Celebrating America in Fredhäll Park!

The 4th of July has been my favorite holiday since the days running around Market Street barefoot covered in raw egg and water balloon remnants of games, helping clean up in exchange for a box of sparklers. Things have changed a bit - for one, I've yet to find sparklers in Stockholm - but we still celebrated with a bbq in the park.

Even with our turnout of nearly 40, there were only 4 Americans in attendance (+ 1 later on) - so naturally, we had to represent our country with a rendition of "America" (chosen as the song to which we all knew the most lyrics). There is a film of our performance somewhere, but I won't subject you to it here. 

I can't claim to be the creator of these beautiful cakes (Tracy is!), but I did supply the  burgers and dogs, potato salad (made by NS), and fruit salad. Everyone brought something small to share, so we had plenty of food. The grilling was done on all of 7 disposable grills. The games were played by all, and ranged from the classic water balloon toss to throwing ping pong balls into cups on top of people's heads. We even adopted a couple Swedish classics like kubb and "the ring game" (does anyone know the official name?).

Despite calls for thunder storms, not a drop fell (Swedish weather forecasting per usual). Our celebration of America ended up just as we had hoped - a warm, glorious day in the park among good friends and food.