Day 131: Crappy xmas presents

The city of Uppsala council has invested in these adverts suggesting you give a bus pass to your loved ones this Christmas. Aww, what a well thought out gift for everyone to enjoy!

That was good old British sarcasm, by the way.

Day 126: High shoes

Here are some shoes suspended 20ft above a busy 4 lane road outside a school.

I have absolutely no idea how these kids got the shoes up here.

Any ideas?

Day 124: If you're going to bathe in skum, make it bad skum.

Ah, things which sound terrible in other languages - ya can't beat them.

Day 123: Luciatåg

St Lucia is celebrated in Sweden on the 13th of December. Choirs form trains with Lucia at the front, visible from her crown of candles. She comes to dark places with her light and illuminates the gloom. This was greeting me on my morning commute today, the choir took the "train" part of "Lucia Train" literally.

Day 122: Swench life

I know this is a Swinglish life blog and this post is about French but...

I'm pretty sure viol is French for rape.

Packet of rape anyone?

Day 120: A veritable smörgåsbord of samey potential

Today my work provided a Julbord for all 370 of its publicly funded employees! There were some tax revenues hard at work, even if we weren't. It was alcohol-free though - the bar offered alcohol free wine to my French colleagues and, well, the word outrage doesn't quite cover what they felt (but that's a story for the Swench life blog.)

A Julbord is a Swedish Christmas table, a smörgåsbord in fact! Most people outside Sweden sort of know the word smörgåsbord or at least use it in cringeworthy phrases like "The nightclub was full of fit men, it was a veritable smörgåsbord of sexual potential!" pppf. Basically it means a buffet table. There were 5 different kinds of pickled herring (sweet tasting fish) 3 different kinds of Salmon (including gravadlax, sweet tasting fish) 10 or more kinds of meat (I don't eat meat so I lack details here. I think there was a terrine of some entrails? Maybe some ham? There was a lot of ham. I think. A ham terrine maybe?) Potatoes. Beetroot. red cabbage. Breads. Crispbreads. Cheeses. Janssons Frestelse..."Janssons Temptation" (Potatoes, cream and anchovies in a traditional Christmas baked dish)

We also had Glögg (mulled wine) which Swedish people have "improved" (snigger) by sloshing a load of almonds and raisins in the liquid and fishing them out with a spoon to eat them.

Verdict: Yes yes lovely of my company to give me a slap up meal. And great to experience a Julbord. But Swedish people eat herring, salmon, potatoes, ham, creamy baked shit and beetroots throughout the year. Where are the brussel sprouts, christmas puddings, brandy soaked consumables, turkeys too big to bake in the oven or defrost, mince pies, christmas cakes nobody ever touches, apple/cranberry/mint sauces that stay in a jar in the fridge until the next year, and numerous other things that you only see at CHRISTMAS in England, and not throughout the year???!

Come on Sweden! A bit of VARIETY!
NO MINCE PIES! HOW DO PEOPLE COPE! NO CRACKERS! WHERE ARE ALL THE BAD JOKES GOING TO COME FROM?!
The rest of this post is dedicated to absent friends.

 

Day 110: Ica rink

Never had to skate home with my shopping before. The floor was so shiny! People were sliding across the street. I tried to copy the natives but I don't think I have the hang of it yet.

Day 116: Fil me in

Another secretly taken pic, funnily enough in the same place as the last one. This was one of the most Swedish things I've seen for a while, a heavily bearded Scandi Man drinking a whole fucking carton of Fil.

What is Fil?

Well, its basically natural yoghurt but a bit different. And its sour. And, it's weird to just randomly drink a whole litre of it on the train.

Read more about it.