Every day in Sweden is somebody's name day. Today is the turn of Rudolf and Ralf, who will receive a small gift and maybe a card from any traditional parents, friends, grandparents, godparents, relatives or teachers left in the land. All Swedish diaries will tell you which name day is today and a lot of people have the RASPBERRY ALMANAC in their workplaces to make sure they remember to buy chocolate for Anna, Sven, Olof and the rest of the cast of Frozen.
The royal family's name days are worthy of little flags on all the buses, but if you're a dirty foreigner like me with a dirty foreign name THERE'S NO GIFT FOR YOU. Although this twee little website believes in NAME DAYS FOR ALL (Alla i Sverige har rätt till en namnsdag!)
Ah, yes one of the great political struggles of our time. Hey, if they're successful then Sven and Anna will only have to share their day with 931 other names. What is your name day?
Today I heard the expression "myror i benen". It doesn't mean the same thing as "ants in your pants". In fact, just like in French, it refers to restless legs syndrome. I drew a horrendous commemorative cartoon in MS paint to celebrate.
If you got in your secret time machine, went back to 2010, accosted me and told me I would one day live in Sweden I would have said "Let me go before I call the police". But then as an afterthought I would have sniggered and said to myself "I hardly even know where Sweden is, let alone what the language is like." So believe me when I say that it is surreal learning Finnish phrases on Swedish packaging and that it is surreal for Finnish, quite possibly the strangest language on the planet, to be on my linguistic radar. Me. Someone from an island that languishes at the bottom in Europe for teaching kids a second language and pretends the old Celtic languages don't really exist.
Approximately 5% of the population in Sweden are native Finnish speakers thanks to a long and complicated history between the two countries. This involved at some points the systematic enforcement of Swedish over Finnish in Finland itself and it was relatively recently that Finland stopped making all their public signs in Swedish too. The most famous product of the Swedish/Finnish cultural blending was the Moomins by the Swedish Finn (Finlandsvensk) Tove Jansson. Confusingly, native Finns living in Sweden are known as Finnish Swedes (Sverigefinnar.) Finnish and Swedish are in absolutely no way alike, since Finnish developed from a completely separate language family (the Uralic langauges).
Nevertheless, most Swedish people know one or two bits of Finnish. Here's my handy-dandy guide for anyone finding themselves in an inevitable "Swedish-people-pretending-they-know-some-Finnish" conversation, in which people shout stupid phrases at each other in a pseudo-Finnish accent. EI SAA PEITTÄÄ
They'll explain that they got this one from all the Finnish electric radiators. It means "do not cover". Except in all my years of being in Sweden I have NEVER SEEN A RADIATOR WITH EI SAA PEITÄÄ ON IT! YKSI KAKSI KOLME
When they say this it will sound like a witch uttering a spell, but it just means "One, Two, Three"
KIITOS
Again, it sounds mysterious and foreboding, but it's just "Thanks".
RUOTSI/SUOMI
I know this one from working in schools, but everyone else knows this from seeing the dictionary cover "Swedish, Finnish"
RUOTSINSUOMALAINEN
If you want to contribute to the slinging of pointless phrases, this would be a safe bet; it's long, impressive and most people don't know this one, it means "Finnish Swedish"
PARASTA ENNEN
Admittedly this was probably the first Finnish phrase I learned since it's on every item of food: "Best Before". It's so different from all the other Scandi languages on the packet I reckon it should be one of those memes:
HYVÄÄ
Oh this, you definitely can't avoid this. They won't just say "Hyvää" though. They'll say "HYYYYYYVÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ" like a constipated duck. It means "good". SUU AUKI SUUREMPAAN
Only use this in extreme circumstances. This is my trump card, my Ace, my crushing blow. Nobody will know what this means, and if they do then they're Finnish and you should be ashamed of yourself for shouting pointless phrases at them in their own language.
Living in Sweden means making regular trips home to see the family and reconnect with close friends. Fortunately for me, home is London and no matter how many times I go back there, I always find new and exciting things to do, or still enjoy some old favourite haunts. For anyone making a trip to London, here's what I got up to in my "Sportlov" that you might like to try, too.
1. Fuller's Brewery Tour
The only large scale brewery left within London, Fuller's are a huge commercial enterprise most famous for London Pride beer. Funnily enough the largest market for exports is....Sweden! Tours of the brewery run every day, and include a tasting at the end. I've been on tours of smaller breweries before, and still this tour taught me a lot. Check it out here.
2. Colombia Road Flower Market
I took my mum out for the day and while we were having a coffee we noticed EVERYONE was walking past with bunches of flowers. Eventually we asked an American sitting beside us about the source of the flowers and it was Colombia Road market. Every Sunday officially until 2pm this busy market is bursting with sights and smells of thousands of flowers and plants. Although we were late, at about 3:30pm, it worked in our favour as all the stalls were closing and offering cut prices on everything!
3. The Farm
There are several farms to be found even in the deepest recesses of the concrete jungle. Usually nestled on unwanted land beside railway tracks, gems such as the Kentish Town City Farm and the Spitalfields City Farm offer quiet oases and an opportunity to see week-old lambs and kids just a few steps from the mad, bustling tourist hotspots. This time I even managed to meet Britain's rarest goat, the Bagot. There are fewer than 100 of them and they rarely venture out of Staffordshire!
4. Covent Garden
With throngs of mindless tourists, endless repetition of high end chain stores and a really bloody old tube station that can't cope with 10 people let alone 10,000, Covent Garden is not one of my, or any Londoner's, favourite haunts. It is, however, very convenient for friends who want to meet despite living an hour away in opposite directions. If you end up there on a weekday, charmless chain Dirty Martini have happy hour all day and Flavour-of-the-Month restaurant Dishoom have a branch nearby if you like waiting outside in a storm for an hour for a table. Keep your eyes peeled at the tube station for free bus pass holders!
5. Late Night Movies on Sky
We just had to pay for our TV license here in Sweden, even though I never watch TV. It's time for me to seek out something similar to any of the myriad TV services in England, which you can pause, rewind, record and manually control. Absolutely great for randomly watching old movies you'd forgotten even existed (I watched the Fifth Element and the Jungle Book just because. And yes I have Netflix, but sometimes you want fate to decide your movie choice!)
6. Pancake Day
Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras, Fettisdagen...whatever you want to call it, don't forget to eat something very indulgent on this important day! I only managed 4 pancakes this year but they were really good ones! I made pancakes with my family and friends for maximum effect, but if I was a tourist I would definitely go to My Old Dutch, a fantastic pancake house!
7. London Fields Lido
Since I've unwittingly taken on some Swedish culture, I felt compelled by all those pancakes to do something physical. Somehow I managed to find the motivation to swim outside on a stormy, blustery night which whipped the steam rising from the warm water into an ethereal mist and made it feel like I was swimming in some weird pancake day Limboland. The only other people crazy enough to shower outside in the cold and dark were speaking in Swedish so that says everything really. Care to try?
8. BBC Radio Audience
If you apply in advance and get lucky, you can be in the audience for a BBC production totally free, nada, zilch, zero dollah. I went with my dad to sit in the audience for a BBC Radio 4 comedy called "Newsjack" recorded at BBC Broadcasting house in central London.
9. Board Game Bar, Haggerston
Draughts was a new place I wanted to try, but unfortunately it was completely packed out with hipsters playing Jenga and ignoring the hundreds of other board games on the shelves. You have to book a table well in advance if you want to try this place! We ended up in a nice pub around the corner called the Glory. When I sent the address to a friend she discovered from Google that this is a "Super-Gay" pub which explained the Shirley Bassey on the speakers, the glitter hanging from the ceiling and the flowers climbing up the walls. Oh, and all the single sex couples of course. It was much more welcoming than the board game place at any rate!
10. Deptford Sushi and Job Centre
From Haggerston to Deptford, I did a real pilgrimage to gentrification central on this trip . And I'm glad I did, because Deptford has some of the cheapest, tastiest Japanese food ever, and you can bring your own booze to M&D Sushi. Just down the road is an old Job Centre, turned into a pub imaginatively called The Job Centre. This was an insult to some people...
11. Troxy Music Venue
Friday night's entertainment came in the form of the Gentleman's Dub Club, funnily enough a dub band also throwing out a bit of reggae, ska, dubstep and beyond. The venue is fitted out in art deco style both inside and out, again a place I never even knew existed.
12. Crystal Maze
The Crystal Maze was a popular 90's TV show in which contestants in a team faced puzzles in little rooms found in four distinctly different "zones". If they solved the puzzles they received crystals to redeem for time in the Dome where they collected shiny tickets to exchange for real prizes. Some clever moneyspinners made a real life version of the Crystal Maze and it is so popular my friends and I had to book a spot a year in advance. It was worth it though, as we ran about and quested our way through brilliantly designed sets, revelling in our nostalgia.
13. Curry
There are a lot of Thai people in Sweden and they make a good curry, but I was raised in a country with the best Indian curries this side of the continent so I always get my fill when I go home. This time I managed to get to Angel Curry Buffet on Chapel Market with its tasty cheap eats. The Hare Krishna centre, Govindas, is conveniently central and close to Oxford Street and served us dinner before our radio show. I usually try to cram in a weekend buffet at the best of the best, Chutneys on Drummond street, but that didn't happen this time so I look forward to the next...
14. Camden Lock
My last night in London was unplanned as it usually is, and saw me ending up in Camden's Electric Ballroom again. It is in no way a good club, your feet stick to the floor, the bouncers are arseholes, the queue for the toilet is permanent and at any age beyond 18 you feel too old to be there. But nevertheless it is an old friend, always playing the shit you know and always just a short walk from home.
15. Fancy Brunch
An old friend came into town at Paddington, not my usual haunt, and we accidentally found a very fancy, very reasonably priced brunch in Michelin recommended Salt and Honey. We continued our fancy day by taking a walk through Hyde Park and Speaker's Corner over to Burlington Arcade, a very posh shopping street where some of London's ever-expanding homeless population camp outside overpriced macaroon peddlar Laduree. If anything else, London is definitely a city of contrasts.
16. Normal Brunch
I don't normally even eat brunch but I managed it several times last week. In the centre of Finsbury Park is a really laid back cafe with tasty, filling food and it was perfect for a meet-up with family.
17. Cheap Haircut
I know I just massively insulted Covent Garden but actually there is a good, cheap hairdresser there called Hair By Fairy. You don't even need an appointment, you just show up and an experienced hairdresser will cut, style, dye, shampoo or whatever-you-want your hair. A cut that would have cost at least £60 in Sweden cost me just £20 in Central London.
Whew - how did I manage all that while also watching two seasons of Merlin on British Netflix?
