of white clashing, and at some point I need to figure out hair and makeup and get my not-very-functional thrifted lantern working. Those are lower priorities, though.
As for my weekend, I may not have taken a trip, but it was Midsummer, which is a big deal in Sweden! Most of the celebration actually happens on Midsummer’s Eve, not the day itself, which means we all had Friday off of work. I spent the day at Skansen, an open-air museum in the middle of Stockholm. I think Skansen is normally a ‘living history lite’ sort of experience with a small side helping of zoo and aquarium, but for Midsummer they were putting on some mini-concerts and such throughout the day.
My first impression was that it was absolutely packed—Disney levels of crowded, which I didn’t expect given that Midsummer is the kind of holiday you’d typically spend with family rather than going out, but I guess Disney is certainly plenty crowded when they do themed holiday stuff, so I don’t know why I was all that surprised. The first stop was maypole dancing, but this picture hardly gives you a sense for how crowded it really was. The dance was more of a vaguely circular slow shuffle around the maypole than any true dance until you got right to the center of the crowd. Over the course of about twenty minutes I slowly managed to wriggle my way far enough in to be able to see the people in the middle demonstrating the dances, though, so I got to do the very serious and very traditional Swedish midsummer frog dance!
After the dancing was over, I took a spin through the animal section of the park and the tiny zoo. The goats were some of my favorites!
Yes, these are bison. European bison exist, apparently, and they’re comically tiny! Like, baby cow size! I’ve been assured that these are normal, adult bison, and now I think the Europeans in my lab are all mildly horrified by American bison.
…I took a picture because the sign was funny, but these were HUGE geese. I think a small enough child could have ridden the geese, they were so big. Since I value my life, I definitely did not approach the geese.
My favorite lil guy in the aquarium! It was really more of a small environmental ocean science museum than an aquarium if we judge by the signs-on-walls-to-fish ratio, but when there was this little fellow to say hello to, how can I really be disappointed?
I only took a picture of this necklace in the gift shop because it was such a weirdly ambiguous creature. What does it even look like to you guys? A bear? An anteater? A frog? A pig?
After a long day navigating the crowds on Midsummer’s Eve, I decided to take Midsummer’s Day in to relax, do a little cooking, get my laundry done.
Attempt number one at Swedish pancakes! The pancake itself wasn’t bad, if a little small for lack of decent-sized pans in the apartment kitchen and a touch bland. My basic yogurt-and-lingonberry-jam filling could use an upgrade, though. Next time, I think I might add a little sugar and vanilla to the pancake base, and either swap the yogurt for a more traditional whipped cream or add some cardamom or lemon zest to make it more interesting. I’ll keep you all posted on my future efforts.
I ended my Midsummer with a nice bowl of slow-cooked beef stew, cheesy noodles, an almond scone with Swedish strawberries, and the leftover wine from making the stew. I think we should celebrate Midsummer more in the US—we could use more spring/summer holidays besides the fourth of july, and Midsummer is pretty great!
Also no blanket updates this time, for the same reason as last week, but I’m nearly back on schedule, so next week I’ll get back to it with a look at all my hexagons so far. For now, I’ll just say it’s coming along well—wait and see.
Anyway, happy (belated given when i’m writing this) Midsummer whether or not you celebrated. I’ll see you all soon for next week’s post with updates on my birthday weekend and trip to Paris!
Lyra Cromwell 
the necklace looks like a chameleon to me, just minus the tail
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