Day 258: What is Valborg?

The Good

Valborg (Vahl-Borey), or Walpurgis in English, is the 30th April on which Swedes celebrate the arrival of spring by lighting bonfires or going to a large, communal bonfire somewhere nearby. This is simply a bonfire, and not a fireworks display like on Bonfire night in England.

The day starts by eating champagne and strawberries, sometimes with porridge, for breakfast.

Swedes in Uppsala have a much larger and richer appreciation of Valborg. There are bonfires, but there is also a boat race down the Fyris river in the centre of town in what can only be described as a total abandonment of the usual Swedish obsession with health and safety. For this, the students at Uppsala University create foam/cardboard/recycled boats in fun designs (their boats are a lot more exciting than those in the Oxford/Cambridge boat race) and see if they can survive the waters...

Most don't.

There is also a mösspåtagning, or hat ceremony, at the university library. Anyone with a student hat, that is to say anyone who graduated high school, is welcome to come and throw their hat in the air.

Finally, when all the other events are over, people move to the park next to the faculty of economics and have a picnic.

The Bad

It all sounds lovely and family fun. 

My first suspicions that Valborg was not going to be all Disney and birds pouring champagne came when I was on the commuter train from Stockholm. My fellow passengers and I were treated to a 55 minute rendition of "drunk asshat frat boys sing and stomp all the classics" including such favourites as Kung för en dag and Hey Baby (ooh-ah) (I strongly recommend that you DO NOT click that link.) They then sprayed beer on the seats, swung from the luggage racks and forced their way off the train first using a selection of garden chairs they had transported in the disabled, bike and buggy spaces. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of train parties and a bit of drunken singing. But wow. I never want to hear that Hey Baby song again.

I met up with my boyfriend who was in a house just one street back from the economics faculty. "How are you?" I said "Oh you know, fine, I just went and offered toilet paper to a guy who was peeing in the recycling bins." Apparently he didn't get the hint and smiled inanely. There were several inhabitants of the building on their balconies watching in disbelief as a stream of inebriated teenagers came to pee in the bushes, trees, on cars, on recycling. One man was sick and then was too drunk to stand up again after vomiting, so he lay down in his vomit. This was at 2pm. "Don't piss in the garden!" I yelled at two women. One pissed in the garden behind a car and didn't look at me, the other felt bad and went to the other end of the garden to piss, apparently that was better somehow.

Don't get me wrong, I know how it feels to need a drunken, desperate pee. But these people had navigated past a line of portaloos to get to the garden. They also had the sense that "Okay, I'm just going for a cheeky wee in the garden" without realising that a hundred other people were also going for a cheeky wee and creating a cheeky river of wee. Nobody likes a cheeky river of wee.

Meanwhile one man went down to the cellar of the building opposite to pee. He came back up and caught his reflection in the door. He played with his hair in the door reflection for 10 minutes. His friends got bored of waiting so they smashed some glass on the path to pass the time. Anyone leaving the flat was treated to a delightful wee/vomit/broken glass/discarded bottles/drunken teenagers obstacle course. YAY FOR SPRING!

On a more positive note, the weather helped to wash away the piss. "Oh there were some April showers!" you're thinking. No. Here is how the economics park looked just a few hours later:

WTF Swedish weather, SRSLY.

Check the picture of the bonfire above: There is snow. To reiterate: YAY FOR SPRING!

Don't get me wrong, I like snow as much as the next nutjob expat who moved north instead of south. But it's May. Come on now. 

The Ugly

Essentially Valborg in Uppsala is a demonstration of how a tirade of drunk students and young people from all over the land can completely demolish any notion of the socially responsible Swede in just a few hours. There was plenty of fun to be had on Valborg, there was some sun enough for BBQs and if you bought your booze before the massive queues at the government shop formed, all the better for you! But next time, stay the Fuck away from the Ekoparken unless you're off your tits and invest in water guns and balloons if you live anywhere near it.