Walpurgis Night

My apologies...I see it's been a while since I wrote one of these. I've been stewing around and being generally unproductive. Not much has been happening, anyways. Anywho....
Tonight is Walpurgis night, and is, for some reason, is when the Swedes celebrate the beginning of spring (albeit a bit more than a month late, but...each to his own.) by having bonfires all over the city, often, apparently, containing broken of unwanted furniture and other household items. The intent, apparently, of the bonfires, is to scare away witches, a function at which it succeeds quite well; there are no witches in Stockholm after the bonfires, are there? I don't know where the name comes from, but I would guess that "purgis" has something to do with "purge." Just my two cents...
To participate in the festivities, we (myself, my brother, and my parents) took the bus to Skansen, where, we were told, the biggest bonfire and festival is held. It was pretty big, but not nearly as big as the Dartmouth bonfire; granted, it was just piled up, rather than constructed of 2x4's, but all the same -- the biggest bonfire in the capital of Sweden is smaller than the Dartmouth homecoming bonfire....*chuckle*
When we arrived, the first act was beginning on the stage -- one of these big outdoor stages in the middle of a park that you always wonder if anyone ever actually uses -- it was a choral group, singing what seemed to be Swedish folk songs. Of course, they could be about something completely different, such as narrating the Hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy, and I would never have known the difference. Except, perhaps, that they would have taken a bit longer.......
Next up were a Swedish folk group, which the emcee insisted were "a bit rock, too." They might have been, but not really. They were fairly good, though; they had some fast songs which were fun to listen to -- a lot of people actually started doing what looked remarkably like a mosh pit. Yes, at a folk concert.
The most notable thing about them, however, was in one of their last songs, the singers did this amazing thing that sounded like yodeling, only so that you would actually want to hear it -- it was odd; it almost sounded like a flute -- their voices were just high enough and the tune was...flutish in nature.
In any case, that summarizes the night's events; now I am home typing this, and probably smelling strongly of smoke (you can never tell until after you shower...).

In other news, a tanker crashed on an overpass near San Francisco, and exploded, collapseing the overpass onto another overpass, rendering both impassable. Amazingly, this happened at four in the morning, and nobody was hurt (apparently the driver walked away from the crash). However, it has put a stopper in traffic around San Francisco, as people are obligated to find other ways to "get there from here," if you will. Read about it here.

No random add-on this time. Better luck on the next one!

PLaATJ,
--Gazebo