Happy Halloween you all! As you may know, I’m from Mexico and we have “Día de Muertos” over there; nonetheless, many countries have adopted Halloween practices like trick-or-treat, costumes parade, etc within their cultural celebrations. In the case of Sweden, there is a national celebration called “alla helgons dagen” or all Saints day and it represents in the Lutheran churches a general commemoration of the dead; nevertheless, Stockholm offers a variety of multicultural events during these couple of weeks that you wouldn’t want to miss!
A must see on November 3rd is the costume parade called Shockholm (lol I know) that has taken place since 2010 in the old town, Gamla Stan. The parade will start around 3:30pm with a kick-off pre-party in Kungsträdgården, then will begin moving towards Gamla Stan and then will go back to Kungsträdgården. This parade has been growing in assistance each year and will count with the participation of thousands of spooky Swedish people all dressed-up! Don’t miss it!
The second important thing happening is Halloween på Gröna Lund! I must say that I’m a bit biased as this is one of my favourite events based on the fact that it takes place in the amusement park 😀 During this time, Gröna Lund’s attractions are dressed-up with Halloween costumes, guarded by zombies, decorated with pumpkins, witches, and ghosts. You can’t miss all these spooky environments and the brand new haunted house on water ‘Skeppet’ (The Ship). This amusement park will be haunted between October 26th and November 4th.
If you are more of a traditionalist and want to experience the real Swedish culture during these days, then don’t forget to visit during November 2nd and 3rd Skogskyrkogården, an amazing cemetery South Stockholm. Spooky? No, I don’t think so as this place was first of all designed by famous Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund as a “green park of tranquility and refuge”. Moreover, this place is catalogued as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. What will you expect to see here? Well, Swedes go here to remember their beloved ones which departed from this life to decorate their graves with candles and seasonal flowers (like in Mexico :D).
FOTO: Olle Sporrong in http://hedengrens.se
So I just survived exams’ period and I don’t know what could be more spooky than mid-terms for the past 2 weeks? Well, now that it is over and if you are a Stockholm resident, a hemmafest (home party) with your closest ones couldn’t be a bad idea! As for me, I got to go last week to a Halloween/House warming party were I tried to pull out a “Calaca” costume as they are super traditional in my country, but I ended-up looking like a giant panda or a spooky racoon (as said by some swedes while commuting to the party lol). Nonetheless, it was amazing! So don’t miss the change to celebrate, go out, and enjoy Stockholm!
Ok, they really did it with the Cementary.