The Saturday of Memorial Day long weekend was spent in honor of our favorite little Swede, Anna, who was graduating with her degree in sociology from San Francisco State University. Her fake-imitation Swedish family all congregated at her department graduation ceremony:
- Wendy
- Gail
- Shaun
- Elizabeth
- Caroline
- Me
It was a gorgeous day, and we arrived at 9:15 am in a courtyard on SF State campus, where they were serving up Tully's coffee and mini-Jamba juices.
Anna receives Academic Achievement honors for her GPA of 3.6 or greater...yay Anna!Here's a short video clip of Anna walking at graduation during the ceremony:
The ceremony took about 1.5 hours and it was so great to see Anna graduate and look so lovely in her purple gown...we're so proud of our little girl [sniff!]. After the ceremony was finished, Anna and her fake-imitation-Swedish family headed over to Park Chow in Inner Sunset for brunch. The post-brunch schedule included a short cat-nap, some minor barbeque panic (when we discovered that our propane bbq had gas valves that were completely eroded), massive party prep (by Anna, Elizabeth and Caroline), and some major chicken skewer production (by Wendy and I). I think we made around 80 skewers in three combinations of ingredients:
- marinated teriyaki chicken, green/yellow/red peppers, red onion, mushrooms
- green/yellow/red peppers, red onion, mushrooms
- marinated teriyaki chicken, bacon, pineapple, red onion
Anna's grand party scheme included yellow and blue (Swedish colors!) leis that were given to each party-goer. Each lei had a picture of a famous personality attached, and the idea was to sit across from your "match". I was Paris Hilton and my match was her little chihuahua dog, Tinkerbell (worn by Chevy). Hilarious!
Anna had decided that she wanted to do a sit-down dinner for 30 people...wha??? That's a lot of work! Anna and her Swedish girlfriends, Elizabeth and Caroline, had done a tremendous job of tranforming Abe's long garage into a Swedish dining hall:
The girls had printed out a two-page list of Swedish drinking songs, which they "taught" us to sing througout the night. Hands down, the favorite tune was "Hellyan Gor" and it was pretty evident that the majority of us would never be able to speak Swedish very well. Did you know that the Swedes don't pronounce their "k"'s?
The list of Swedish drinking songs...Hellyan Gor!
It was a hilarious and fun night. In retrospect, we can conclude that:
- Swedish is hard to read/pronounce
- Chicken skewers are yummy and great for feeding a lot of people
- What are Swedish "snaps"? Vodka, saffron, lemon peel (ick!)
- Abe's garage makes for a good dining/party hall, you just need balloons and candles!
- Abe's garage has great acoustics
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