I recovered quickly from the neck surgery, and I was back in Sweden. Summers are beautiful and days are long. It seems that most of the world is too hot, but not here; just perfect.  It was my first Midsommar celebration at Skansen, which is the festive outdoor museum in Stockholm. Thousands of people gathered to see the raising of the maypole and enjoy the longest day with music and picnics. It seemed that most people at Skansen were the new Swedes, in other words immigrants like me. I guess that the majority of Swedes celebrate this second biggest holiday (after Christmas) at their summer houses or with friends in the countryside or on the islands. It is a Swedish tradition to own a sommarstuga (summer house) in this part of the world. The immigrants have embraced the traditions of the country and learned the dances and songs, and Stockholm now seems just as diverse as San Francisco. I see people from all over the world. People celebrate Midsommar, and then in July the people of  Stockholm disappear. Here is an article describing the phenomenon in the Local, a Stockholm blog in English.

I also left Stockholm, first to Öland for a few days to see and work with the graduate students from Uppsala studying flycatchers. Öland is the long skinny island off the East Coast with plenty of tourists enjoying the long coastline, nice strawberries and patchy forests. The students are studying how these birds hybridize and how malaria parasites can affect their development. The northernmost part of the island features the towering lighthouse, and chilly but swimmable waters. Then north I was off to the north of Sweden (Norrland) to visit some friends in their summer home. Again, swimming, hiking and boat rides. Nothing compares to the Swedish summer, and on a warm day, there is no better place.

I also own a summer house, but it is in Vilnius. So, traveling to Lithuania was also a mandatory excursion. I found my little house lush with many flowers and a nice discovery of ripe black currents. The water in the river in front was warm swimming. I bought a new bed from Ikea to make it more comfortable. The Ukraine war is much more present in the minds of the Lithuanians. There are weekly protests in the main cathedral square, and near the city hall an art exhibition condemning Lukashenko. The city is usually full of tourists in the summer, but now, with covid and the war, the restaurants and stores are relatively empty. My mom got covid for a second time, but she is recovering well. I avoided it again somehow.

We saw the interesting Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology, which looks like an odd spaceship in the middle of the fields. The tour highlighted the first Lithuanians in space (during the soviet times) and the first Lithuanian flag placed on the space station. 

Sabbatical is nearly over, and within a few weeks, I will be teaching again. I am just incredibly grateful for these opportunities to spend time with friends and family all over the world.