I've always been a sucker for Scandinavia. It's such a weird mix of primitive and modern, what with bears in the streets and Nobel Prize and all that. It fascinates me. So, when my company opened a new office in Sweden, I was eager to get transferred there.
It was every bit as exotic as I had imagined it. OK, so there were no bears or moose walking around in the streets, but still, very nice. I got me a 2-room apartment in the outskirts of Stockholm, and took the metro into the centre of town every morning. I spent every weekend exploring new parts of town, walking through narrow passageways where the houses didn't seem to have been modernized much since the middle ages, and just a few blocks further, there were luxurious hotels and multi-filed highways.
When I first came to Sweden, it was late fall, so my first impression of the country was darkness and rain, which later turned into darkness and cold. Still, I liked the place, its charm and beauty, its kind yet shy people, and its amazingly beautiful women! Cute blondes wherever you looked!
Time passed, and summer came. And that's when I really got to see Sweden in all its beauty. The coast, the meadows, the scantily clad girls with flowers in their hair... When I met Josefin, she was wearing a light, sheer summer dress and a wreath of flowers in her hair, dancing around a leafed pole at a Midsummer party. Josefin... She showed me her favourite parts of her beautiful country. We moved in together after just 3 weeks.
One Swedish tradition that I was eager to experience, was Lucia Day. Josefin had explained to me that it was a festival of light, and that women dressed up in white robes and wore burning candles on their head, and woke you up early in the morning to sing to you. Still, knowing this, my first Lucia was much more fantastic than I had expected...
Josefin woke me up at 5.30 at December 13th, Lucia Day. She came into our bedroom, carrying a tray with mugs and saffron buns, and a pot of freshly made coffee. She sang the traditional Lucia songs, which I didn't understand a word of, but I sat up in bed and listened to her sweet, husky voice, and admired her looks.
