Hejsan,

I'd like to start off with a correction. I should have said we celebrated the 100th anniversary of *Sea* scouting, not Swedish scouting. Which makes sense, being in the middle of a Sea scout camp...

Not too much new to report. As you can see from my pictures, we put the cake into 4 sections for everyone to eat after the ceremony. So I helped serve cake to 1500 scouts, and surprisingly, a lot was left over. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it.

The weather here has been bad for the past several days, cold and rainy. I think thats the trend of Swedish weather: if it goes bad, it stays bad. But, it hasn't prevented groups from to Fladan, and we've had our hands full. I think the camp ends on Saturday, which means the last day of bookings will be tomorrow. Last year, the large camp (and the most amount of work) was my last week here, but this year it is only during my second week. It will be weird getting used to things being calm again. But at least it will mean more time for the sauna.

Anna's birthday was today, and her parents and nephew came to visit. For those of you who don't know, it's a tradition at Vassaro that you wear a "crown" of flowers around your head given to you on your birthday. Also, the Swedish birthday song is quite different, and kind of sounds like a variation on "Oh My Darling Clementine". It's a nice thing that they do, and it's definitely a memorable place to celebrate a birthday.

Well, time to run. It's so easy to get caught up in all the fun that you start to forget that the main reason you're here is to work. In other words, sometimes you just have to realize that going to bed early is the right thing to do every now and then.

-Lukas

Hej,

I've heard that my blog has been recently added as a link to a few websites. So to any new readers, let me introduce myself. I'm an Eagle Scout who is spending his 2nd summer here at Vassaro working at Fladan (the waterfront) instructing scouts how to sail, canoe, and such. I'm here because of a program run through the BSA called the European Scout Camp (Volunteer) Program. You should definitely look into it if you're seeking something a little more exciting out of your summer. Anyways, back to the blog...

It's the middle of Mardet right now. Days at Fladan have been *full*. There are periods when nearly every boat is being sailed, every canoe paddled, and everyone busy. Fortunately, there are no bookings in the evening, which we spend in various ways. Sometimes we get them off, sometimes we have to do other staff-related things.

Tonight was one of those other things. I found out today that this week is the 100th anniversary of Swedish scouting, and to celebrate, Vassaro has decided to bake a 100 meter long cake. Yes, you read that correctly. Enough for 1500 scouts to eat. Since this was a pretty big task, nearly everyone at Fladan was recruited to help. So, I spent around 4 hours spreading on filling and covering the cake portions in cream. The actual cake part was already baked, but needless to say it was a lot of work. Tomorrow, the cake will be assembled and layed out for all the scouts to decorate it, and then of course eat it. Nothing like seeing all your hard work be devoured right before your eyes.

Work-wise, everything has been pretty straightforward, just really chaotic. I've taken a lot of groups out sailing, although one deserves a little more attention. As I might have said before, the wind on Vassaro tends to blow directly into the harbor, or directly out. Which means that you have to tack (zig zag) either coming out or coming in. I was assigned taking out a group of small scouts around 8-10 years old with their leader. But, like most of the time, none of the kids spoke English well, and the leader didn't say much to me. I was in a Torekov, which is one of our slowest boats, and the kids didn't really know how to sail. If you've ever gone sailing, you know that tacking loses you speed, and it doesn't help when you're doing it in a narrow channel. So, basically sailing by myself, I lost too much speed, and drifted into the swimming area. A motorboat towed us out to the open, at which one point one kid said he had to go to the bathroom, in which I told him he had to wait until we were no longer being towed. But when we got out into the open, the kids decided they were too scared because it was a windy day. At this point, I kind of lost it, but obviously had to hold it in. When we finally got back to harbor and were tied up, the only words I got from the leader were "Sorry for this". I guess we all have bad days. But, life goes on, and now I can look back at it and laugh about the whole thing.

Another interesting thing I noticed. Today, Anna (my girlfriend) was stung by a wasp. She's told me before that for her, it only feels like a mosquito bite (lucky her) and that she doesn't swell up like most of us. But after this bite, she said the pain was almost unbearable, even now, almost 8 hours after the sting. We talked to a doctor, who told us that the wasps here have a much stronger venom, and that she actually had pills you could take just for these types of stings. I guess Swedish bees are uber-poisonous or something. Note to self: don't touch the bees.

I wish I could put up some pictures, but the dining hall is being closed right now and I have to run.

Happy 100th anniversary of Swedish scouting?

-Lukas

Eye of the Storm

Tjena,

These past two days have been a bit of relaxation, which has allowed me to recover enough just in time for Mareld, the sea scout camp. Yesterday, we were able to take the afternoon off and get some sleep. That evening and night, we did some secret stuff-I-can't-talk-about for the Konfirmands that resulted in us working until midnight. It went pretty well, but I think we were all tired today.

Which was okay, because there were no bookings, and we now have the whole afternoon and evening off. There is a disco tonight open for everyone, and I certainly don't plan on missing it.

Sea scouts have been slowly moving in throughout the day, filling the empty fields. All the activities begin tomorrow, along with our real work at Fladan. Around 10 boats have been added to our arsenal by Scout groups who have lent their boats for the camp to use the week. I've also heard that bigger boats are going to be anchored in outer Fladan, which should make it very interesting trying to sail out from Fladan to the open sea.

That's it for now. I'll try to keep updating (with pictures) as often as I can this coming week.

-Lukas

Pics

Hej,

Here are some pictures I've taken so far from my time here at Vassaro. The picture with the broken sailboat is kind of a funny story. A few days ago, we picked up a "new" boat donated to Vassaro by someone (probably named Sven). On its maiden voyage, the mast broke about 10 minutes in. The mast was repaired, and we'll probably test it out again tomorrow.

We finished painting the Fladan house today, and it looks really good. Now we have to finish oiling the docks and the extreme makeover will be finished.

Tonight is my first evening off so far, and I think it will be the only one for a little while. I got to take a much needed nap, and now I'm sitting here in the dining hall uploading pictures and drinking coffee.

The whole camp is preparing for the Sea Scout invasion. More and more funk (staff) are arriving, including the people planning the camp. I am now sharing a house with a family, which makes it difficult coming back to go to bed, since they go to sleep around 9 or so.

I went to the sauna for the first time last night. The pure shock of a 100 degree temperature change running from the sauna into the ocean is a pretty awesome adrenaline rush having not done it for a year. Definitely something worth doing over and over again.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to keep upadating as often as I can.

-Lukas

Hejsan,

Things haven't settled down yet at Fladan, and I don't think they will for a couple more weeks. Next week, over 1300 Sea Scouts are coming to spend a week at Vassaro. And trying to fit that number of kids over that small amount of time means nonstop morning, afternoon, and evening sessions, and supposed (I hope they're only rumors) dawn and midnight sessions as well.

The past two days have involved taking care of large groups. Monday was sailing all day with 50 scouts part of a "Spy Kids" themed camp. It turns out the whole theme didn't really work, because no one ended up dressing up, and the surprise that happened for the kids was a big boat driving around pretending to be a party boat, but no of them understood it. It was kind of awkward. Monday night involved us cleaning the outside of the Fladan house so that it could be repainted again. It's a big project, not to mention the house was built before the U.S. became independent.

Today again involved taking groups out. The "spy kids" took out canoes, boats, and optimists all day. The afternoon was dominated by taking care of a group of about 20 Belgian girl scouts in optimists, who of course could not speak English and had never sailed before . Since the wind was blowing out of Fladan as it usually does, it was only a matter of time before all of them had drifted out into open water and onto shore. So the rest of the afternoon involved taking out all the motorboats and towing everyone back to Fladan. It was kind of ironic because I was teaching someone new in the morning today about how to use a motorboat and how to help swamped canoes and boats and how to tow stuck boats. I think he got a lot of practice in...

Tonight, we continued painting the house and started oiling all the wood on the docks. Again, something that is a pretty big project and will take up a lot of time. Its a different experience this time, being a lot more busy and not having an evening off yet. Its definitely more tiring, but a lot more rewarding.

Tomorrow should be more of the same, I'll try to put up some pictures soon. I forgot how much light there is at night. It's incredible, there's almost no need for a flashlight unless you go into the woods. But, I guess in the winter, its the opposite, and everyone gets pretty depressed. To be a Swede...

-Lukas

Round 2

Hey Everyone,

I'm back for another summer at Vassaro, but it feels like I never left. The year has gone by so fast that nothing here seems out of place or surprisingly new. It's still beautiful here, but I didn't get that feeling of awe like I did last year. That's not to say I'm not excited, because that is definitely not the case. What makes Vassaro truly special is not just the location, but the people that choose to volunteer their time for 4 weeks (or in many cases more) out of the year to come to this place.

I'm glad to be back, it feels like a second home. Getting here was a litte interesting, though. Before I left, I was with my girlfriend Anna (who I met last year at Vassaro and is Swedish of course) who visited me and came with me to my family reunion. We got to my local airport, only to find out our flight was delayed indefinitely because of thunderstorms in Newark. To make things worse, all flights the next day to anywhere from my airport were full, so we were stuck with our flight. After waiting for around 4 hours, we missed our connecting flight to Stockholm. However, the airline showed us that two more flights left to Oslo and Munich about 3 hours later and that there was a "very likely" chance that we could make one of those flights.

Wrong. Instead we waited for about another hour and a half and got on the plane. With the flight time being about 45 minutes we thought we could make it with little time to spare. But instead, we sat in the airplane on the tarmac for another hour and as a result we missed the other two flights. When we finally landed, the weather was miraculously clear and all the flights were on time. It seems Newark was trying to catch up on its schedule and decided to ignore the flights from smaller airports no matter how long the delay was. Thanks.

Fortunately, we talked to someone at the ticket counter who got us seats on the same exact flight to Stockholm. Same time, just one day later. With some help (Thanks Mom and Dad), we spent the night and good part of the day at a hotel. We got on the flight next day and landed in Stockholm on time. A few days later, after spending some time at her summer house, we met up with the rest of the staff members and took the bus & boat to Vassaro.

I will admit I was suprised how fast things are getting started. I'm working at Fladan (the waterfront again), and today we spent the afternoon and evening fixing things on this giant list of things-to-do. Tomorrow, we spend all day with 50 scouts taking them sailing around the islands. The camp has a secret agent theme, and tomorrow, all of us instructors are going to be dressing up and acting as agents. This should be pretty interesting, and I think there will be some good pictures here soon.

I'm still jet-lagged, but right now, life is pretty good and I can't complain.

-Lukas