I recently watched a film called Sunes Sommar.  It’s a film from 1993 about a Swedish family going on their summer vacation.  Sune is the middle boy in this family, probably about 12 years old.  Most of the film is spent in a typical Swedish summer town filled with RVs and campers.  The family sets up their “husvagn” (towable caravan) in the campsite.  The rest of the movie is about what the family does while they’re on their vacation: play tennis, lie on the beach, play card games with the family, etc.  The dad is a goof so there’s a lot of slapstick humor about the stupid things he gets himself into.  They also manage to squeeze some romance into the film, focusing on Sune’s love interest.

After watching this film, I understood immediately that the movie depicted a truly Swedish summer.  Spending time with family and friends out in nature doing, well, nothing, really.  Yes, some families might travel around the world or go to Spain, Greece, or Italy for a week or two, but when they’re not doing that, they spend their summers pretty much like what I saw in the movie. Continue reading →

I’m on my summer vacation and will be for the next few weeks.  Wow, that still feels strange saying it… but I have to say, I love it.

Swedes go through a miserable winter every year and are thereby rewarded by an amazing summer.  This summer has been pretty “lagom” – not too hot and not too cold, a little rain and a little cloudy.  It’s already starting to get darker every day – after midsummer, we start losing sunlight and it is remarkable how quickly you notice.  The sun is still up by 4 and doesn’t set until 9:30 but in just a few more days, we’ll have lost 25 minutes of sunlight.  And the days will only get shorter… Continue reading →