Svenska Tänkesätten - The Swedish Mindset
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| "One day, my little viking, this will be all yours to plunder..." |
As Jens retraces his footsteps in the supermarket aisle, he sighs with frustration and utters aloud to me “I need to clear my head…”
Having been up since 5am with his 1 year old son, it’s
understandable that he’s forgetting what was on his mental shopping list.
“…Wait a minute. My head is clear. I think that is the
problem.”
A wonderful host, Jens has a typically Swedish offbeat sense
of humour. The same typically offbeat
sense of humour I sense resides in some worker in the Ikea factory who
routinely omits a wooden peg or allen key from Expedit bookshelves and laughs
themself to sleep at night thinking of some irate person in Germany getting
very frustrated about it.
Språken (Del Ett) - The Language (Part
One)
Contrary to popular opinion (further perpetuated by yours
truly), “Bork bork bork” and “jurdy jurdy” are not actually Swedish
expressions. No, they’re Norwegian.
Actually, Maria explained the difference between Swedish and
the other Scandinavian languages to me the other day. Apparently Norwegian “is
a bit like Swedish, except it sounds like you are really, really happy”, while
Danish “is a bit like Swedish, except it sounds like you are throwing up”.
It’s been great being back and seeing the familiar words and
signs around town like farthinder, kök, slutstation, badrum, hår (pronounced “whore”)
and others that I had missed so dearly.
And everyone loves a good infart.
Have some fun looking them up on Google Translate if you’re curious.
Kulturen - The Culture
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| Dancing "Små Groderna" (Small Frogs) around the Midsommar Stången at Särö. |
Swedish Midsummer is the highlight of the Nordic social calendar alongside such mainstays as “Waffle Day”, “Cream Bun Day” and “Girl With Candles In Her Hair Bringing You Coffee Day”.
With light visible on the horizon til
after midnight (it comes back up before 3am), it provides a long day in which
to have a few drinks with friends. So
you’d think if you were going to dance around a phallic pole complete with macro-orchidistic
gonadal adornments hanging from it whilst singing and pretending to be a small
frog, it would probably be at the end of the day. But no, that’s just the
beginning.
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| The view from Jens' place at Särö. |
Midsummer saw me join Jens in his
childhood home mansion on the pragmatically named island of Särö
(Particular Island). It was great seeing
a number of old friends for a midsummer feast including a lot of raw herring
and copious amounts of aquavit (snaps). Part
of the tradition of midsummer is singing snapsvisor (drinking songs) with
titles like “Piss in the Bed” (this particular song was introduced to me at a
dinner party amongst respectable Rotarians).
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| Midsommarafton. |
The occasion brought back to me the first time I partook in
a midsummer lunch (midsommarafton) and my introduction to snapsvisor. As we
were preparing to sing Sweden’s most famous drinking song, a ditty by the name
of “Helan Går”, it was explained to me that one should “take the whole thing” after
you finish the song and offer a resounding “Skål!” (“Cheers!”) to all on the table. Apparently if you don’t
take the whole thing, it’s not worth even having a little. So take
the whole thing.
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| I've actually been to the castle (Läckö Slott) in 2009. |
The aquavit comes in a minibar size bottle and tends to be
fairly potent, so when these drinking songs started up every 5 minutes, I have
to confess I began to worry about the “sustainability” of “taking the whole
thing”. By the 5th bottle in
less than half an hour, I was regretting having already finished a number of
beers before lunch and wondered if it wouldn’t be the last time today I would
see the raw fish and dill potatoes I’d just devoured. I turned to my friend and
asked how the hell they could “take the whole one” repeatedly with the impunity
to alcohol they seemed to exhibit.
“You’re taking the whole bottle for each one?!” he replied.
“Yeah, you told me to!” I responded.
“But no! That’s just the name of the first song – ‘Helan Går’
– ‘Take the whole thing’. Those were
just words for that song, not instructions for every song the whole day!”
Språken (Del Två) - The
Language (Part 2).
Jävlar svenskar. Goddamn
Swedes.
Vad Har Hänt - The Happenings
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| The night sky at 12:30am. |
After a 47 hour trip to get here with a huge layover in Beijing airport, the past week and a bit has been a great one, catching up with a number of old friends, making new friends and seeing the beautiful Swedish countryside resplendent again in all its very green mid-summer glory.
There’s been a visit to Hjo (pronounced “You”
and making the most of its “I Love Hjo”
campaign) to see my Group Study Exchange family there, catchups with friends in
Gothenberg (or Göteborg, pronounced something like Yurt-eh-boy), a visit to
Skövde (I won’t even explain the various ways of pronouncing that town) to meet
Maria’s family and friends and much more. Planning another trip to Skövde and a
trip to Malmö soon as well as a trip to Karlstad to help coach the Gothenburg
Berserkers Australian Rules Football team.
There’s already been moose, deer, Volvos, Ikeas, forrest walks, quizzes, kebab pizzas
and loads of fika, so I’m looking forward to plenty more. Feels good to be
back.
Språken (Del Tre) - The
Language (Part 3).
Livet är gott. Life is good.
Bork Bork Bork!
