walpurgis night

Walpurgis night is a big event in Gothenburg.

Its seen as welcoming in Spring, and we sure had the weather for it, for more of my ramblings on the background of this celebration read this.

day

At about 6pm there is a big parade that takes place down the Avenyn and surrounding roads. As far as I know its when a University (Chalmers) show cases loads of amazing papier mache floats about current events or random things... and big bands and dance groups show casing themselves. Its a massive celebration with crowds and crowds of people lining the streets. People are giving out tulips and balloons and everyone drinks on the street in massive friendly groups.

Some of the best floats we saw:

An angry birds float, complete with sling slot and loads of papier mache pigs and birds

A transformers car that was lifted up by a fork-lift

A man who rode a motorised toilet

A stereo car that was so so huge that the whole car was engulfed by papier mache.

The most mental orchestra/ band with a conductor in a bunny suit and a man driving a chest of drawers. 

The Chili miners float with the miners in a papier mache cave and people celebrating when the miners received porn!

A giant papier mache unicorn with a man dancing around in a fairy costume... just on his own.

 evening 

 Our evening was particularly bizarre.

After a cheeky few drinks back at our flat (I really needed to pee!) we set off in search for student places to drink. We first of all tried getting into a University bar, but one of the bartenders came out and said we shouldn't go inside as it was really boring (to be honest we peeked in later on and it did look like an awkward school disco) and then confessed to us that he was really drunk. He then attempted to give us directions to a bar that "the police did not know about" - niiiice. This was done by him drawing on the back of a paper plate with the remains of food on it.

After what was an hour and a half of jumping on and off trams (some we realised were going in the wrong direction) still with the paper plate map, we went to another University campus and saw people in those inflatable boxing suits. We finally found some people who told us about this cheap bar in town.

Considering the alcohol was wearing off we headed there and they were not wrong! We spent the rest of our evening chatting to these Swedish guys who were soooo drunk that everything they said was hilarious. The wine was as cheap as the beer and the club was literally next door. They told us they thought all British girls were fat and easy which I got rather angry at... but they all apologised to me and said I was not fat and maybe they had it all wrong! HUZZAAAHH. One of the girls in their party was also having a birthday celebration and we must have sang, raised our glasses and chanted something in Swedish about 15 times in an hour. They know how to celebrate birthdays! The rest... is a little hazey... I'm sure that a sign of a good end to this story.

Thank you Walpurgis.