Day 122: Swench life

I know this is a Swinglish life blog and this post is about French but...

I'm pretty sure viol is French for rape.

Packet of rape anyone?

Day 120: A veritable smörgåsbord of samey potential

Today my work provided a Julbord for all 370 of its publicly funded employees! There were some tax revenues hard at work, even if we weren't. It was alcohol-free though - the bar offered alcohol free wine to my French colleagues and, well, the word outrage doesn't quite cover what they felt (but that's a story for the Swench life blog.)

A Julbord is a Swedish Christmas table, a smörgåsbord in fact! Most people outside Sweden sort of know the word smörgåsbord or at least use it in cringeworthy phrases like "The nightclub was full of fit men, it was a veritable smörgåsbord of sexual potential!" pppf. Basically it means a buffet table. There were 5 different kinds of pickled herring (sweet tasting fish) 3 different kinds of Salmon (including gravadlax, sweet tasting fish) 10 or more kinds of meat (I don't eat meat so I lack details here. I think there was a terrine of some entrails? Maybe some ham? There was a lot of ham. I think. A ham terrine maybe?) Potatoes. Beetroot. red cabbage. Breads. Crispbreads. Cheeses. Janssons Frestelse..."Janssons Temptation" (Potatoes, cream and anchovies in a traditional Christmas baked dish)

We also had Glögg (mulled wine) which Swedish people have "improved" (snigger) by sloshing a load of almonds and raisins in the liquid and fishing them out with a spoon to eat them.

Verdict: Yes yes lovely of my company to give me a slap up meal. And great to experience a Julbord. But Swedish people eat herring, salmon, potatoes, ham, creamy baked shit and beetroots throughout the year. Where are the brussel sprouts, christmas puddings, brandy soaked consumables, turkeys too big to bake in the oven or defrost, mince pies, christmas cakes nobody ever touches, apple/cranberry/mint sauces that stay in a jar in the fridge until the next year, and numerous other things that you only see at CHRISTMAS in England, and not throughout the year???!

Come on Sweden! A bit of VARIETY!
NO MINCE PIES! HOW DO PEOPLE COPE! NO CRACKERS! WHERE ARE ALL THE BAD JOKES GOING TO COME FROM?!
The rest of this post is dedicated to absent friends.

 

Day 110: Ica rink

Never had to skate home with my shopping before. The floor was so shiny! People were sliding across the street. I tried to copy the natives but I don't think I have the hang of it yet.

Day 116: Fil me in

Another secretly taken pic, funnily enough in the same place as the last one. This was one of the most Swedish things I've seen for a while, a heavily bearded Scandi Man drinking a whole fucking carton of Fil.

What is Fil?

Well, its basically natural yoghurt but a bit different. And its sour. And, it's weird to just randomly drink a whole litre of it on the train.

Read more about it.

Day 108: Flappy Stockholmers

Sorry for the low quality pic but I was trying to take it without the woman seeing me photographing her shoes. Look at her back foot. See the boot isn't zipped closed?

There's a weird trend in Stockholm right now where people don't do up their boots. They just leave them open, flapping around. I wouldn't have noticed it, but one of my students at school had her shoes wide open and I pointed it out to her. She said "yes it's on purpose". I asked why, she said "I don't know, to express my individuality?" Unfortunately it's not so individual.

I bet this stupid trend dies a death when the snow comes.

Day 100: How you know Christmas is coming

The vending machines here are seasonal. They've started selling julmust now, a christmas special drink which is suspiciously similar to påskmust, the easter seasonal drink...

Day 95: Strange Public Art 3

Charlie Chaplin on a Windmill? Why not.

Day 92: Cynical advertising

Article: Bromma Airport closed after accident

Advert: Switch to Bromma!

Day 91: Between a rock and, er, another rock

 I don't envy Swedish builders.

To build foundations they have to drill down into endless hard rock, insert TNT into the gap and then blow apart the stone.

Then, they have to clear away all the rubble and repeat over and over again until the area is clear. This seems to me a slow and meticulous process (although, ok, they get to use TNT which might alleviate the repetitiveness somewhat)

There isn't much of this going on in London, where the ground is much softer and if we used TNT it would just cause mud and clay to splat all over the place. Fun perhaps but not productive.

Day 83: Informative street signs

Okay so it's, sadly, not a real street sign. It's next to the fictitious house of the Swedish story character Pelle Svanslös.

Still cute though!