The royal wedding

It was just like a fairy tale: The Princess met the one boy who made her happy, and he just happened to be a common gym owner. Now he is Prince Daniel and he was joking in his speech about how he, albeit perhaps hadn't been a frog, but far from a prince when they met, and that the first kiss didn't change that.

The father of the bride is the Swedish Chief Scout and scouts were of course a part of the festivities. Our own District Commissioner, Marcus, was invited to a dinner with the royals before the wedding, and on the day scouts from Stockholm lined the streets to pay their respects.


Kronprinsessans bröllop 2010-06-19 - Images by Scouts in Sweden

Thank you!

And thank you, Bear, for being such a great role model!

Off to Explore

My son and his good friend left for Italy yesterday, to hopefully earn their Explorer Belts. I so wish that the Internet had been around when I was a kid! Things like this were rumours and legends in our group back in the 80ies.

Posing for the camera

For those of you who aren't familliar with the EB, it originated in the UK in 1962 and there are a few countries that still do it, in spite of insurance and security paranoia. The Swedish EB pretty much follows the original expedition plan (more information about EB in the UK can be found here) and the Scouts hike in pairs, for about 100 miles over ten days, in unknown territory, solving a number of small tasks that involves making contact with the locals.

Ida's granddad has laminated an emergancy note, with the condition that they will have had to starve for three days before using it.

It is ever so exciting even to us, left at home, as we have no clue to where our kids are off too either! We've been promised that an itinary will arrive in the post this afternoon, with a program. That will be very interesting. Even if my son is 18, this is his first really independent trip, and I'm so glad that he does it with Scouts, rather than partying in Turkey or Spain with his classmates.

On to the train bound for Malmoe, where they will meet up with the rest of the expedition for a 24 hour bus ride to Italy.