Day 282: Do you have a flag?

You know what's not popular in England?


Wearing the Union Jack, displaying the Union Jack, carrying a Union Jack, eating food with a Union Jack on, jacking off with a Union Jack (okay nobody does that but I like writing Jack. Not Jack as in "Jack shit" but just the word Jack. I'll stop now) The flag of choice for Flag events is the St. George's Cross, but unless it's the World Cup people will probably assume you're a racist for hanging it outside your house or wearing it in any way. Worst of all is having it shaved into your head. Still, it is something I've seen around. My mum had a pair of St.Georges cross flip-flops that came free in a newspaper for the last World Cup and she looked more and more like a racist as the World Cup fell further and further behind us. Eventually they broke and she got a nice non-racist pair.

You know what's popular in Sweden?

The Union Jack. How did you guess! Clever you.

I've seen more Union Jacks in Sweden than I ever cared to see in England. Parents of children I teach wear Union Jack handbags and I haven't yet figured out if they're doing it for my sake. Children of parents whose children I teach (wait what?) also wear the Union Jack as hair ribbons, iPhone cases, canvas shoes and T-shirts. Nobody wears the Swedish flag and I'm thinking of starting a trend. If it's just me on my own though, that's not a trend, that's just SAD.

WAIT

I googled flag clothes and these Keds are actually quite nice...

AAAaaaand they're sold out. That means someone else already started my trend? I will keep my eyes peeled.

Day 278: That moment you realise...

...you live in a Trivial Pursuit house!

Day 273: Läkerol Review Raspberry Lemongrass

Läkerol are small, round pastilles that become gummy while you leave them in your mouth and fulfill the function of a mint but with a variety of flavours. Essentially they're sweets for grown-ups, designed to hide the fact that you're a big kid by being packaged in a neat little cardboard box with a well-designed sealing lid. Also you can't give them to kids (like I did) as they are liable to eat all of them at once (like the kid I gave them to did) and they can cause the shits (fortunately I told him to spit them all out before that happened as I didn't want his parents to get me fired.)

Allow me to review a range of flavours for your interest as I embark upon a trail much tread by Swedish snackers, with an English palette. 

My first taste of Läkerol was actually the Salt liquorice flavour which is the most popular and deserves a blog post of its own, it was given to me on a plane by someone sitting next to me and it was so disgusting I spat it out in their face. But that's another story.Today I'll review the first box I bought for myself in the shop:

Raspberry Lemongrass

Motivation: I bought these because I'm a sucker for advertising (see the Ramlösa post.) They look fruity and delicious, plus lemongrass is an interesting additional flavour.

Smell: These have no particular smell, just a bit fruity. Not overwhelming and not particularly raspberryish. Definitiely no lemongrass smell in there.

Taste: Unidentifiable fruit taste, not really raspberry (I read the ingredients. It's grape and apple.) IT'S LIES ALL LIES. THERE IS NO LEMONGRASS. HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH THIS BARE FACED LYING!

Summary: 5/10 would eat again because they take the edge off the smell of sweaty train carriage when commuting but on the other hand I MIGHT BOYCOTT THEM FOREVER AS I WANT MY DAMN LEMONGRASS. I recommend eating a piece of lemongrass while also eating a raspberry while also eating a läkerol for full effect, but that might be a bit cumbersome.

Day 268: Ramlösa...Bleeech!

Ramlösa is a Swedish sparkling water which is popular here. It is in fact, very popular. Many Swedes shun the cheaper brands of water to take Ramlösa instead. I have also heard it claimed that Ramlösa tastes like high quality water while Loka tastes "bad". Now maybe I'm just a water philistine, I had problems in France because I don't like Perrier, but to me sparkling water tastes like lead pipes and I will choose the El Cheapo bottle of still every time.

Unless, like yesterday, I was somehow tricked into thinking that the fruity sparkling waters would be delicious and refreshing. I deliberated a long time between Pear and Mango, wonderful sweet fruits with a unique flavour I'm sure you'll agree. There was some trepidation in the back of my mind, since the last time I bought a bottle of Ramlösa with the flavour of Lemon-Lime it tasted like the smell your hands get after you sort a sack of old coins.

But I gave the Mango the benefit of the doubt, because mangoes are delicious! what on Earth could go wrong! When I opened the lid there was a promising "whoosh" of fizz and the smell of Mango! Yes!

Of course it tasted like metal.

Steadily the bottle got warm in my bag over the course of the day, until I had warm flavoured metal. I hope I never fool myself into buying Ramlösa again when what I really want is one of these bad boys:

 

Day 263: Much Financial

An internet meme is a repetitive joke spread virally and contributed to by the denizens of the internet. Imagine my surprise when Doge made his way off the computer screen and into the Stockholm metro.

I'm not exactly sure who the target audience of this advert is, as so far only one of my students, a 12 year old boy, has recognised where the joke comes from and now subjects me to a barrage of "MUCH FINANCIAL! HAHAHAHA MUCH FINANCIAL! MUCH FINANCIAL!" every lesson. Furthermore, the commuter newspaper Metro asked around to find out if anyone even recognised Doge. Apparently they did not.

The summer ticket being advertised costs a whopping 2400 krona (thats about £230 or $170) which I'm sure is more than the average 12 year old boy can manage, even if he is much financial (has much financial? owns much financial?)

Day 258: What is Valborg?

The Good

Valborg (Vahl-Borey), or Walpurgis in English, is the 30th April on which Swedes celebrate the arrival of spring by lighting bonfires or going to a large, communal bonfire somewhere nearby. This is simply a bonfire, and not a fireworks display like on Bonfire night in England.

The day starts by eating champagne and strawberries, sometimes with porridge, for breakfast.

Swedes in Uppsala have a much larger and richer appreciation of Valborg. There are bonfires, but there is also a boat race down the Fyris river in the centre of town in what can only be described as a total abandonment of the usual Swedish obsession with health and safety. For this, the students at Uppsala University create foam/cardboard/recycled boats in fun designs (their boats are a lot more exciting than those in the Oxford/Cambridge boat race) and see if they can survive the waters...

Most don't.

There is also a mösspåtagning, or hat ceremony, at the university library. Anyone with a student hat, that is to say anyone who graduated high school, is welcome to come and throw their hat in the air.

Finally, when all the other events are over, people move to the park next to the faculty of economics and have a picnic.

The Bad

It all sounds lovely and family fun. 

My first suspicions that Valborg was not going to be all Disney and birds pouring champagne came when I was on the commuter train from Stockholm. My fellow passengers and I were treated to a 55 minute rendition of "drunk asshat frat boys sing and stomp all the classics" including such favourites as Kung för en dag and Hey Baby (ooh-ah) (I strongly recommend that you DO NOT click that link.) They then sprayed beer on the seats, swung from the luggage racks and forced their way off the train first using a selection of garden chairs they had transported in the disabled, bike and buggy spaces. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of train parties and a bit of drunken singing. But wow. I never want to hear that Hey Baby song again.

I met up with my boyfriend who was in a house just one street back from the economics faculty. "How are you?" I said "Oh you know, fine, I just went and offered toilet paper to a guy who was peeing in the recycling bins." Apparently he didn't get the hint and smiled inanely. There were several inhabitants of the building on their balconies watching in disbelief as a stream of inebriated teenagers came to pee in the bushes, trees, on cars, on recycling. One man was sick and then was too drunk to stand up again after vomiting, so he lay down in his vomit. This was at 2pm. "Don't piss in the garden!" I yelled at two women. One pissed in the garden behind a car and didn't look at me, the other felt bad and went to the other end of the garden to piss, apparently that was better somehow.

Don't get me wrong, I know how it feels to need a drunken, desperate pee. But these people had navigated past a line of portaloos to get to the garden. They also had the sense that "Okay, I'm just going for a cheeky wee in the garden" without realising that a hundred other people were also going for a cheeky wee and creating a cheeky river of wee. Nobody likes a cheeky river of wee.

Meanwhile one man went down to the cellar of the building opposite to pee. He came back up and caught his reflection in the door. He played with his hair in the door reflection for 10 minutes. His friends got bored of waiting so they smashed some glass on the path to pass the time. Anyone leaving the flat was treated to a delightful wee/vomit/broken glass/discarded bottles/drunken teenagers obstacle course. YAY FOR SPRING!

On a more positive note, the weather helped to wash away the piss. "Oh there were some April showers!" you're thinking. No. Here is how the economics park looked just a few hours later:

WTF Swedish weather, SRSLY.

Check the picture of the bonfire above: There is snow. To reiterate: YAY FOR SPRING!

Don't get me wrong, I like snow as much as the next nutjob expat who moved north instead of south. But it's May. Come on now. 

The Ugly

Essentially Valborg in Uppsala is a demonstration of how a tirade of drunk students and young people from all over the land can completely demolish any notion of the socially responsible Swede in just a few hours. There was plenty of fun to be had on Valborg, there was some sun enough for BBQs and if you bought your booze before the massive queues at the government shop formed, all the better for you! But next time, stay the Fuck away from the Ekoparken unless you're off your tits and invest in water guns and balloons if you live anywhere near it.

Day 254: Swedish Swimming

"Why have you taken a picture of a pissy floor?" asked my sister when she looked at my phone. It's not actually a pissy floor (although there might be some piss, I don't want to know.) This is the floor in an English swimming pool changing room, complete with my outdoor shoes which I felt weird wearing in an environment where everyone else was barefoot.

You see, I used to not care about the grime and the indoor shoes. But some transformation has taken place since I moved to Sweden. Here, people are told by signs to take off their shoes before entering the changing area and they all do. The floor is probably so clean you could eat some pickled herring off it. Now I don't want to walk around on grimy floors anymore and I feel like shouting at people to take off their outdoor shoes!

There are also signs telling you to shower, in big letters, WITHOUT SWIM CLOTHES AND WITH SOAP before ye dirty unwashed masses set foot in the pool. And people do (because this is a society where signs are much respected). People don't wash before swimming in England, in fact they roll around in pig shit for a few hours before going to the pool. At least that's what people used to, metaphorically (or literally?), do at a music festival I went to that happened to have a leisure centre nearby offering the only hot showers in a few miles' radius.

The nakedness takes a little getting used to when you come from a society which clings desperately to prudish Victorian values. I'm accustomed to having my own dark cubicle in which to hide my shame, or at least ensconcing myself in some far-flung corner of the changing room where the fewest eyes can see me. Not so over here. Today I realised that, in a total opposite fashion to English people, Swedes notice that I am changing alone and wish to join me in my changing, perhaps so I don't get lonely. Soon enough there are 8 naked people in one area of a changing room with 4 separate areas. And nobody else in any of the other areas.

In Swedish pools, friends chat to each other absolutely stark (bollock, in the mens' room) naked. This has a the effect of increasing the time the conversationalists are naked and have to socialise with an eyeful of boob. But nobody seems to find this awkward. It's not just old ladies though, it's everyone. Even teenage girls (and I have been informed, boys) who are traditionally body-conscious as they go through puberty, will stand in a group of friends and chat while naked, or shower and share products, you've guessed it, totally naked.

Far from complaining about this, I actually am quite impressed by people's liberal approach to the body and to each other. People really don't give a toss if their friend has bigger tits or a massive bush. It's there, its probably quite chlorinated at this point, it's a bush. Done. Can I borrow some shampoo, yes. I am far more shocked and appalled that people wear their frikkin' DOG SHITE covered shoes in the changing room in England than I am that a naked lady with a spare tyre is using the adjacent locker in Sweden.

Day 249: Dara Does Stockholm

I'm a fan of many comedians from British TV and was very surprised and happy to discover that Dara O'Briain was making an appearance at the Kina Teatern in Stockholm. At the end of his show he hinted that several other British (Okay I know he's Irish) comedians have heard on the grapevine that Swedes appreciate and can understand English stand up comedy. Even if, as the boyfriend pointed out, the crowd goes silent in concentration when Dara's Irish accent comes booming to the back. This means further yay for me as I can expect more comedy in the future.

At any rate, many of the highlights of Dara's show stemmed from the fact that he enjoys audience participation and many of the replies from Swedes had him quite baffled. Here is my top list:

1. Dara has a sketch in which he asks the audience "have you ever saved a life". Often people reply "yes I gave the Heimlich manoeuvre". This happened in Sweden, too. But when Dara asked "How did you know how to do this?" to a 15 year old, she replied "we learn it at school" ! Well, that's the first time he'd heard that.

2. The front row were asked what their jobs were. 50% of the front row were Engineers. He asked a young person at the front what they were studying. It was Engineering.

3. Dara needed to know the size of a house to set up a joke. He was expecting a normal English answer like "It's a 2 bed semi" or "It's just a shoebox studio". Instead he got an incredibly precise "It is 27 square metres", a standard Swedish response. Of course he had no idea how big or small that is, because nobody measures their houses in the UK.

4. A lady in the front row was a property developer. "How many student tenants do you manage in your four properties" Dara asked. "400" was the reply. "Bloody hell do they live in slums with 100 in each little house!?" Joked Dara "I bet you deny them all the essentials, plumbing, heat, a sauna". "No, they have a sauna" came the reply. Dara was using a stereotype and certainly wasn't expecting that!

5. One of Dara's parenting jokes centred around him being one of the only men in an antenatal class and feeling ostracised by the women in the group. This didn't get much reaction, since most Swedish men are involved with child rearing most of the time.

6. "What would you shout at a burglar behind a door?" Dara asked the audience. Among other things came "Make a baby noise because nobody wants to hurt a baby!" To which Dara shouted "What kind of a fucking safe country is this, where a baby deters criminals?"

Day 241:Tree Care

What do you do when you have a tree in the way of your roadbuilding project? I think the usual answer is cut it down and throw it away, especially when it's not a very old or important tree.

WRONG.

The answer is a) invest heavily in researching and building a truck that can move trees b) spend tax money on 6 people to operate such a truck c) use truck to move the tree by scooping it out of the ground and scooping a new hole for it.

Day 237: Preparing for Påsk

Some aspects of Swedish Easter (påsk) are not too strange, eggs are eaten, chickens are abundant and everybody is high on chocolate and sweets.

I do miss English chocolate eggs, which are annually available special editions of your favourite chocolate bars, and the advent of the creme egg (chocolate egg filled with sugar goo that looks like a real egg). However I am placated by the Swedish offering of filling a paper egg with whatever happens to be the recipient's favourite.

Paper eggs come in a variety of styles, from classy designs or metal tins to generic, half squashed boxes with a rabbit on or chickens so poorly drawn that they look sinister.

Anyway, as I said, some aspects of Swedish Easter are not weird. But then there's björkris (birch twigs). People stick bouquets of sticks outside their houses, businesses and shops as Easter approaches. They attach feathers of assorted colours to the tops. It doesn't look particularly nice. It doesn't look particularly springlike. It doesn't look like chickens, or eggs or anything to do with Jesus. Its supposed to be a bit like a christmas tree in that you decorate it and can hang eggs from it, but....I don't know. It's not as full and luscious as a tree somehow...

At any rate, we have one in our house and we decorated it with feathers, accompanied with the following conversation:

"Why do Swedish people do this?"
"I don't really know"
"I think it's a weird tradition"
"It is a weird tradition"
"Lets put it in the window where people can see."