Valborg, Uppsala, 2009

So the week after the car show was this holiday called "Valborg" in Swedish or "Walpurgis" in English. I really have no f-ing clue why anyone bothered to "translate" this untranslatable Swedish holiday that is celebrated in pretty much no other country anywhere. Especially since the english pronunciation sounds almost nothing like the original Swedish. Whatev.
I live in Uppsala. Uppsala has the biggest and oldest university in Sweden (oldest in all of Europe pretty much for that matter). To say theres lots of students here is an understatement. So here's the gist of the holiday: Everyone is shitfaced. Styrofoam boat races. Champagne is sprayed on ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE. I heard literally THOUSANDS of champagne bottles being popped open. Yeah, some other stuff happened I don't know, mainly it's an excuse to be wasted by 10am.
Pics:
First things first, some of the beer I was drinking:
I like falcon beer. It's pretty cheap and doesn't have much taste. What more could you ask for? This particular varietal is of the "BBQ Lager" persuasion. What makes it "BBQ"? I dunno, pork scrapings and charcoal dust? Who cares. Note that it's 3.5%. That's mostly what I drink now since you can only buy the real stuff when the government says you you can. Which is workdays and about 2 hours on Saturday unless you wake up early on Saturday. And what kind of drunk are you if yer doin' that??? What self respecting government DOESN'T allow people to buy alcohol at convenient times?! How else are they supposed to non-overtly oppress? Weak dude.


The pile got much bigger than that. And this is like one pile of about 10. Those are champagne bottles BTW not beer bottles. Maybe you can see but alot of them are broken, and yet I saw no one with gashes in their feet, or any blood whatsoever for that matter, and I still can't understand that since everyone was stumbling around drunk and dancing like crazy to the band that was playing... A guy who actually used to work at this exact place told me that it is extremely common that people get slashed up though, I was just unlucky to not see it this time. Anyway, they must have seriously had about 5,000 on hand at this one student club (out of like 13, they are special clubs for only students). You could buy one for like $15 (a STEAL here) and people were just buying them to spray on their friends. Then there was (sadly?) the really drunk folk that were picking up the already sprayed ones and pouring what was left of them into one bottle trying to fill it up so they could get drunker.
Probably what this guy had been doing:
Two feet away was:
Everyone else.
Earlier in the day:
A big park with about 7000 people in it, at least. Funny part: The absolute most stupid drunk people there were two American girls stumbling around with no idea where they were yelling "PARRRR-TTAAAYYYY!!!! 'S A FUCKIN PAAARRRTTT-AAAYYY!!!! WHOOO!!!!!" and all the Swedes were absolutely terrified. If by terrified I mean ignoring them. Which is what Swedes do when they are terrified, btw. I chuckled heartily at my found meta-ironic-comedy.
Fonmetaromedy.
Oh, almost forgot the boat races, this is the first activity at 10am, there were many people too drunk to walk properly already:
Example 1 above, three dudes outfitted in multi-colored ponchos floating gently atop a giant sombrero. Does it make sense? Absolutely not.
Example 2; a giant chess piece. Note that it is about 8 feet taller than the bridge it is about to go under. I was super excited to see it get knocked over. Unfortunately the douchebags had preplanned er somethin and disassembled it like 2 seconds before going under the bridge and I assume reassembled it after. I dunno cause I lost interest when it didn't cause any injuries. P.S. Frida argued with me about what the knight chess piece is called in English. I said "knight" and she said freaking "horse" which is what it is called in Swedish. Why she thought she knew better than me what it was called in english when SHE DOESN'T EVEN PLAY CHESS is beyond me. REally funny how long it took me to convince her it wasn't called the "horse" though. I mean I understand why she thought it was but still...
Example 3; there was like 4 people dressed like mice on this piece of cheese. One had a bongo and was playing this sick-ass voodoo beat. Another got on all fours and danced the most outrageous demon possessed mouse dance thing I've ever seen. Mind you this is all while they are floating down the river on a giant piece of cheese shaped styrofoam. Again... Sense? NONE. Awesomness? MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE.
And finally my bar none absolute favorite picture of the day:
Someone had found a wood pallet and this chick was just standing on it crowd surfing. Everyone was going f-ing frothing at the mouth crazy over it. The girl was like Queen of the WORLD. This must have been like what was happening before moses got his ass lightning bolted for not stopping the golden calf worship or whatever. Truly awesome, they REALLY know how to get wasted here...