Matchday 11 and Midsommar

We played our eleventh game of the season today against Sandviken IF.  I came on and played the last 25 minutes but we lost, 2-1, in a game where we could have maybe gotten some points.  Sandviken was good, but we created a lot of chances.  They also created a ton of chances.  It was a pretty open game and it was obvious that both teams were playing to win.  Unfortunately for us, not only did we lose, but the two teams down on the bottom with us both won.  That means that we’re last place again.  I took these photos of the stadium before the game.  I am not going to go much more into detail into the match.  As always, you can go onto www.esk.nu and read the match report if you care to.  The one thing I will say is congratulations to Kevin Sharro for scoring his first goal.  For a 17-year-old who started the season as our 3rd string left back, he's managed to play the last four games and now seems to be a regular.  Good for him!

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, the sun barely ever goes down here in the summer.  This has lead somehow to a holiday called Midsommar.  I could tell you the history of the holiday, but I don’t know it.  Maybe Wikipedia can help.  Anyway from whatever started the holiday it has now become a day for Swedes to drink to excess.  We had a game two days after the holiday so we weren’t allowed to drink.  That didn’t stop me from enjoying the day with some of the locals.

I spent the day with Emil Strok and his family and friends.  Emil is one of the players who lives in Enkoping.  He is also from Enkoping so his family was all in town to celebrate Midsommar.  I ended up hanging out with Emil, his older brother Marcus, his neighbor Tobias and another neighbor whose name I can’t recall anymore.  Emil is about a year older than me and his friends were all 27 or 28.  I was so happy to be in a group of people older than me for a change.  When I hang out with the other guys who live in Enkoping I’m always the oldest and it can get kind of weird sometimes.  Well anyway the day was really nice.  I ate a lot of traditional Midsommar dishes: there was fish marinated in like a pickle juice and serve raw.  There was also a homemade potato salad and bread.  Lastly, there was porkchops that were really good.  I love to try new foods so all the traditional dishes were nice, but I still enjoyed the porkchops the best.  We ate everything at a table outside under the sun.  I should have taken a picture of all the food but it somehow slipped my mind.  After we ate, we played a game that is kind of difficult to explain, but it’s a similar idea to the bean bag toss game you see at tailgates in the US.  With the sun still up, we went inside to watch the European Championships game between Germany and Greece before going home.  My first Midsommar wasn’t the crazy alcohol-fest that some people had described it as, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.