My 1st Swedish cray fish party!

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a cray fish party.  With real Swedes.  In Sweden.  What an experience.

I offered to help prep for the party and was sent to the store to buy cray fish table cloths, cray fish party hats, cray fish napkins, and an assortment of other cray fish decorations.  That is when I realized just how popular cray fish parties are here... when they mass produce these products with cray fish print and sell them in the grocery store.  After prepping, Ewa and I arrived at Andre's apartment and started setting up the table with the goods.  An extremely large bowl over filling with cray fish, cheese, salad, bread, beer, akvavit, akvavit, akvavit, akvavit....

Once everyone arrived we sat down for the meal.  I was told meals last for hours in Sweden, and I was about to find out why.  Next to my plate was a song book filled with traditional Swedish songs.  We began eating the juicy, flavorful cray fish when all of our shot glasses were filled with the first round of akvavit.  It was time for song #1.  We all sang the first song together (it was in Swedish so mostly gibberish was coming out of my mouth) and ended the tune with "Sköl" and a shot of akvavit.  Holidays in Sweden are always filled with food and singing.  I remember this from midsommar.  It allows the families to spend a lot of time at the dinner table together, telling stories and laughing.  The more akvavit that is consumed, the more stories that come about.  Well, many songs, much food, and even more akvavit later it was time for the evening to come to a close.