celebrating women's struggles & upliftment worldwide

well, I still have no idea what anyone else did to commemorate & celebrate women on thursday.
but thats ok.
I sent a card to my friend Sonja who is an especially inspiring & strong female role model and fantastcially hip mom. I told my mamma how great she is & thanked her.

I'll fill yall in on what sammy & I did:
We met up at a square, called Slussen, in the south part of Stockholm at 6pm, on very full bellies after a fantastic indian meal. As we took it all in (being at a demonstration in another country) we looked around for my best-pal, Elin & her boyfriend Martin. Sam kept saying "oh thats her!" or "there she is!"... Elin has her own look and is a very unique person, however in a crowd with so many blonde headed people we kept mistaking others for her! We walked around the square, looking at tables of info, watching people, we each bought a pin to wear, and we were so excited about the torches that people carry. They smell somewhat bad but look really cool and offer such an olde-time feel. I think in the US we are probably not allowed to have fire or anything just on the street like that. As the march started off we still had not found our friends but it was so amazing to see all of these different people here for the same reason - to support the struggles of women worldwide.

We did find Elin & Martin soon thereafter, thanks to cell phones. They were marching with the banner for their political party, so we proudly joind them under the banner for Fi!.
you may wonder what Fi would stand for? socialist, social-democrat, left, green... NOPE! None of the ordinary ones. It stands for Feminist Iniative. Ok, a cool bit of info that we don't know about in the US is that the first feminist party began here in sweden LAST YEAR! I had no idea because Elin and I are those friends who do not always stay in touch but always fall right back into best friendship when we see each other ( One thing we can relate to is not feeling that great about connecting via technology, I spose..so we almost never email.) Sometimes we write letters etc but we have not & I had no idea she was and is so active with Fi. They got a small percentage in the last election which could be likened to how the green party goes in most areas of US. The last election was quite disappointing to most swedes. In an effort to get rid of Göran Persson, prime minister, many swedes voted for the more right parties etc and that resulted in a right wing government that is screwing everything up for people & also charging more for everything. except the higher costs for things are not going to anyone except politicians.. guess we can relate to that. So people are rather upset & sort of apathetic the way many folks in US have become with so many years of bush-o-crats. But then again most swedes just sort of accept things & don't get riled up easily.

out of the tangent.... Oh yes, I was writing about the march. So we wound our way through many streets for only about 1.5 kilometers and ended at Medborgarplatsen, a big square. There was an exciting rocking jazzy ska like band playing music as the rain drops fell. Hot drinks & gingerbread cookies. Quite a nice way to feel togetherness. There were a few speakers who motivated the crowd & brought focus to the march. They spoke of what was going on in other countries - as far as demonstrations & celebrations, as well as what kinds of specifc struggles are going on in sweden & elsewhere.

At the starting rally there were about 500 people, but during the march the size increase and it felt so great to not be able to see the end of the march. And to see all of these torches and banners addressing the huge flaws of patriarchal socities.

After the rally ended we went to a pub with Elin Martin & three Elins pals. Stockholm also does not allow smoking in the bars any longer, and I like a lot of the bars because there is often a lot of stone & medieval like caverns in basements making up the bar. Also this one happened to have reggae musik playing, which felt good!
There was also a take back the night march just for women so us two couples stayed behind while the other gals went off to take back the streets to be safe for women to be out at night. I think that march attracts many more people.
and so what did anyone else do?