Day 2425: How to hoard like a Swede

Last week was all about mocking the Australians because they were hoarding toilet paper.
Well.
This week was all about imitating the Australians and hoarding toilet paper.

This week was also all about learning the Swedish verb "to hamster" (att hamstra) which means to hoard things, although you (hopefully) don't have to stuff them in your cheeks. I went on a photographic tour of my local supermarket to document the things which Stockholmers consider hamsterable. How do they compare with your local supermarket?

1.TUNA
Pros: Keeps for ages and is good protein. Cons: Too much of it will give you mercury poisoning.

2. CANNED SAUSAGES AND RAVIOLI
Pros: Canned goods can be hamstered for eons. Cons: Canned ravioli and sausage. Do I really have to spell out the cons for you?

3. MOZZARELLA AND PARMESAN
Pros: Italy is on lockdown so when are we gunna get more? Cons: You're so fucked in an apocalypse if you can't live without a bit of melty cheese.

4. BEEF OF VARIOUS KINDS
Pros: Can be frozen, so you can eke out your high carbon, rainforest destroying existence for slightly longer. Plus it has that whole manliness thing going for it. Cons: Literally any other meat or soya product is less soul and/or planet destroying.

4.5 BUT ONLY IF IT IS MINCED
Pros: Make the burgers. Cons: SLAB of beef? What is this SLAB you speak of? No SLAB only MINCE.  There will be no SLAB in the apocalypse.

4.5.1 BLOOD PUDDING
Pros: I just...I don't even know, man. This is a cultural aspect of Sweden that I have not engaged with. Cons: It's a pudding made of blood. And they store it next to the cheesecake, which is a less desired apocalypse food.

5. FUCKING CARROTS
Pros: Beta Carotene. Cons: Why are you hoarding this? Super easy to grow yourself. Plus they're from FUCKING SWEDEN so there's like, 0 chance they will be blockaded/banned/taboo.

6. NOT CARROTS IN A BAG. OR AVOCADOS.
Pros: There are no pros here. You're all idiots. You only hoard if you have to pack the item yourself, or if it is ready to eat today. You won't even hoard it if it keeps for slightly longer and is clearly on sale. Nonsense.

7. GINGER
Pros: Immuno booster. I see why you all hamstered this. Cons: At 6 quid a kilo this is some serious middle class hamstering.

8. LEMONS
Pros: Together with that ginger you're basically immune to corona virus. Cons: Bit sour.

9. NOT YOU LIMES, FUCK OFF.
Pros: More for me. Cons: I dunno, y'all hate green or summat?

10.BAG OF LETTUCE
Pros: CLEARLY healthier than limes. Cons: Lasts about 5 minutes after you open the bag. A very poor choice for the long term apocalypse.

11. DRY PASTA, RICE, BULGUR, COUSCOUS, SPAGHETTI...
Pros: Bolognese for dayzzzz. Cons: This aisle was devastated. I have lost all faith in humanity.

11.5. KETCHUP
Pros: There's plenty of non-Heinz left. Cons: Swedish people eat Ketchup on pasta. Whatever shred of faith in humanity you had, it's gone now, hasn't it?

12. FRESH PASTA
Pros: You can buy it when all the dry pasta has been hamstered. Cons: At this point, everything is a con. Especially considering....

...13. FRESH SPINACH PASTA
Plenty of that. Hamstering is a very trend specific hobby.

14.BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD
Pros: BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD Cons: BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD
You hear corona zombies in the distance, what is that they are braying after? BREAD BREAD BREAD.

15.POOR QUALITY CINNAMON BUNS
Pros: When all the good quality buns are gone, these ones will outlast even your last born children. Cons: They taste mostly of additives so that they can outlast even your last born children.

16. SHIT CAVIAR IN A TUBE
Pros: Salty. Cons: Fish eggs in a tube. Just....okay. I have a Swedish passport but I am clearly not Swedish because ... I don't get it.

16.5 GOOD QUALITY CAVIAR
Pros: Is fine people, plenty of it.Cons: Where's that facepalm emoji when you need it...

17.NESCAFE INSTANT COFFEE
Pros: Now when Swedes tell you that they are the foremost nation of coffee drinkers you can point out that, when shit hits the fan, they are actually the foremost nation of shit instant granules.
Cons: If you are a Swede who hamsters Nescafe then you have some reflecting to do.

18. CHEESE PUFFS
Pros: If corona has taught us something about Sweden, it is that they are serious about their cheese. Cons: If you eat just one of these puffs, you will in fact have to consume the whole bag. Not a sustainable hamstering choice. 

19. VANILLA YOGHURT
Pros: Er...It has vanilla in it? Cons: I don't understand why this one yoghurt trumps all the other yoghurts?

20.HICKORY BBQ SAUCE
Pros: Again.....the specific flavour. Cons: Hickory will forever be the flavour of the corona shutdown, eating hickory at any later date will transport you back to this terrible time of depression and desolation.

21.SALT
Pros: A good apocalypse choice, we can't live without salt! Cons: A box of salt lasts for literally years. How long do people think they are going to be in corona isolation?!

22. BROCCOLI
can fuck right off. 

Day 1507: A fucking shit day

Last week I had what can only be described as a "fucking shit day".

In England, when you have a fucking shit day, the remedy is to tell everybody about your fucking shit day, and revel in the sympathy that comes in the form of other people telling you about their fucking shit days. You all laugh together about how some days that you think are going to be normal days SUDDENLY turn into fucking shit days! Through this cleansing ritual, everybody purges. The cathartic venting of the fucking shit days leaves you feeling ready to face the next fucking shit day.

This is not what I have experienced in Sweden.

If you tell people about your fucking shit day, one of two things will happen. Either:

1. You will get a lot of "Åh nej, vad synd" (oh no, what a shame) which is probably heartfelt, but coming from a culture in which people don't really express their sympathy through high-pitched pleasantries, everything just sounds diabolically fake.

2. Uncomfortable body posture and rapid subject change. Fucking shit days are shit, nobody wants to think about them right? Quick, make the person who had a fucking shit day feel better by not thinking about it!

After my venting of this particular fucking shit day went catastrophically off the rails, I got to thinking about exactly why Swedish people are so uncomfortable in taking solace in the fact that other people's days are just as fucking shitty as their own.

And I couldn't help but think about how every fucking shit day, or every fucking shit facet of every fucking shit day, is often turned into a thinly veiled but totally ridiculous positive aspect. Like when my driving instructor looked at the rain lashing against the windshield through a foggy grey haze of blääääää and suddenly came out with "Oh fantastic! Now it's autumn!" I was so thrilled that she was using a bit of sarcasm I actually laughed! Until she followed up with "time to light the candles, wear comfy clothes and get cosy at home!" and I realised she was being totally unironic.

I constantly wonder how people here are able to sustain hours long conversation about running and going to the gym, when those are, realistically, obligatory time devourers that detract from ACTUAL HOBBIES and PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT. But now it completely makes sense, doing repetitive exercise is so dull that it must be MAGICALLY TRANSFORMED into a positive, lest people actually start discussing something negative and we all have to get uncomfortably shifty and change the subject of conversation. So now we all have to talk about how great it feels when to have "träningsvärk" (training aches) and how some shoes that somebody purchased for running are so himla fina (blooming lovely).

Look at IKEA. Everybody knows that it's actually Dante's undiscovered next layer of hell going round the place, but somehow couples and families make a day out of it. What better representation of the Swedish ability to put a happy face on a dog turd is there than the global effect of IKEA. "Oh we have to go and spend money on crappy furniture to fill our home with utilitarian things, instead of buying all the cool shit we though we could have as kids when we imagined being adults and having money!! Yaaaaay! Let's clap our hands everybody and buy some sub-par, poor quality lingonberry jam!" Cue several hours of dead time looking at a mock up of a house you'll never have, followed by getting home and pretending you've accomplished something.

The big dream of most Swedish people is family life, why has nobody here got the message that family life is basically the epitome of drudgery? Oh wait - they have got that message, and they relish the challenge. If anyone can make the shitty nappy changing, weekly food shopping, temper tantrum throwing, super stressed school running, never ending laundry doing, relentless time slipping, constant lack of sleep giving destroyer of personal life dreams that is family life into a super happy fun time, it's got to be Swedish people.

If you're going to have a family, at least revel in the joy of sharing how shitty that makes you feel with other people. If the time you have to spend burning calories is greater than the time you spent enjoying the consumption of calories, at least burn a few of them in a circle jerk of anger with other people who feel the same. And if you have a fucking shit day of any kind, it is your privilege - nay! it is your RIGHT to have your shit day affirmed, confirmed and appreciated by fellow shit day havers.

Otherwise you might end up like my old neighbours; your anger (that you thought was magically transformed into joy) just bubbling up inside, ultimately culminating in you throwing plates at your partner during a blazing row at 4am. Then again, people in adjacent flats listening through the walls probably just told themselves: Oh nice! Now they have less washing up to do.

Day 1472: 4 Years in Sweden

Four years ago, on Saturday 10th August 2013, I moved to Sweden.

And four years ago to the day, on Wednesday 21st August 2013 I received my person number, making me an official part of the Swedish machine and able to pay my kronor to the män.

Looking back at my old blog posts is quite interesting for me, it makes me reflect on how much is so completely normal now that I would not even notice, let alone write a post about.

Here's a trip down my memory lane.

1. Public Art

In some of my earliest posts I wrote some comments about the "strange" public art around, usually derisively. In London there is a total lack of public art in public spaces (although sometimes there is poetry on the tube!) so they really stood out. Now I don't even notice the public art and that's quite sad! Instead I notice how shit everywhere else is without really being able to put my finger on why it's shit...

2. The eternal struggle of the laundry room

In my old flat the laundry room was a novelty in the beginning of my living here and it became a convenience - multiple washing machines at once! A big room to dry clothes! Several dryers! A mangle (that I'll never use) !!! And so socialist, surely it's much better for the environment that everyone shares rather than each person having a private machine?

Well now I live in a new, much bigger, building and Fuck That. I want my own machine! I want to have a clean fluff filter on my dryer that doesn't make my clothes dusty! I want my clothes to dry for as long as they need without running downstairs to hastily grab everything still damp from the drying cupboard so the next wanker can use it! I want to wash after 10 bloody PM if I bloody well feel like it! And most of all, oOoohh most of all, I want to avoid the wash slot booking system that the residents association fucked up and left 3 people with 1 key to the same booking mechanism, so that my booked time is randomly moved around the booking board and makes me believe I am developing Alzheimers because I think I've forgotten which time I booked.

3. Passive Aggressive Swedes

Honestly this is something I've never been a fan of, as my four year old post will attest. I am perpetually amazed by the Swedish dedication to packing their rage down into a decrepit corner of themselves before either a) blasting it out in a well penned note or b) not doing that, and randomly exploding at service personnel in an uncontrolled immense offload that usually has no sense of proportion in relation to the minor or imagined injustice they witnessed.

I'm learning how to drive, and I recently pulled out in front of a fast moving Volvo because I had the right of way. The Volvo did not think I had the right of way and beeped at me. I thought nothing of it because I am a learner and learners make mistakes, but my instructor was worried. Why was she worried? Because very often, drivers who feel slighted by being made to slow down for 2 seconds of their day by a learner will sit on that RAAAAAAGE all the livelong day until they make it to a computer where they will write that well-penned letter and report the driving school for malpractice. Who has that much time and energy to waste being angry all day at a FUCKING SHIT LEARNER DRIVER? Swedish people with comfortable lives and no real problems, that's who.

4. Drinking

I saw some beer in a school and I thought it was because Swedes like to kick back.


No.

Beer is drunk by the following categories of Swedes:

• Old/Middle aged men who drink Pripps Blå with lunch (a korv med bröd or a hamburger) because that's what they've been doing since the 70's and they never got the memo about bowel cancer
• Youth who get fucked up on Friday and Saturday, usually other days too,  live only for that, and hang around in obnoxious groups passive aggressively saying snide comments to passers by but never actually doing anything serious
•  20-30 somethings who say they like fun, but they will make penance for their beer by running or going to the gym every god damn day, so that they only thing they actually have to talk about while drinking beer is how they went running. Repeat ad infinitum

5. Knäckebröd

I commented early on that knäckebröd tastes like cardboard, now I quite like it. I still can't spread butter like a Swede, though.

6. So. Many. Candles

Of all my blog posts, I think I spent the most time researching not one, but two lists of names for candles in this country. I have only continued to be amazed by how much people love them, have them lit for no reason, how many shops are dedicated to them and how important they are for the concept of "mys" (cosy). I can probably not remember all of their names now by heart, but I definitely own a lot of them. I don't light them. Why are they here? How did they get here? A mystery.

7. Language Skillz

Two years ago I passed a TISUS test and recieved a qualification in Swedish language that allows me to study courses in Swedish, and convert my English teaching qualification to the Swedish system.

I am an avid reader in English, an avid speaker in English and, clearly, an avid writer of random crap among other things. I'm even an avid teacher of English! I am none of these things in Swedish, I am not the same person in Swedish. And I never will be.

Do I think I was actually good at Swedish two years ago? No. Do I think I'm good at Swedish now? No. But the system thinks I'm good enough and that's worth a lot to me.

8. Nature

I've really enjoyed being closer to nature here than I ever have been in England, and I'm not even a huge outdoorsy type. I've blogged about being able to ice skate on frozen rinks in winter, about going to the forest to pick berries,  about seeing the northern lights and about picking enough apples to make my own cider! I've now made too much cider and am officially SICK OF IT how cool is that!!?!? Time for a new project... Beer?

9. Etiquette 

Yep, I'm still learning. But I'm getting the hang of it, as one of my better liked posts can attest.

10. The Future?

Sometimes I complain about things, we all do. But overall I have it good here in Swedenland and I'm really grateful. When I look at my old blog posts it's obvious I've had a learning curve, a really nice one, learning a new language, getting to like new food, seeing some amazing places, benefiting from the high quality of home life and work life, meeting new friends.

It is interesting, and sad, to feel more detached from my old home and more attached to my new one, while forever feeling that I don't really belong in either any more.

I don't write about politics much on my blog because that's not my bag, baby. However this is as good a time as any to note that fascism is on the rise everywhere and it just doesn't make sense to an immigrant like me.

There are a lot of people who have left one place and moved to another, who feel like they've been moulded into something new that doesn't quite fit into a preassigned, nationalism-shaped hole and drop down into the waiting box of a homogeneous society.
And if I with my English stereotypes am feeling a bit like I've slipped between the cracks of two nations into the arsecrevice of uncertainty that this metaphor turned into, then I can't even begin to imagine how people whose original culture is nothing like the Swedish one must feel.

Anyone from elsewhere who can make sense of this much darkness, cold, passive-aggressive, self absorbed, gym-obessessed, well designed, self-congratulatory, individualistic yet somehow socialist perfectness, you da real MVP.

Day 1413: Balcony Wars

My sister in England has a balcony, sometimes she goes out there for a smoke, the rest of the time it has some malnourished plants on it. Another person I know has a balcony and it serves as a bike rack. One couple have a little strip of a balcony, not quite big enough for furniture, and they use the balcony to take pictures showing everyone how amazing their flat is but then they go inside to share the pictures.

Meanwhile, in Sweden... I returned from holiday only to discover that I have unwittingly entered into a balcony war of one-upmanship with my neighbours, because balconies are SERIOUS BUSINESS over here. And people actually use them.

Actual photo of my balcony

Despite the fact that outdoor areas are basically uninhabitable for half the year, Swedes go to great lengths to decorate their outdoor areas. As summer begins, around about May/June, all the magazines, shopfronts, websites, department stores, newspaper adverts, huge billboards and everything else imaginable go full force with DECORATE YOUR OUTDOOR AREAS. They haven't quite added the OR ELSE yet, but it's implied. And in true keeping with the rest of the typical Swedish house, the balcony gets filled with this season's latest trend consisting in the form of whatever the shop Hemtex has as its latest cloth pattern, and whatever the magazine Sköna Hem churned out from its hulking great impracticality generator.

Like this.

OOh..Aaah so beautiful! So mysigt! (cosy).
Yeh. 'Till it rains like fuck as it always does in the Swedish summer. Apparently summer is either used for going to a cabin somewhere in the woods OR running backwards and forwards putting out and taking in a bunch of fucking pillows and rugs.

What about this:

Wow, such cosmopolitan, very city.
Too bad Stockholm IN NO WAY resembles New York where that picture was clearly taken. Also, are they sure that's not just a cafe they've stolen a picture of? I often wish my balcony was a cafe for 50 people.

Alright, this:

This one's bordering on practical, it's just some metal furniture from IKEA and a plant box. And then 5 strings of PAPER LANTERNS that you have to fucking RUN OUT AND COLLECT IN A MESSY BUNCH when your romantic date moves inside but you look out and its PREDICTABLY RAINING. Also, eating Al Fresco in Sweden, let me tell you about that. You optimistically put all that shit outside, forks and plates and crap, then you sit there with your food and you're either SWEATING LIKE A BITCH within 5 minutes if you get sun on your balcony, or you need 5 layers of clothing before giving up and going inside if you're in the shade.

Fine, this one then:

Oh I hate to be a killjoy (who am I kidding I love being a killjoy) but NO BBQ OPEN FLAME ALLOWED ON THE BALCONY. Also just FYI nobody really likes rattan, it's fugly, hard to clean, rots and you're kidding yourself when you say its rustic and charming. Also, this brings me conveniently to another big point, carpets. Always with the carpets. Never IN the house, only OUTSIDE. Oh Sweden, you silly.

Anyway, how have I entered into a war with my neighbours? By planting some vegetables. The balcony here was a bit neglected (hey, I am English) we even forgot to take down the furniture in the winter so it sat in the elements getting covered in snow and having its lifetime merrily reduced. But then the spring came and my boyfriend killed my indoor tomato plant so I bought lots of those boxes that hang on the balcony and planted peas, parsley, rocket...well, lots of things. And what do you know? Plants look quite nice!

Cue nearest neighbour, whose balcony up to this point boasted an orange plastic chair requisitioned from inside and an old fanta bottle filled with cigarette butts, suddenly investing in what I am reliably informed is called a "café set" aka a couple of chairs and a small table. Then 6 window boxes of herbs. And a plant pot on the floor that looked vaguely similar to my own. Also candles...and a ceramic frog.

Next thing I know, the balcony opposite is no longer half obscured with a moulding bamboo mat, no. Now it has...wait, are those...herbs and edible plants? In a variety of window boxes? Plus they've put a HEMTEX©®™ tablecloth over their Café Set©®™. And some fairy lights, aww. WELL LOOK WHAT I JUST BOUGHT MOTHERFUCKERS. 

Fairy lights, aww.

Day 1014: All you need is a dead parrot and you've got yourself a sketch

I've written before about catastrophic fuck-ups made by the local transport services in Sweden and even though I risk turning my blog into an unending rant about how piss poor communication is for passengers in the event of a service problem I feel like I have to share what happened today on a seemingly innocent replacement bus.

Now, it might not be as stupid as last week when my bus driver terminated early and ordered everyone onto the bus in front, which had done the same thing with its own passengers, before two completely empty busses drove off leaving a hundred or so very baffled commuters behind, but it probably could serve as a Monty Python sketch (or at the very least, a Benny Hill circular chase.)

Essentially what happened is that a vital tube line had a "power outage" (could be a code word, who knows) for a large portion of the route. When I went downstairs into the bus station as directed I could feel that there were a lot of very angry people wanting to get somewhere in a hurry. I don't really know where I got this mysterious feeling, but it may have had something to do with the two couples having a massive shouting match in the middle of a bus door about whose buggy got on first and is entitled to space. Or the crowd of people jostling to get on another replacement bus. Or the number of people shouting and swearing and cursing and yelling....bear in mind this was on a pleasant, sunny day in the middle of the afternoon and not in a blustery, miserable rush hour (if it had been, I would probably now be dead, judging by the patience levels of the people present).

I decided not to take the shouting-buggy-crazy-parents bus to the local train station, and opted for what I thought would be the safer choice, a rail replacement bus.

Oh how wrong I was!

First and foremost, I should have noticed that the bus driver had no idea what he was doing when he couldn't figure out how to close the doors. By the time he actually managed that, at least 20 additional overenthusiastic people had crammed themselves onto the bus. Some passengers were so angry about this that they began heckling, shouting and swearing at anyone who even looked like they might consider, maybe, turning their head towards the open doors. It was around about this time that I noticed there were two slightly, shall we say, unhinged people centred in the bus who wanted to complain, loudly, about things and get some feedback. Having worked in a library I have a wealth of experience with these kinds of people who, having nothing else to occupy them at around midday on work days, thrive in spaces with seating, warmth and plenty of people with nothing better to do that sit and listen and/or respond to them. Unfortunately, most other people don't have this wealth of experience and are like cannon fodder.

The part that these unhinged people enjoyed the most about the journey was when the driver took off in completely the wrong direction, heading north instead of south for 5 minutes along a road which only ended when you got to the roundabout to come back again. The driver, sensing that this was perhaps not the best thing to do with a bus full of very angry, very crowded nut-nuts, decided to tell everyone via intercom he had driven in the wrong direction because he was feeling stressed. This triggered a near riot and a scrum of know-it-alls shouting different suggestions for the best way to drive. Because, naturally, when you're stressed and driving a large vehicle, what you need is 30 different suggestions for the best route.

After what might have been the longest 20 minutes of my life covering ground that the usual train covers in 2 and standing in the middle of a crowd of people screaming either directions, complaints or "leave him alone he's stressed" we eventually arrived at the next tube stop. A good number of people chose this point to abandon ship, and I was relieved to see that the craziest were among them. But my relief was short lived since they were replaced by equally as crazy people. One man began punching the doors when the driver didn't follow his advice about what route to take. Although I was rather inclined to join him, since the route he had in fact taken was one that went twice around Raspberry Mountain, yes that really is a real place, rather clearly demonstrating that he had no fucking idea where he was. His response to the door-punching man's cries of "where are you going? why are you going here again!?" was to point one of the members of the scrum and say "he told me to go this way".

Eventually door-puncher was released from his bus-prison (which had many windows that were locked shut for some unfathomable reason) and the crowded bus calmed down a little bit. Just in time for a parade of old people with zimmerframes to come and try to find some space on the bus. Cue a host of aggressive and very warm (no windows, remember) passengers finding any excuse whatsoever to yell "help him! help her! stand up! move!" under a thinly veiled guise of helpfulness. At the next stop, I reached my tolerance limit for all the crazy, old, unhinged, hot, know-it-all or overly-helpful fellow passengers and managed to get a skeleton service train. At this point I had very much decided that the whole situation was almost a textbook definition of ridiculous and deserved a blog post. Unfortunately there was no way to take pictures of the events for the blog, so just imagine a bus full of angry people instead. I'll leave you with an image of Raspberry Mountain.

*Not the same Raspberry Mountain