Day 170: Winter Olympics

People here actually give a fuck about the Winter Olympics.
This is weird.

Products are advertised by the Winter Olympic athletes.
This is incomprehensible.

One such product is toothbrushes.
This maketh none of the sense.

Although Oral B paid for Charlotte Kalla to go to the Olympics so that's nice. I wish a toothbrush company would pay for me to do stuff.

UPDATE
I just happened to catch Charlotte Kalla (by accident, I'm a Brit, don't watch winter OS remember?) winning the ski relay and recovering from being 30 seconds behind to claim a gold. I might go and buy a toothbrush to celebrate. Well done Kalla!

Day 168: What I know about snow 1

Here are some things I have learned about snow:

1. You can't always build a snowman. Sometimes it's too dry or too cold and the snow doesn't stick to itself enough to make a ball. This has shattered some dreams I had of living in Sweden.
2. When it's really cold, perhaps below -6, the snow is sparkly and it feels like walking on glitter.
3. Ducks don't freeze and I don't understand why? Can someone explain? They have little lizardy duck feet that have no insulation, how the fuck do they not fall off? Ah yes snow, the duck feet leave footprints which are very cute but WHY DON'T THEY FALL OFF?
4. When you have leftovers you can put them outside to cool. If you have beers you can put them outside to chill. If you have frozen peas you can keep them outside, though I don't know why you would do this unless you were English and you thought "OH MY GOD PEAS STAY FROZEN OUTSIDE ITS AMAAAAAZZIIINNNGG!!"
5. Swedish people will get the long distance skis out at the earliest convenience. If the snow isn't coming soon enough, that's okay, they will break out the long distance skis on wheels in the interrim

Day 165: Queuing on trains

Swedes are creatures of habit, as another English person noted to me. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the daily commute. There is a pattern to how people will sit, an exact art to the correct seat to chose and a whole political science behind placing your bag on the seat and entering into a "dare you" stare with potential sitters.

Many of these things can, arguably, be found on British commutes. But one thing I don't think I've ever seen is the amount of queuing on trains done by Swedes. I understand that in winter it may be preferable to walk the length of the train inside rather than in the cold outside. However,one can simply walk through the empty train once everyone else has got off if the temperature is preferable on board.

Furthermore, this behavior is exhibited throughout winter and summer, thereby proving the fact that Swedes are habitual, if temperature is the motivation for queuing.

I always get a seat at the latter portion of the carriage. Why? Because Swedish people are habitual, they always sit in the front portion of the carriage. When the seats are full, do they move down the train? Do they fuck. They stand in the portion of the train to which they are accustomed regardless of how crowded.

This crowd is exacerbated by the fact that, when the train is within a minute of the destination, many Swedes emigrate to the end of the carriage and form a line for the last door (see bad photos). These people will queue irrespectively of the fact that the next available door, at 5 metres away, has no queue and can be exited immediately.

Day 160: Social responsibility

Do Not Feed the Pigeons

Today a lady tried to feed some pigeons in Kista in front of this sign. Being British I left her to it and judged her internally, without saying anything, for ignoring the sign .

This is not correct Swedish behaviour!

Promptly another lady appeared and shouted "Don't feed them, it's bad!" and shook her finger at the offending bread spreader. She stopped and looked sorry.

In England we complain constantly about the state of things, it's a national sport. We enjoy complaining and leave the campaigning to the motivated few. In Sweden people are keen to uphold regulations especially when backed up by a sign or three. I have often heard people say "get your feet off the seats!" when on public transport, "Put your own tray away" in a cafe and leave notices in communal areas to forewarn of upcoming noise, parties or moving in.

However, later on in the same day I witnessed a trainload of people ignore an old man and not one person offered him a seat. I gave him mine. Furthermore people are loath to queue unless there is a ticketed system, won't stand aside for you on the escalator or move their bag for you on the bus and will never end a loud or personal phone call in a public space to save anyone else's ears. 

This has led me to believe that Swedish people have regulated kindness- they will do a great favour to society provided it is sanctioned previously by society at large and signposted as proof. On an unregulated, personal scale however, I'd go with Britain all the way.

Day 155: No! No! Can't make us!

It's a week after twelfth night and Swedish people still refuse to take away their Christmas decorations...This is strange for me as I've always been told it's "bad luck" to keep them up past the 7th January.

It's also three days after "Knut's day" a second chance for Swedes to take down their decorations. A bizzare tradition apparently with no religious significance whatsoever, Knut's day is 20 days after xmas and apparently a good day to eat all the leftover crap on the tree.

Anyway, it's all lies. An overattachment to interior design and a love of lights on the dark evenings means that I doubt these decaying trees and dimming stars are going anywhere in a hurry.

Well, not at least until fettisdagen, the next big event in February. Surely they'll be gone by then?

Day 151: Princesstårta

For a friend's birthday I thought I'd make a traditional Swedish celebratory cake, namely the princess cake. It usually looks like this:

English birthday cakes are made from a sponge with equal parts butter, flour and sugar or thereabouts and the sponge is the main event. In the princess cake, the main event is the cream, there is what can only be described as a metric fucktonne of cream inside one of these babies.Birthday cakes also usually are covered in Royal Icing, whereas princess cakes feature marzipan.

I made mine using a recipe from sju sorters kakor - a commonly owned Swedish cookbook - and found I was way outside my experience zone of English baking.

If you want to have a go, here is the recipe with some tips and warnings thrown in from me with my English baking experience.

Princesstårta

Ingredients:

Sponge:
4 eggs
200g sugar
100g plain flour
100g cornflour
2 tsp baking powder

Filling:
Vanilla cream - 150ml single cream, 1 egg yolk, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 tbsp cornflour,  2tsp vanilla sugar
4 gelatin sheets
300ml double cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Raspberry jam

Green marzipan, or marzipan and food colouring, to cover.

To make the sponge: 
Whisk eggs and sugar together until thick and pale yellow. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients then sift them from a height into the eggs and fold together, get as much air in as possible for a raised cake.
Bake in a lined 22cm pan with removable base at 175 C for 40 mins.

Warning: The cake behaves a bit like a meringue and forms a solid dome in the middle. I covered mine with foil while baking to stop it from burning but do not open the door during cooking as the cake will sink.

To fill:
Wait until the cake is completely cold.
Put the gelatin sheets in some shallow cold water to soak for at least 5 mins. Then make the vanilla cream. Put the egg and cream in a pan and heat. Add a little bit of this liquid to the cornflour and make a paste. Add the warm milk and egg mix to the paste, mix together then return to the saucepan to heat and thicken. This stops lumps forming. Remove from the heat then add vanilla to the custard and gelatin, stirring to dissolve.

When the custard is cold, whip the cream until thick and fold into the custard. Cut the cake into 3 slices (carefully!) spread a layer of jam followed by a third of the cream, then add a layer on top and repeat. Try to pile the filling in the middle to make a dome shape. Put the remainder of the cream all over the cake to stick the marzipan to the sponge. Roll out the marzipan and place over the cake, trying not to make pleats.

Mine turned out like this:

Good luck! Lycka till!

Day 147: Things I miss when they're not around

I've been in England for Christmas so I thought I'd share some of the things I missed while I was away.

1. Warm houses

 

No matter the outside temperature, +20 or -7, the indoor temperature of the house is always 22 degrees. Compare this to England where people die from poorly insulated houses in temperatures still above freezing.

2. Washing up with a brush

I'm sure these exist outside Sweden but I haven't met a single person in England who uses them (with the exception of someone under the influence of a Norwegian boyfriend). At first I hated them, but then I cleaned a colander in less than 30 seconds.

3. Big Bang Theory

There isn't much on TV here but there is plenty of BBT. 

4. Knowing what time the buses run

And they run on time.  Mostly. You can check the timetables on the bus stops and they aren't a load of lies like they are in London!