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.
