This past weekend was also the Macedonian party in Trelleborg. Trelleborg is the southernmost town in Sweden. It is about an hour drive from where we live and is home to the only known location with palm trees in Sweden! We didn’t get to see much of the city because we arrived later in the evening, but upon doing some research it was interesting to find out that Trelleborg was presented as a wedding gift from the Danish royal family to the Swedish Prince Valdemar. It was soon reconquered by the Danes, and it belonged to Denmark until 1658, when Scania was lost to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde. In medieval times, Trelleborg had an important part in herring fishing.

Today Trelleborg has the second largest seaport of Sweden, behind Gothenburg. Every year it transports more than 10 million metric tons of cargo. Overlooking the harbor of Smygehuk near Trelleborg is a statue of a nude woman that was installed in 1930. Uma Thurman’s grandmother, the mother of Nena von Schlebrügge, was the model for this statue.

Trelleborg is also the first city that Daniel’s mother lived in when her family moved from Macedonia to Sweden. The city still has a large community of Macedonians and they are the ones that host this event a few times a year. Macedonians from neighboring cities come out to join in this event of food, ring dancing and staying in touch with their roots. I don’t know any of the dances, otherwise I would have been out there myself! Daniel’s cousin, Amanda, was visiting us from Växjö so we invited her to join us. It’s nice to see that the Macedonian culture is so rich and important to the younger generation as well. They even splurged and hired a famous singer from Macedonia to perform. It was a fun night learning more about Daniel’s culture.