Day 2392: Make like a tree and leave

Christmas was 47 days ago but people are still recycling their trees. And not just a few people, no, there must be a lot of people keeping their trees well into February because:
1. Demand for tree recycling points is high enough that the council has kept doing the clearing rounds 6 weeks after Christmas.
2. There are consistently piles of trees at these points.
3. Some roads are still covered in pine needles and smell like Christmas trees.

If there are still lots of people recycling trees, then there must also be a significant number of people who still have the trees at home somewhere. Like my neighbor...

I thought my neighbor might have forgotten that they even have a tree, because they threw it outside at the beginning of January, still with the lights on. Then it fell over mid January and nobody picked it up. But I can see now there are no lights on it any more, so there is a very slow, glacial even, cleaning process going on here. Maybe they will recycle it in March.

I was taught that it is bad luck to keep Christmas decorations around after the 6th January. Also, trees shed their needles everywhere after a while, so why keep them around? This tree hoarding behaviour just adds further evidence to my mounting case that Swedish people are extremely image conscious, projecting an outward appearance of being sleek, tidy, well designed, organised and clean while secretly hoarding old christmas trees and god only knows what else in their houses. No wonder nobody wants to invite you round for dinner, they've probably got several month's worth of crap built up that they can't be bothered to take away.

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 887: Stuff I'd never own in England

Some people pointed out I haven't written anything here for a while, that's mostly because I've been stuffing food in my face for the past month and haven't had my hands free for any other activities. Last weekend I tried to be a bit more active to atone for my recent prone-ness so I went skating on a frozen lake, as you do, in temperatures of -16C, as you do.

Understandably you can't just get off the sofa and go on the lake. It turns out you have to own a bunch of crap that I didn't even know existed prior to this trip in order to have a safe skating experience. It got me thinking about a few other items that I use here that I either didn't use at all in England, or which never even entered into my realms of thinking.

Ice Picks

You need these to pull yourself out of the water if the ice you're skating on breaks under your feet. You also have to have a waterproof bag in your backpack with dry, spare clothes, which acts as a flotation device. I borrowed mine from a Swedish person when my Swedish boyfriend couldn't find any of his 3 pairs. I think I'm justified in believing that all Swedes own these things. In fact, knowing the safety consciousness of Swedes I'm surprised I don't see people just casually wondering around town wearing them.

Reflective Accessories

Sometimes when I'm out walking in the night in winter which lasts, well, a long time, I see people with these shiny things dangling from every crevice or a fucking great high vis jacket  or ALL of these things at the SAME TIME and I think "Ugh come on, is that really necessary? We're in TOWWWWWN. I can SEEEE YOOOOU." Other times I'm a passenger in a car at night and we turn a corner and nearly hit a person in a dark jacket, dark trousers and dark shoes and I think "Ugh come on, where is your necessary reflective thingamajiggy? We're in TOWWWWWWN in a CARRRRR. We need to SEEEEE YOOOOOU" which is why I decided to wear the two free reflective thingamajiggys I got given. Also I like it when people put colourful flashy things on their dog. But not high viz jacket dogs, that's too far.

Air Humidifier

I can't believe I own this. My house in England was so damp you could have swimming championships for small insects. But up here in Sweden I'm dry as a motherfucker and I'll take all the precious water droplets I can get/make artificially.

Ice Skates

If you want to go ice skating in England you have to find your nearest ice rink and they'll have some skates for you to hire. If you want to go ice skating in Sweden you just wait for it to get a bit cold, rummage in your closet for your skates and go outside to the nearest big puddle.

Skiing Gloves

I used to use a single pair of gloves, I would start wearing them from about 5 degrees and downwards and that was that. Gone are those days. Now I have 3 pairs, and when it starts getting below -5 it's time for the big guns, er, mittens. Ski mittens are amazing, they keep my hands toasty even when the rest of my body has turned into a solid block of ice. They're also waterproof for that all-important snowman building, snowball fighting and snow sledding.

Outdoor/Indoor Thermometer

How do you know what to wear in the morning? Maybe you watch the weather or something. Not me. I have in my house, just like many other Swedish houses, a thermometer to tell me exactly what temperature I'm heading into. This is vital because putting on thermal underwear at anything higher than -3 will let you in for an extremely warm and uncomfortable journey to work. It's such an important part of Swedish life that many old houses have a thermometer as part of the window frame. It's also good for knowing if you can use your balcony as a secondary fridge.

Waffle Iron

Okay I only use it on Waffle day but still, I never used it at all before I moved here.

Wtf...

Most Christmas decorations are the same; fairy lights, tree, baubles, advent calenders and so on. But then there are some other bits N bobs that are a bit odd, like the blob of grey felt that's supposed to be Santa, the superabundance of pig bric-a-brac, straw sheep everywhere and whatever the fuck that bollocks is in the picture up there. I'm assured it's "classic" and I can look forward to Easter when the little ladies are replaced with yellow chicks. In the Swedish style, the decorations we have here will probably stay up until Easter anyway.

Vaccum with adjustable suction

Why don't we all have this, everywhere, ever? Amazing.