Monday, August 6, 2007

A Swedish bröllop (wedding)

My European vacation continued...

Saturday July 28, 2007

I slept most of the night, only waking up a couple of times but able to fall asleep each time. One of the times I woke up Mom started talking to me about not being able to fall asleep. I must have been extremely tired or my ear plugs worked extremely well, either way I slept through Mom’s restlessness - her walking around the room, taking a shower, and even her blow drying her hair. All my sleeping caused us to miss the breakfast buffet (I know! It could have been 10 buffet meals!). When my uncle found out we missed breakfast, he immediately walked up to the receptionist and somehow sweet talked the receptionist into allow us to pack sandwich ingredients to go. I need to learn how he did this.

My cousin's wedding was held in Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), a former pagan-cultic-center-turned-Catholic church. This wedding was a first of many for me as far as weddings go – the first Swedish wedding in the oldest church I've been in (built in the 11th century), the first wedding at a church with an “active” cemetery (parishioners are still buried here), the first wedding presided over by a black Swedish-speaking minister, the first wedding where there was an uneven number of bridesmaids (2) to groomsmen (1), the first wedding where the bride and groom walked down the aisle together, and the first wedding I didn’t cry at (probably because I couldn't understand what was said).








Wedding party - 2 sisters and 1 brother

The reception was held at Odinsborg restaurant, next to the church. The service was slow and I can’t say the food was worth the wait (though I'm sure it cost just as much as a meal at a 4-star restaurant). We started with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and salad (the meal was supposed to include pita bread, but I didn’t get any). The entrée took forever to come out and consisted of overly-done beef (and I usually like well-done beef) with a salty brown sauce, a thick slice of boiled tomato, a PIECE of broccoli, and fried potatoes (best part of the meal) with a cream sauce.







The strawberry mousse wedding cake was really good!


Even toilet flusher says "I Do." The small drop on the right is for a small flush (i.e., requires little water), while the big drop on the left is for times when you need to call upon waters of the Amazon River to take care of the job.

More to come...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

More pics of the toilet please.
-RBL