Dreaming about Åland

I skipped two days of my language classes to get to Island in the sun festival in Jurmo / Åland.
It was the best decision I ever made (sad but true).

Here is the link to my Facebook album with some pictures of the trip.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.599618687567.2054369.38602335&type=3&l=4e4bbc064a

We left from Stockholm Central Station with the Festival bus at 7:30am - heading to the Viking Line Ferry to Marienhamn / Åland. I was the only non-Swede, I found out and so the organizers talked in Swedish all the time and I had to be really focused to get all the important information - like: where I get my boarding pass for the ferry, when we meet at the bus again, where I need to change my money .... But I made it!

On board of 'the Rosella' everyone was shopping for the festival - I do not mean cloth or veggis ;-)

I bought Finish Vodka flavoured with nordic berries and Creme de Cassis. I thought, if I can manage to make friends there it is good to have something to share with them and if none talks to me I drink it on my own (In advance - I shared it!)

At around 12pm we arrived at Marienhamn / Åland´and had some time to eat there and see the town.

At about 5pm we all were back at the bus and started our continuing trip to Jurmo - which took us additional 5 hours!, 3 ferries, and several bus rides. But it is really worth all that!

On the bus I started talking to one girl next to me, Anna, she was really nice because after a while we had to switch our conversation to English because I really suck at Swedish ;-)

She was a volunteer at the festival and there with two on her friends. I met them on the boat and they were lovely, too. I was sad that they had their own accommodation and would not stay with us on the campsite but I hoped to see them again during the festival - which happened several times.

To built up a tent at 10:30pm doesn't sound fun but in Jurmo it is because it is still daylight and you are with a bung of others who are also struggling with building up their tents. After half an hour I was done with my tent and started talking to my 'neighbours', which turned out to be incredible nice people and we spend the whole evening / night sitting outside our tents, drinking, and watching the others crawling back to their tents at 4am :-)

The next day I started with a swim in the 12°C warm sea to wash my hear, because there were no showers for us. I went to the beach with two young Finnish guys and none of us wanted to admit that it is too cold to swim, so we were tipping our toes into the water for ages but then we had to swim because otherwise it would have been embarrassing. But - your hair gets really smooth and silky of the salt water.  

In the afternoon the bands at the beach stage started and the main events started at about 9 to 10pm on the main stage. So we all met at the beach or the cliffs at about 6 to 7 pm to have drinks together and then we headed to the festival area to see the bands.

Every night the campsite turned into a huge party area and you cannot sleep until 5am, when the last people turn off the music and fall into the tents. I had my tent next to the nice couple I spend my time with but also to a group of friends from Finland - bad decision I found out because they always 'knocked' on my tent at about 4am when they had enough drinks to start a conversation. One guy was asking me for advice because of his girlfriend - cute - and as he crawled away on his knees he mumbled that I am very wise ;-) Well, the next day he didn't even recognized me, but that's OK

Friday and Saturday night were crazy and on Sunday we had to leave at 12pm. Getting back to reality because at Jurmo you do not have mobile connection, or Wifi ... horrible, but very relaxing at the same time.

Back in Stockholm at about midnight - then taking the T-bana back home and hugging my new friends good bye ;-(((

But - we saw each other again after 3 days to BBQ together ;-) As I said, I made real good friends there and now I am dreaming about Åland! Maybe I should built a house there, live a remote life and just paint and write poems *what a wonderful dream*.

Beeing a real Swede means ... (part II)

After three weeks of language classes we already got an deep insight into the Swedish culture - thank you to my teacher Christin ;-)

The last lessons she gave us were about food, economy and communication - lets see if I can tell it like she did:

Because it is so cold in Sweden and the weather changes that often, a real Swede loves to talk about the weather. It is also a good start for a random conversation because, as I already mentioned - a Swede is shy and don't like to talk to strangers.
I have to admit, the weather is really changing quickly here and therefore Christins' first question in the morning class is - Ha du en paraply? Do you have an umbrella with you? We are always waiting for this question with a smile ;-)

Christin also likes to talk about food! We learned that real Swedes eat fish on Tuesday and on Thursday they eat pea soup with ham and as a dessert pancakes with whipped cream and jam. A traditional Swedish breakfast consists of lots of milk, cereals with a special kind of milk, eggs, fresh fruit and a sandwich with cheese or ham in it called smörgås or maka. Christin said you cannot eat something sweet for breakfast, this is only common for Fika.
I will just comment on that - Anna which I am living with is a real Swede, in Åland I made friends with real Swedes and NOONE knew about these 'rules' and none cares either! Everyone I met until now has Kanebulle and Kaffe for breakfast, and for Fika if they like ;-)

The economy lesson was interesting too. Because of the fear of robbery it is not possible to buy your tickets in the Metro/ Bus, you have to go to the Kiosk to buy it. Also in the supermarkets you have automatic cash return, which means that the change will be automatically forwarded by the computer system and the cashier has no influence on that.
In order to create more jobs the government decided to pass a law that it is not allowed to offer products or services cheaper when people buy via Internet e.g. a flight, a cruise etc. costs the same if you book via Internet or by a travel agency. Norwegian Air has brought this further because you have to pay extra for your luggage if you buy the flight via Internet but if you book via a travel agency you get 20kg free luggage.
Also the tax has been reduced to create more work, but until now it has not really turned out the way they wanted it to be.

Finally, another story of Christin about the Swedish culture. The Swedes are that shy that they wanna avoid every situation where they could be forced to talk to strangers. So they put in their earplugs but do not turn on the music, just to look busy and not available for a conversation. Same thing in the elevator or when you are riding the Metro. Again, I talked to Swedes and they think that's stupid and not true - but I just wanted to mention it here.

To be continued (for sure) ...

Many thanks to my 'unconventional' Swedish teacher!

Saturday evening - I was looking forward to this meeting since early May - I could finally 'meet' the person I owe a fortune because she kept me curious about the Swedish language during the time I could not attend any language courses = MELISSA HORN.

In 2008 I found her by accident due YouTube when I was searching for some online tutorials in Swedish and Swedish folk songs. I could not understand a word what she was singing, but I really liked her sound and so I started to translate the Swedish subtitles of her songs. Her lyrics are very poetic and full of metaphors, was not easy to make sense of the translation, but very interesting to discover her texts in that way. As I decided to move to Stockholm I immediately had a look at her tour dates and found the concert in Långholmsparken.

I had no idea how famous she is in Sweden, but I knew that she was performing at the Minnesceremoni in Oslo 2011 – here the link if some wanna listen to her:

http://youtu.be/5p44lGaiDrw

At the concert I was rather surprised about the crowd who was queuing with me. In front of me, next to me, behind me – men with men and women with women were kissing, touching, and hugging each other! I really did not know that Melissa Horn is kind of an iconic figure for the gay and pride movement! Beside these fans the most visitors were women (16 to 40 years) who either were coming with their female friends or obviously forced their now upset partners to come with them ;-)

Because I was there one hour before the official entry time I got the chance to stay in the first row! Next to me very young girlies – later I talked to two of them and found out that they were 17 and 18 years old. Baxk home I was worried about my ‘good’ camera and so I just took my pink Nikon Coolpix with me but then I was regretting it because I had a perfect view *damn*.

Before Melissa Horn started her concert at about 9:30pm, Anna Ternheim was performing. She is a Swedish singer but her lyrics are in English. Here the link to one of her songs:

http://youtu.be/6OhYYGrBiDE

After listening 50min to Anna Ternheim the stage got rebuilt and then, finally, we could listen to a nice concert of Melissa Horn!
Here is the link to my Facebook album with some of the pics I took during the concert:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.598613551867.2054225.38602335&type=3&l=f135919fbe

The two girls I talked to were really nice, and one of them (Erika) celebrated her 17^th birthday that day! They both were planning on a one year stay in AUS – with a work and holiday visa - before they start uni here in Stockholm. So they were really curious about what I could tell about Tasmania and Melbourne. I had to write down my favourite places and we exchanged numbers. Because they thought my help was soooo outstanding they hugged me goodbye and didn’t want to let go ;-) They were so sweet and naive as just young girls can be!

Being a real Swede means ...

Many thanks to my language teacher Christin - due her we get an insight into 'what does it mean to be a real Swede'!

Christin perceives herself as a 'real' Swede and all her family members and friends are 'real' Swedes, too. Therefore, she is an expert on nordic traditions and culture - good for a teacher of Swedish as an additional language.

To be a Swede means that you are 'sweet', I am not referring to the general attitude of Swedish people but to their eating habits. According to Christin they are world leaders in the consumption of sweets (godis) (80kg/ person/ year) and pastries (bakverk). This is rooted in the tradition of 'Fika' - having coffee and some sort of pastry like 'kanelbulle, chokladtårta, kaka'. You do that twice a day, once between breakfast and lunch and the second time between lunch and dinner. Every time you have coffee or seldom tea and something sweet or a sandwich (smörgås), either with cheese, ham, or egg. At the weekend, traditionally on Saturdays, people buy a 'godis påse' means a bag full of sweets. There are lots of 'godis handla' means shops where you can buy sweets and they are really huge!

A special favourite of real Swedes is lakrits means licorice. Most western European people don't like the rather medical taste of licorice but the Scandinavian people love it. And not only that they are in favour with the sweet ones - no, they also have salt godis! You can buy lakrits covered with salt instead of sugar, it's def. not my favourite, but I am not a Swede ;-)





Having a Swedish neighbour is also really great because he/she will def. never bother you with knocking on your door or talking to you! Normally, a real Swede will not leave the home when someone else is in the staircase - so they always listen and look through the door fish eye if they can safely leave the house. My Australian friend Olivia is telling me funny stories about their past attemps to get to know their Swedish neighbours, but after 6mo they finally stopped trying to talk to them because they feared sometimes one of then could call the police when they further try to make friends with them ;-)



Christin is talking a lot about food and drinks, too. She told us that Swedish doctors recommend to drink a lot of tub water instead of mineral water. The sparkling mineral water should have weird effects on your brain if you drink it a lot?! We could not believe that, but she is the expert! Swedish doctors do not follow the common guideline of 'drink min. 2 l of water every day' - according to Christin doctors here recommend to drink whenever you are thirsty and not just because you feel obliged to do so. Sounds great because you have a lot of freedom to do whatever you like but what about older people or children? But maybe there exist at least some exceptions ^-^

We also started to discuss the correct beverage to lunch and dinner for children. Christin told us that in Sweden it is perceived that you should drink lots and lots of milk. Especially children are forced to drink milk to every main dish - it is good for their bones and they need that because the winters here are long and dark! But according to Christin not only children drink milk for lunch or dinner, also adults prefer to do something healthy for their bone structure -  in order to prevent themselves from bone fractures during the winter. But we all admitted that if you fall down hard because the streets are covered with ice and snow you will break your bones with or without drinking heaps of milk during the summer and autumn! But we are not Swedish doctors either ;-)

Beeing a real Swede and living in Stockholm means also being single! This is a fact I really cannot understrand because Swedish women are really beautiful and the guys are handsome, too - so why there are so many singles? Christin answered this question with 'Swedish men are very shy and the women are rather emancipated'. I concluded for me - if you are a self confident and well educated woman you will stay single in Stockholm, or you are lucky enough to get to know a foreign tourist!

To be continued ....





End of the first week of Swedish class

Friday - weekend is coming and we get our last lesson in: Swedish coffee break culture 'Fika', the Royal family members and great inventions of Swedes.

Our nice but very old fashioned language teacher Christin is a Royalty-lover and so she shows us pictures of the Royal family members and we have to nme them and say with whom they are married and what are they doing - every class! But I suppose it is useful to know all these things when you life in Sweden but I am def. not a 'merchandising article buying royal fan' - as Christin is ;-)

When it comes to Swedish food she is as passionate as about the Royal family! We have to create typical Swedish breakfasts and Sandwiches (frukost och smörgås) I guess, to Christins times there hardly existed any vegetarians or vegans in whole Sweden ;-)
We also have to name all Swedish godis for the traditional Fika - maybe at the end of the course we need to remember the recipes and bake all of them in order to pass the course level!

We also got another lesson on Swedish culture, this time about superstition! Christin told us that a Swede would never place its keys directly on a table - there must be something between the key and the table (book, newspaper etc.) Otherwise it means bad luck! Ohho, maybe this was the reason why I was so unlucky in Tassi? ;-)  But I suppose not even the young Swedes know about that urban legend!

As a perfect end to a long week Olivia and I were having Fika after class. We are good learning buddies and made homework together, and we talked about Australia and Tasmania. What we actually miss! It is strange to talk to an Australian girl about all the things that are diff. here - because I discovered that I adapted a few 'Aussi casual habits' that are not appropriate here in Sweden. Like having a shower and then leaving with wet hear and riding the Metro to town ;-)
Or dressing in Jeans-Shorts and T-Shirt when you go to class ;-)
But I grew up in Europe, so I will get used again to the more conservative lifestyle very quickly!

Here you can test your Swedish knowledge - one of these pics Christin shows us every class ;-)

Now name them with first and second name and how many children do they have and what are their names, with whome they are married etc.?

Learning about the Swedish culture

According to my Swedish teacher 'learning about the Swedish culture and their pitfalls is as important as learning the language' - but actually she is teaching us more about the culture ;-)

One of the first things we got to know is Swedish hygiene. In Austria - and by now I know it is the same thing in Australia, Eastern, Southern and Western Europe - you learn early on that if you sneeze or cough you should place your hand in front of your nose / mouth. But in Sweden you cough (hosta) in your long sleeves! This is perceived to be better because the bacteria are stuck in your cloth and do not stick on your hands where you can spread them easily. Our teacher reminds us every day that we have to practice this 'rule' because it is very impolite to act in another way. I immediately thought that I will try to be 'very rude' the next time I am riding the Metro (T-bana) and it is hopelessly crowded and I cannot get a spot to sit down , maybe this will help me to get some room around me ;-)

Another cultural difference is, according to my teacher, that Swedes do not give a lot of information about themselves, unless you ask them. She always reminds us that people here are not like people from the English speaking culture who talk a lot and give information about themselves. In Sweden you need to ask if you are interested - for example you ask someone if he/ she is studying, then you will just get the information if or if not he/ she is studying but not what else he/ she is doing and so on. You need to ask one question after the other - and this we are practicing at Folkuniversitete every day (asking question after question after question - I suppose I should have applied at the Swedish police instead of the university!

I also got a lecture about the Swedish emancipation, because I told someone that I feel too old for this kind of life I have right now - I mean starting all over again, having no children, and so on - and she told me that in Sweden most women have their children in their late 30s or even early 40s, sometimes without a partner and if they have a partner they are often not married. That's really different to my experience from Austria, I suppose, we are more conservative and old fashioned about these things. But I suppose I am going more into a sociological direction than it is necessary for this blog ;-)

Another important part of the Swedish culture is, that you never eat something without asking the other people around you if they would like to share. Our teacher told us that's the reason why in class you are not allowed to eat and drink - maybe the others want to have something of your food and you would need to ask all classmates if they want to share with you ... Well, I suppose this is a very very kind attitude and maybe my teacher want to educate us to 'super-Swedes' that we fit in the Swedish society perfectly :-)

One thing that nearly all European countries have in common is the fact that the public transport system and the main roads are permanently under construction over the summer months! Here the Metro (T-bana) lines do not run every 10min (like during the year) - now there are just 2 to 3 trains every hour! In the newspaper all the people are complaining about that and in the T-bana the people are angry about their long journey back home from work and so on. I think it is annoying to stuff the already very crowded T-bana with heaps of additional people, and during rush hour some people do not fit in the trains and they need to wait for the next one! Which means being late to work in the morning. I am lucky because my school is just 30min away from Skarpnäck - 20min with the T-bana and then a 10min walk.

First day of my language classes!

Today, my language school starts and I'm kind of nervous which fellow students will await me there. I have no idea which nationalities are curious about learning Swedish, I just know that immigrants have their own (free) SFI courses and will not attend Folksuniversitetet with me.

It is raining again and I hope my new bought sneakers can stand Stockholms heavy rain (because I bought them here!) although they just cost me 75 SEK ;-)
It was the first time that I was riding the T-bana Metro at 8am with all the people who wanna go to work and - there are a lot of people in the morning! Because I get in at Skarpnäck, the last / first station of the green line, I always get a seat, which is kind of nice but not really handy if you try to get out.

At 9am my courses start and last until midday (half day course). Our teacher is rather old and very experienced in what she is doing! She rushed us through the first chapter and was talking to us in Swedish only (using lots of drawings and pics). It is amazing how much you understand just from seeing pics! She told us that the daily amount of homework is 3h, excl. study time to repeat the class content - we all were kind of shocked but it is an intensive course and we all wanna learn Swedish really fast. For that reason I am sitting in the Stadsbiblioteket right now to do my homework - I don't wanna think about the fact that at UTas I have semester break right now, but I decided to start with summer school here *stupid*.

My fellow class mates are from all over the world:
Gabriel - Brasil
Harisha - India
Olivia - Australia (Sydney)
Iwona - Poland
Natalia - Russia
Asefu - Ethiopia
Sara - Spain
Maajika - Netherlands (Amsterdam)

We should be 13 people but only 9 of us showed up today. I already made friends with Olivia from Sydney, you can imagine why ;-)
She is in Stockholm for one year now because she has a Swedish fiancè and therefore Swedish friends, too. She said we should exchange  numbers tomorrow - looking forward to get the chance to make more Swedish friends! *exciting*
What I need to do (really urgent) is registering at the 'Migrationsverket' in order to get my personal no. and to be legally here in Sweden. All these bureaucracy is need to get the documents which are required to open a bank account! I cannot believe it that for me - as a member of the EU - it is that complicated to get all these things! It was easier to get a tax file no. and a job in Texas, and I opened a bank account in 10min in Tasmania!

I ordered my registration certificate from Folksuniversitetet today and hopefully I will get it by 11:30am tomorrow. Then I have to scan all my required documents and send it online to the Migrationsverket. Then they need their time to proof everything and finally they will send my Swedish personal ID card to my mail address (after I paid the 400 SEK registration fee, of course). It's all about money, but I should have gotten used to this fact by now.

So, my To Do list has several points on it and I don't mind at all, because my 'list of stupidity' I started in Tassi has not gotten any longer since I am here in Stockholm, which is great ;-)