Graduation: Breakfast and Ceremony

I have to say, yesterday was a great day. First, I want to make it clear that Anton, Johan, and Johan are all 19 or 20, and they are the best friends I've made thus far in Sweden. With that said, yesterday was Anton's and Johan Keding's high school graduation. And a Swedish graduation is a lot different than the American version.

The day starts with a champagne and strawberry breakfast, or at least, that was the plan. I live almost an hour away from Anton's school, and I horribly mismanaged the drive over. I don't know what I was thinking, but I left Timor's house at 8 am, about 20 minutes before I was supposed meet up with Anton, only to realize that Timor had left the car with less than a gallon of gas. I was on the highway when I realized this, so I took the first exit I saw. Soon, I found an express gas station--which unfortunately consists solely of gas pumps that don't accept cash. After discovering two more express gas stations, a normal gas station where I filled up, and a traffic jam, I arrived in Södermalm an hour and 20 minutes later than I had planned.

I was met by Liisa, Anton's Finnish friend I had met the day before. Liisa and Anton were exchange students at the same school in Mississippi. Liisa is a beautiful girl, with gorgeous face, and is a very nice person as well. She informed me that we had over 3 hours to kill. After the breakfast, Swedish students go to the classrooms for a couple hours and don't really do anything as part of the graduation tradition. So Liisa and I wandered around Södermalm.

We saw a bunch of the city, and eventually the time passed and the graduation ceremony commenced. The ceremony took place in a typical auditorium. Girls wore white dresses and guys wore well tailored suits. Both sexes wore their traditional graduation caps, which looked inconceivably similar to a sailor's cap. During the ceremony there was the traditional singing of American Pop songs: the ''Graduation Song'' by Vitamin C, and ''My Immortal'' by Evanescence. Actually, the girl who sang ''My Immortal'' was very good, and very hot. When she was done, her classmates cheered wildly and ended up chanting something in Swedish. One of Johan Lantz's friends turned to me, and explained, "They're chanting, 'Show your tits.'" I should mention that most of these students are relatively drunk at this point in the day, traditionally.

Soon the ceremony was over and students ran outside to greet their parents. Each family group holds up what looks like a picketing sign, but instead of holding a message of protest there is a baby picture of the beloved graduate. I liked the pictures I took of this, which will be on webshots soon. Of course, after I took some pictures of the events taking place, I couldn't find Anton and his family or Johan, so I missed my opportunity for graduation photos. But eventually they found me and we prepared ourselves for the next traditional part of graduation, which is so ridiculous it deserves its own post.