Movie Magic

This week I bring you exclusive photographs from the set of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo",  the soon-to-be international blockbuster, which just so happens to film some of its scenes in Uppsala. 

Of course they closed down several blocks of the city during the day for when the filming was being done, and I did not see Daniel Craig, the star of the film. But at night, they opened the streets up again, and it was possible to see the set and the changes they had made. 

For instance, the store above is not at all a "Mjolk Bar", but instead a convenience store. Similarly a DVD rental was transformed into a butcher shop ("Charcuiterie"). 

The scenes being shot in Uppsala are to be used in a flashback set in the 1960s. This was the reason for changing some of the store facades. The sign above is meant to evoke the '60s, because that was the last time food was so cheap. I'm not sure if this sign will actually feature in any way in the film, and the audience is unlikely to pick up on the prices if they are just in the background. Oh well, I'm not a director so what do I know. 

These facades are also fake. One sign here advertises a radio and TV repair, which is an entirely fictional business. 

The filming will continue next week for another three days. Perhaps I'll meet Daniel Craig then. I have only read a part of the first novel, I should read the rest but I feel embarrassed to read them while in Sweden, like it's too much of a cliche or some kind of kitschy tourism.

Rainy Day in Stockholm

Sweden has some of the dreariest weather in the world, and I know bad weather, I've lived in Canada and Upstate New York. Sometimes after a gray, rainy day, a magical Swedish rainbow arcs across the sky, and not everything is so bad. However, this is an Uppsala rainbow, there was no rainbow to my rainy day in Stockholm.

Stockholm is beautiful and filled with churches, mansions, and palaces. It's the kind of place that would be incredible in sunlight or blanketed in snow. Under a rainy sky though, the city is quite imposing. 

Swedes realize this though, and to fight the gloom, they paint their buildings the color of condiments. 

This was the first European large city I had ever been to, and what struck me most was how quiet the city was. I've lived in New York before, a city where the sound of traffic is integral to the identity of the city. Toronto too has certain sounds that are unavoidable. Stockholm is very still, and my friend took me to a place called "The Street of Silence". It's very different from the kinetic energy of North American cities. Even Washington DC, with all its institutional dullness had the sounds of street preachers and police sirens as a soundtrack. 

It's funny that certain parts of the city look unchanged from the Medieval era. This patch of the Bronze age is directly across the river from the most expensive apartments in the city. My friend asked me why us North Americans are impressed with old things, why don't we have Medieval things ourselves? 

My friend also took me to Sodermalm, an area that would be the Swedish version of Williamsburg or Queen West. Seeing Swedish hipsters, it became apparent that their fashion reference of the season is North American white trash. For instance, it's very popular to wear a denim jacket or shirt with jeans, usually in the same color. I grew up knowing this look as "The Canadian Tuxedo", so it hurts a little everytime I see it. Who knew the style icon of one of the European capitals of cool would be "Beer Store parking lot, Scarborough, circa 1986." I don't think I could ever wear matching top and bottom denim, not as a Canadian at least. 

Cuisine of Sweden

Swedish cuisine is often maligned as being absurd and unpalatable, for instance pickled herring. Before I arrived, one subject I was decidedly not excited about was the food. I had Swedish food occasionally in North America, and I could not tolerate their desire to make things that are not naturally fish-flavored to taste like fish. (Anchovy-flavored potatoes were particularly traumatic.)

However, my mind was completely changed when I went to my first Swedish grocery store and saw entire aisles of cookies and candies that I had never eaten before! It is my responsibility to explore the world of Swedish sweets, and dutifully report their quality.

It is Swedish custom to eat cookies everyday in a ritual called "Fika." It involves drinking lots of coffee (always free refills in Sweden) and eating little cookies. Above, I have pepparkakor and punschrullar. Pepparkakor are the brown cookies, and are a Swedish version of gingerbread. They are very crisp and spicy, heavy on cloves, nutmeg and cardamom. Cardamom is a very popular flavor in Swedish cooking, which surprised me because I had only ever had it in Indian food before. The funny green things are punschrullar, which translate to mean "punch rolls," but another name translate to mean vacuum cleaner, because they look like the head of an old Electrolux. The punschrullar is an unusual cookie. It is covered in green marzipan and dipped in chocolate. Inside there is a spongey cake that is soaked in liqueur. The liqueur flavor reminded me of rum, but it's much more exotic than that. It is "arrack" flavor, an exotic Asian liqueur made from palm trees. It is a very heady flavor.

Swedish candy is entirely unique from that of North America, and follows two consistent themes, raspberry (hallon in Swedish) and licorice (lakrits in Swedish). Many candies combine these flavors too. Saltlakrits is the most popular candy, it is an intensely salty licorice that is an acquired taste. I've grown to love the saltlakrits because it offers a very complicated flavor. Different candies are more or less salty, and an unsalted licorice is usually called "English licorice." The small red and black discs are quite strange, being raspberry, licorice, salted, and sour flavored. Swedes are often surprised when I tell them we don't have salted candy in North America, but I can't see it ever being very popular outside of Europe. 

Being Sweden, fish is very popular. Above is "knackebrod med smor-mjolk, gravad lax, och kaviar," or a cracker with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and caviar. Caviar is fairly ubiquitous in many forms. Swedes particularly like tube caviar, which has a toothpaste-y consistency. I prefer the jarred caviar, which is very inexpensive (about four US dollars a jar.) Caviar is considered a staple, rather than a luxury. Before I feel too decadent, I should mention that a friend told me much of the caviar is dyed to be black, to make it seem like Russian caviar, and that Swedish caviar is actually of very poor quality. Whatever, I feel very fancy eating caviar on everything. 

Another popular food in Sweden are fish salads. This is a shrimp and crab salad, pre-prepared and sold in a package. It's quite heavy on the mayonnaise (Swedes love mayonnaise like Southerners do.) There are dozens of different seafood salads, with shrimp, herring, tuna, oysters, etc. Also, the usually sell shrimp with the heads on here, which is a little gross. 

And yes they eat meatballs here, but really they deserve their own discussion, to come at a later date. 

First Impressions of Sweden

I intended to post earlier, but perhaps it is best that I didn't. Now that two and a half weeks have passed (though it feels longer) I feel settled enough to form an opinion on everything I've been experiencing. 

I intend to write more detailed and specific entries about particular, for example about Swedish food, politics, etc. 

Firstly, I have to say that Ikea does offer a surprisingly realistic portrayal of Sweden. Ikeas in America are just the same as here, a strange example of Swedish cultural colonialism, exporting Swedish values with pressboard furniture. Ikea may be even cheaper here though, a meatball dinner costs the equivalent of two dollars. 

Of course Sweden is much more than Ikea. Uppsala is dominated by the Domkyrka, an old cathedral that is the largest in Scandinavia. The towers are incredibly tall, almost 400 feet (120 metres) and dominate and otherwise flat landscape. It took over two hundred years to build, beginning in the 1200s. It didn't receive the distinctive towers until just over a hundred years ago. But history is boring, and the city is beautiful regardless of the time in which it was built. 

Uppsala doesn't look as I expected it to. Rather than looking Gothic, most of the inner city is stucco and red tile roofs, lending it a rather Mediterranean feel. Although I was unsure of what to expect Sweden to look like, and in all honesty probably expected it to be woodsy and "Nordic". An unfair expectation that many visitors probably harbor towards Canada until they see it for the first time. 

A river runs through the middle of the city, and although it is filthy it lends the city a Venetian charm. (Although the canals of Venice are no doubt more disgusting.) 

Uppsala is appropriately beautiful and European, but what I like best about the city is the people. Swedes are notoriously friendly, and the city is actually incredibly cosmopolitan. I worried before I came here that Sweden would look like a recruiting poster for the Hitler Youth, but Uppsala has people from all over the world in it: Germany, Iran, Belgium, Hungary, France, etc. (Perhaps too many French even.) It has been great so far, meeting people from all over the world, and not too many Americans. (Although I love Americans, hope to be one eventually!) 

I hope to update very soon, perhaps on the Swedish election. (Which makes Washington look like a circus, which of course it is. It has affirmed my love of American politics as a spectator sport.) 

That's all for now,