Photos, video and words by Matt McDonald | EqualMotion.com
You can see the first four parts of this series here:
– Poland
– Netherlands
– Denmark
Blake Zimmerman, Richard Docter, Dallas Kingsbury, Adam Balaam, Adrien Raza, Daniel Priel and Friedrich Fluh along with myself left Germany for Sweden to meet up with Jonathan Strömberg and skim the Urban Skim Park in at the Hallifornia Festival in Varberg, Sweden. The festival featured skimboarding, longboarding and a cable park for wakeboarding.
Below are some photos from the ferry ride from Germany to Denmark, the Swedish countryside and Malmo, Sweden. We camped in Malmo, tasted the nightlife (aka the beer), hit the skate park and camped right by the longest bridge in Sweden. We also skimmed in the pool outside the largest building in Sweden.
We had a good time in Malmo, but it was time to make the trip to the location for the festival.
We finally made it to the location of the Halifornia festival in Sweden and we were running late. As we pulled in to the festival one of the employees of the Halifornia took the keys to our van to move it to a parking spot designated for us. This was my first mistake of the trip since when I got the keys back I was informed she hit another car. She somehow managed to sideswipe a parked car in a parking lot while moving the van five feet. She and her boss told us they would reimburse us for the damage to the van. At this point all we have received is 9 free beers at the festival and we had to pay 750 euro for the damage to the van. It is truly disappointing to fly across the world and contribute to a festival for free and have something like that happen. More or less if you ever meet a girl Malin in Europe don’t let her touch anything. But enough with the gloom and doom. I mean that is the kind of stuff that makes it a memorable adventure, right?
The actual contest and/or demo was epic. The crowd of about 200-400 people cheered throughout the entire event. All the guys threw down at the contest and Blake took first place at the contest edging out Adrien, Adam, Friedrich and Logan.
Now for the skimboarding photos…
After the contest we grabbed some beers and watched wakeboarding, listened to live music and some of the guys took a try at meeting some of the local women. Jonathan claimed that Sweden had the most beautiful women in the world and he was right. The Swedish women truly were breathtaking.
Some of the guys partied a little to hard that night and that is when we came up with the term “Blaking out”. We all survived though. After the festival we ventured back to Jonathan’s house for some much needed rest.
The next morning we awoke, ate some breakfast and headed to the beach. We seshed for a few hours and gathered as much footage as we could. It was the best beach we skimmed of the trip thus far and overall it probably was the best spot we skimmed while in Europe. The guys literally killed it that day. Checkout the photos from the beach session below.
After the skim session we went back to Jonathan’s house for a BBQ and more drinking games. Later that night some of the guys went out to the club for some late night shenanigans, while Logan, Daniel and myself stayed back and took it easy for the night. The next morning we packed up the van and said our goodbyes. We are truly thankful for the opportunity Jonathan gave us to skim and see Sweden first hand. Hope you enjoyed the photos and video.
We have one more mini issue planned to release in May from the German portion of the DB Skimboards European Skim Tour, so make sure to check back soon!
