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.?