Day 1479: Lönehelg

We all just had a lönehelg (löne = salary, helg = weekend).

Lönehelg refers to the weekend directly after the 25th of the month when most people get paid. It results in a measurable phenomenon in which high numbers of people who are really fucking bad at planning their household economy rush out and buy copious amounts of shit. This probably happens even in other countries, because hey, people are the same everywhere really; but Sweden has nearly double the amount of retail space per person than the rest of western Europe. They really outdo themselves in shopping as a hobby, and in morosely wandering around the bland shopping centres with their entire families pretending to enjoy the same 4 chain stores repeating ad infinitum. And for the love of Odin, DON'T GO TO IKEA ON A LÖNEHELG.

It's not just physical items either; restaurants, bars and clubs make more income on a lönehelg than at any other time of the month (except maybe at Christmas, Valentine's day ... you get the point). An important cultural facet of Swedish life consists of knowing the song Kung för en dag (king for a day) by the holy saint of pop music Magnus Uggla who is known hysterically and exclusively by Swedish people and absolutely nobody else, anywhere, ever. The song satirically explains exactly what happens to the average dumbo every 25th of the month, who spends all their money in an orgasm of stupidity and then goes back to eating instant noodles on the 26th.

Fortunately I survived my lönehelg with most of my wallet intact. No noodles for me! Break out the champagne everybody!

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 1466: Put another coin in the jar

My friends and family have all decided, independently from each other, that I need a jar. It would work a bit like a swear jar, only instead of me adding money every time I swear I would instead add money every time I start a sentence with the words "In Sweden..."

Instead of just telling you all the weird crap that came out of my mouth I've gone for a more interactive format. Come on down and play my:

THINGS ABOUT SWEDEN TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT GAME!

Here are some things I've said during the last month. See if you can guess why I said them. Answers are lower down, just highlight all the text in the red boxes. Good luck.

1. In Sweden it's legal to hog the middle
2. In Sweden they'd probably put sugar in it
3. In Sweden I get £150 a year towards it
4. In Sweden if a war broke out they could round up the chosen scapegoat group really easily
5. In Sweden there'd be better planning
6. In Sweden it's illegal after four hours because of animal cruelty laws
7. In Sweden there are even more, it feels like there isn't a single woman without one
8. In Sweden it would be worse, they'd start at 7am

1. On the motorway with my sister as she rarely changed lanes 
2. When eating a curry and asked if curry is good in Sweden
3. After my mum asked if I get paid to do exercise
4. Discussing how the Nazis rounded up the Dutch Jews with brutal efficiency because the population register was so organised
5. Showing a friend the construction of a tower block with no parking built in
6. Talking about leaving dogs unattended and how doggy daycare is ridiculously expensive
7. When someone noticed a lot of pregnant women or women with prams
8. Waking up to noisy builders outside the house at 8am every weekday 

How did you score?

0-2 You know nothing, Johannes Snö
3-5 You either know me or Sweden very well
6-7 Were you with me when I said these things?
8 You are me.

Day 1420: Beans, beans the musical fruit.

This weekend I was on salad duty at a BBQ so I made a bean salad as I often do. There's only one ingredient that is tricky to find and I usually just leave it out, but since I'm on my summer hols I actually had time for once to try and find them. Presenting;

HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER RUNNER BEANS

Runner beans are readily available in England but finding them here is trickier. Translator programs can't translate "runner bean" into Swedish because they give "löpande bönor" (running beans) which is probably helpful in an extremely specific situation. Wikipedia suggested rosenbönor as the Swedish translation, so I asked a few Swedish people if they've eaten rosenbönor and suspiciously they had not. I showed them pictures of runner beans, they had never seen them and couldn't give me a name. Brytbönor was one suggestion, but those are large green beans and not the flat runner bean. The confusion stems from the fact that all of these similar beans (green, runner, haricots, kidney, flageolet) come from the family Phaseolus vulgaris and Wikipedia lumps them all together unless you know what to search for and give a specific term.

I basically gave up after that.

But as the picture above can attest, runner beans do, in fact, exist here. They are called skärbönor (cut beans) presumably because you have to cut them into bits before eating. But they're bloody expensive and hard to find, so this supports the theory that Swedish people don't know what they are and don't cook with them. Just one of many foods that vary from place to place!

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 1392: Buy and come

It's certainly a catchy advertising campaign this pharmacy has gone with. It would never get past the British censors.

Come and buy! Buy and come!

Britain has come a long way since Boots pharmacy started selling sex toys, I was amazed by (read: I cringed at) how dated this article from 2004 sounds, with such prudish rediculousness as:

"Unless one derives a certain pleasure from such activities, does one really want to purchase one's raspberry ripple-flavoured lube alongside those buying haemorrhoid cream and waterproof pants?"

Nevertheless, I think I'll have to wait another decade or more before I see dildo adverts on the London underground.

Day 1385: Squeeze day

"How do you translate klämdag to English?" asked my driving instructor today. "It's not squeeze day, is it?"

No.

The sad fact is that British and American people take work far too seriously to be even semi capable of accepting the existence of a day off for no reason other than that it is placed between two other days off.

If there is a bank holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday then it is generally accepted that little to no work should be done on the intervening Monday or Friday. Everybody likes a four day weekend, even the boss. In summer there are three potential klämdagar, one just after the first of May, one just after Ascension day at the end of May and then immediately another one on the 5th June just before National Day. This year the latter two fall on Tuesdays so there has been a blissful diminishing of the total number of Mondays in the year.

There has been a noble attempt to make klämdagar about klämning (squeezing) of boobs, to raise awareness of breast cancer:

But then when they made the English posters, the term "squeeze day" didn't translate so well...

First of all, why is squeezeday all one word? And secondly, what even is a squeeze day!? And third off, why should there be a squeeze day every month if we don't know what the real meaning of squeeze day is?

Ah, perhaps a squeeze day is a day with Capri Sun..?

Happy squeezin'!

Day 1378: Carry Fart

This weekend was a long bank holiday so some friends and I took the opportunity to do like the Swedes and stay in a cabin somewhere near a lake and a load of mosquitos.

It was there that I came to learn of the Carry Fart (Bärfis). These are small bugs that emit a bad smell when threatened. Of course I've heard of stink bugs, but Carry Fart is just such a ridiculous name it warranted a blog post all of its own.

Day 1364: Always drive on the right side of life

In Sweden people drive on the right side of the road. Which is to say they drive on the wrong side of the road. As an experienced passenger I know all to well the confusion of striding purposefully towards the left hand door, opening it with flair and finding a wheel and some pedals that shouldn't be there. Having done this 1,704,720,347 times, it is perhaps now my turn to start reciprocating to all those people who have motioned me to the other side of the car and ferried me across the country (or, more often, home from the pub. You tha real MVP).

Today in my first lesson for 10 years it all came back to me; how to find the biting point between the accelerator and clutch, how to shift gear with your left hand, how to position the car in the left hand lane after a turn, how to use the cars on the left hand side to help you position the car and how to always keep going on a main road and don't stop for cars on small side roads. Oh no, wait. That's not AT ALL how you drive here.

First of all my new fangled car doesn't need you to press the accelerator AT ALL to find the biting point, it starts moving by itself when you release the pedal. Then there's the gear shift, obviously that's not AT ALL on the left. As for positioning the car on the left after a turn, don't do that AT ALL unless colliding with large oncoming objects is your kind of fun. And okay, I didn't really struggle with these things, they're mostly for comedy value, but the priority to the right rule (högreregeln)? That's not a thing AT ALL in England.

In England if you're driving on a main road then you've got the right of way. If you're driving on a side road and you approach a main road, then you have to wait for traffic on the main road to stop before you can progress. Simple. But not here. Not everywhere that isn't England apparently. Here you have to have CONSTANT VIGILANCE against pesky cars, trucks, vans, bikes, UFOs, trailers, caravans, camels, horses, husky sleds, snowmobiles and amphibious craft from the right. And a myriad of signs that could potentially tell you to do otherwise.

Besides the troublesome priority-to-the-right rule, the other big obstacle is the language. Sitting in a meeting, lecture, class conversation group or coffee shop and communicating in Swedish is all well and good. Trying to grasp the intricacies of some instructions containing 3 new words that you have to guess from context while simultaneously looking in 3 mirrors, pressing two pedals, manipulating a gearbox and watching for oncoming traffic is an interesting new stretch of my mental multitasking capacity. Many times when something unexpected happened I automatically started speaking in English. Kudos to all those who don't have the luxury of a global language as their default setting and who manage to translate their outbursts to the correct language.

I suppose I'd better get back to learning some things for the theory test (what should you do if you hit a moose?) and dreading spinning around on the halkbana, a slippery road mimicking ice that you have to pass a test on. Wish me luck...

Day 1321: Aborting the abortion of abortion education

In January 2017 I read that Trump's administration were passing a Regan era rule that every Republican government has passed upon coming into office. The Mexico City policy, or the global gag rule, means that any charity awarded funding from the United States can't even so much as mouth the word "abortion" when engaging in overseas family planning without losing all of said funding.

Without delving into all the reasons why properly funded and carefully offered advice about abortions saves thousands of impoverished and uneducated women around the world every year, I'm just going to say that of all the myriad shitty things I read about the world while trying to avoid reading anything at all, I was particularly depressed about this one. How can I, a single individual, possibly try to counteract the sweeping loss of funding caused by this rule? Why did I care so much? Well, because I value and am thankful for all the freedoms I experience as a Swedish citizen and I wish that all the women who experience seven tonnes of shit in their lives every day could have even just a fraction of the freedoms I enjoy.

I almost went off into my dark place to brood about the untold evils of this world, until I read that the Netherlands would work to actively combat the loss of funding caused by the withdrawal of American aid to family planning clinics. And then, Lo and Behold, Sweden also got involved. As did Denmark and Belgium. It is undoubtedly a delicious feeling when you meet a fellow person who shares your views, but to know that whole countries with large numbers of people felt the same as I did upon reading of the reinstatement of the gag rule and WANTED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT is pretty fucking sweet. Some people alone can't make America sized money grants, but some countries together can make much more of a difference.

The Swedish national society for sexual education (yes - it's a thing!) sent out public information about the change in US policy and gave instructions on how to donate. Even though I'm not a big fan of charity (since really philanthropy is just rich assholes being benevolent with their hoards to causes they believe in) this particular charitable donation, if used to help women learn about and have access to safe abortion, sends a very clear "fuck you" to the rich asshole who doesn't want money spent on such things. And that is one "fuck you" message I am happy to spend my money on.