Valborg and the Future

So Valborg, the infamous Last-of-April celebration, was this Monday. I'd been hearing whispered legends about the accompanying debauchery since I first arrived in this strange land, and I don't mind telling you, I was rather looking forward to it. That trip to Helsinki was undertaken primarily to secure provisions for the marathon imbibation I was assured would take place.

Apparently, Uppsala and a tiny town called Lund are THE places to go for Valborg. Tens of thousands of Swedes flock to these two places and cut loose, since Valborg is the only day of the year in which it is legal to both drink and pee anywhere you like in public.
The way Valborg is supposed to go is this: you start with a champagne breakfast somewhere, then head to the river to watch idiots on homemade rafts try to race. You go to Ekonomikum park for a while and have a sort of giant picnic thing. Then you pay to go into a student nation and buy some champagne to spray all over other people. In the evening there are barbeques, and at night, there are bonfires.

My Valborg went like this: I started with a rye breakfast (it's a grain, right? Nutrition!) by the river. It was cold and I seemed to be surrounded by small children and old people. The boats were a tremendous disappointment--nobody fell in the river, none of them sank, and there was no piracy. Disgusted, we fled to Ekonomikum, where my corridormates had mounted a plastic clown on a big stick, as a sort of flag. We sat under it and ate chips and drank a whole lot, until Sarah and I felt rather as though we had fallen off the floor (loyal readers know well this is my requirement), then managed to stagger home to lay in bed, generally being too drunk to move and annoyed at the world.

So, essentially, Valborg was just like every other day in Uppsala, only it started at ass-o-clock in the morning. Add to this my habitual distaste for celebrations (a combination, I suspect of years of work in the hospitality industry and an attitude of "fuck off, I'll party when I like, I'm not going to enjoy myself because I'm supposed to") and Valborg was a bit of a disappointment.

Lately I've been considering becoming a Belgian. No, no, bear with me.

I've been considering the general shape I'd like my life to take. I'm pretty well settled on Options Two and Three of that post of mine months ago, and am quite set on living in Europe. I'm toying with ideas of citizenship and permanent residence; to that end, I'm eyeing Brussels, Zurich, and Geneva, mainly out of the vague sense that I really should have been born Swiss and that "Belgian" is kind of a funny word. I think I'd like to speak French and quite possibly German so fluently and idiomatically and for so long as to nearly forget my proletarian American roots, and perhaps to work either in lucrative consultancy or in a maddening UN post. All three cities are ideal for this. Belgium gives you citizenship after just three years of residence; Switzerland requires twelve, and a much more thorough knowledge of the country, language, and culture. All three cities are ideally situated near to larger, more complex places and systems and structures, not to mention nice vacation spots.
Of course, it would profit me a great deal to actually, you know...visit these places before renouncing my citizenship and joining the Foreign Legion or something. It's a bit of a passing fancy, I know, but compatible with the vague sense of direction my life seems to be acquiring.

I am heartened by the fact that in one year I will have my degree and hopefully will be planning my move to either London or Brussels, to pursue my Masters. Light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling, you know?

Also, here is a recent photo of me in my natural habitat: