Montreal: The Dollarama Europe

 

 I recently had the opportunity to travel to Montreal to visit a friend. While Montreal is close to Toronto (Five hours by train) I had only been there twice before, once at the age of 8, and again at 18. The first time my memories are marred slightly because I caught the flu and threw up all over the city. The second time I also threw up all over the city, but for different reasons. (Kidding! I got the flu again, but having Margarita lunches on an influenza-ridden stomach is not a good idea.) This would be the first time I would see the city as an adult, and the first time I would see it not covered in a meter of snow. 

What surprised me while I was in Montreal was how European everything looked. It's a cliche that Montreal is more European than the rest of North America because of the French influence, but even the tourist traps in Montreal are identical to their European counterparts! Above is Vieux Montreal, the old city, which was remarkably similar to Gamla Stad in Stockholm. Beyond the architectural similarities, the t-shirts in both cities are full of moose-related puns.

 

I stayed with my friend Patrik from Sweden in the neighborhood of Le Plateau. Le Plateau used to be the Jewish neighborhood of Montreal, home to Leonard Cohen, and still has the delis to show for it, but more on that later. Le Plateau then welcomed Portuguese immigrants, and subsequently, hipsters. (If you want to know what the next big trend amongst hipsters will be, look first to the Portuguese.) Le Plateau is somewhat like Trinity-Bellwoods is like in Toronto, with a similar mix of old Portuguese women in housedresses and young bohemians, wearing those same housedresses, but ironically. What separates Le Plateau from Queen West, Williamsburg, or Sodermalm is the savings! 

First of all, everyone in Le Plateau brushed the mothballs off their Grand-mere's mounted antelope collection and put it on sale. If you ever wondered where your Grandfather's old jacket is, the one that was knit and had a hunter shooting a duck on the back of it, and it smelled like DuMaurier's and Molson, well that's here. And remember that World's Best Dad plaque you made when you were 10 and you hot glued macaroni to a piece of plywood, and there's a bloodstain on the top-left corner from where you cut yourself with the saw? It's there too. All the stores of Rue Saint-Laurent are full of tacky old crap. Gems, but also lots of weird old shit, and you can pay by the pound. (Don't load up on paperweights, they're heavy!) Still, Montreal is cheaper than any other major city I've been to, save Berlin. Drinks can cost as little as $2 and a meal perhaps $5. Berlin has an unofficial motto, "Poor, but Sexy". The motto could apply to Montreal as well, which along with it's Dollarama savings, is certainly the sexiest city in Canada.

Montreal, home of "Le Super-Sexe" is very much a party town. Perhaps it dates back to its bootlegging heyday, or the French culture's "joie de vivre", but Montreal kicks Toronto's ass on the party front. The city is teeming with bars, cafes, and restaurants. Along Rue Peel or Rue Sainte-Catherine, everything along street level is some kind of drinking establishment. Everyone in Montreal must constantly be out all the time to keep these places in business, and it's great they are. Toronto has a few areas of nightlife: College Street, Queen West, Church Street, and the "Entertainment District". Montreal spills forth with nightlife options everywhere, with every kind of experience available. I was also surprised that Montreal's Le Village, the gayborhood, was much larger than its Toronto counterpart. I figured that Church Street contained all the gays in Canada, but it appears as though Montreal has gay people too, only they call them, Les Gays. (No, that isn't a portmanteau of Lesbian and Gay, it's "The Gays" in French)

We also witnessed part of a Canadian Football game. It's almost the same as American football, but they measure in meters instead of yards, or something like that. Above are some prominent Canadian feminists celebrating their freedom! This was Patrik's first glimpse of cheerleaders, which don't exist in Sweden, or if they did they would be a coed troup and wear unisex unitards and just encourage everyone to play fairly and practice good sportsmanship.

Montreal also provided me the opportunity to view some art, such as the above sculpture of two emaciated chimpanzees killing an obese one. The above piece was in La Musee des Beaux-Arts, one of two museums Patrik and I visited - for free! Like a DG sorority girl, Montreal shows you all it has for free, unlike a DG sorority girl, you don't even need to ply her with jungle juice. The Beaux-Arts was the better of the two museums we visited, and it had an impressive permanent collection.

 

Above is a painting by Canadian painter, Dorian FitzGerald, of the Portuguese Throne Room in Lisbon. The painting is very striking to see, it is all flat, two-dimensional fields of color that together give the illusion of incredible depth. The painting was made in an unusual way, it was laid flat and had the pigment poured over it in countless layers, each layer flat against the previous, all done without a brush. The effect is something like an obsessive-compulsive's paint-by-numbers, but it is staggering to see. 

The Beaux-Arts also had a piece by Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Black Andy Warhol and one of the coolest artists to ever have lived. He was a master of street art who took on the gallery world, was friends with Bowie and Warhol, AND dated Madonna! The above piece contains a Madonna reference.

 

Of course, everyone's a critic. As you can see above. 

Most surprisingly, Montreal is a surfing destination! Well, it's not quite Maui, but there is a standing wave that you can ride continuously forever. It does require a wetsuit though, and there isn't much of a surfer culture - no beachy surfer dudes or bikinis - but it is certainly the only Canadian city with surfing in city limits! (Toronto, get one of these!)

To make a long story short: Europe > Montreal > Toronto. It's the best you can do with out getting a Trans-Atlantic flight, and for myself, Montreal is a fantastic place to be enjoyed on an unemployed person's salary.

Is Toronto Cool? Or, Looking for Fun in the Lucky Charm Moose Village

I have already determined that Toronto is not New York. Nor is it London, Berlin, or Tokyo. We lack the history of a city like Paris or the charm of Montreal. We have neither the scenic beauty of Vancouver, nor the raison d'etre of Los Angeles. We do however have the largest tower that resembles a circumcised penis. But what is Toronto beyond a town of phallophiles? It is a city that is used so often to stand in for New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis that it suffers a city-wide identity crisis. What is Toronto, and more importantly, is it cool?

 

While Toronto has many tall phallic-shaped structures, it lacks the density of New York. Toronto sprawls out from the lake in all directions. The city limits cover an area ten times the size of Manhattan. As a result most of Toronto is low-rise, and it is a series of neighborhoods stitched into one city. The above neighborhood is Kensington Market. Imagine St. Mark's Place in the East Village without the crusty punks and needle drugs, and this is what you get. Vintage shops, authentic Asian food, "colourful" local characters. Is it unique? Mostly, (aside from being derivative of St. Mark's Place, it's the posterchild for a working class neighborhood undergone a "hip" bourgeois gentrification.) Is it cool? Mostly!

One of my favourite things in Berlin was the street art, every vertical surface was covered in some kind of visual expression. Of course, Toronto the Good frowns upon graffiti, but Kensington Market is home to interesting murals and illicit tags. Above, Mona Lisa stands watch over a thrift store alley.

The above "Cirque du Poulet" is a favorite street mural of mine. It takes a novelty t-shirt level pun and elevates it to a rather clever piece of street art. It also makes me wish there was a real Chicken Circus, one where trained chickens could perform to adoring crowds. If this whole legitimate profession thing goes belly-up, expect to see me hustling a traveling circus of performing chickens in the not to distant future. Overall I would deem Kensington Market to be cool, and relatively telling of what Toronto is.

Like other major metropolitan areas, Toronto is home to a large Chinese diaspora who inhabit a part of town we have cleverly named "Chinatown".  Yes. other North American cities have Chinatowns, (Most notably New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver) but Toronto's is large, vibrant, and sells a bunch of food I don't know the name of. What would distinguish Toronto's Chinatown from others is that it is relatively free of tourist trappings. Of course at night the restaurants are filled with Asians and White families alike eating dim sum, but unlike NYC one won't find bootleg "Guggi" sunglasses or "LW" bags. Toronto's Chinatown is also relatively bright and spacious, on broad Spadina Street, and I would rate it to overall be slightly more pleasant than the community in NYC.Another interesting development is that Toronto's Chinatown is not so Chinese. The Spadina strip is increasingly Vietnamese while the Chinese move to suburban Chinatowns like Markham. Koreans have also taken up Bloor West. I for one welcome the availability of Pho and Bibimbap, but I will miss you dim sum.

Of course. the Chinese immigrants were ecstatic to arrive in Toronto, this land of good fortune, and so when they arrived they named the town "The Lucky Charm Moose Village" or something, because that makes sense in Chinese. Moose are considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, and so it was auspicious to arrive in such a moose-dense location. Of course the moose are not so common in Toronto anymore, and likely number in the mere thousands, but still the name remains to this day. (Or Lucky Charm Moose Village is the sweatshop in which moose are made to create all of the Lucky Charms for that greedy leprechaun and the General Mills corporation. I forget which story is the true one.) But yes, Toronto is a Lucky Charm Moose Village, no combination of four words so aptly describes this geographic location. (Except perhaps for "Everywhere Smells Bad, Different" it is true each streetcorner in Toronto possesses a foul odor, but one that is completely unique from each other. Front Street gives off "backed-up sewer and toilet water" while College Avenue may be a lesson in "Homeless person BO and last week's lunch". It's an urban potpourri.)

Toronto is often asked to stand in for other cities in low-budget made-for-TV-movies and independent films. Even the movie Chicago was filmed, where else, but Toronto! Here we see a bit of New York's Harlem come to life on the streets of Toronto. Notice the Bad-era Michael Jackson mural, very authentic. This background will likely be graced by such stars of stage and screen as Vivica A. Fox or Rob Lowe. We truly are Hollywood North. (Except for when people call Vancouver that, then they are Hollywood North.)

Toronto has quirky things! Like this, the True Love Cafe, which you think might be a diner or something, but it's purple inside and serves Spaghetti and French Toast (not on the same plate, however.) Toronto is big and bohemian enough to have those weird sorts of places that don't really make sense but are cute anyways, like the True Love. It's also a convenient meeting place for hookers and their johns in the heart of the Prostitution District. Nothing says "I value this sexual exchange as a commercial transaction, wholly mercenary rather than romantic in nature," than splitting a French toast breakfast with your working girl at the True Love Cafe. Love, it's real!

In some parts of Toronto, the street life is a little dodgy. Above is a working girl decked out in professional attire, awaiting an independent contract.

In another part of T.O., a transsexual rock band is held captive in a storefront window to play for others viewing pleasure. In fact, the above scene is giving me vapors of a non-existant Beyond the Valley of the Dolls sequel, in which Misty, Dolly, Foxy and the gang must escape the evil clutches of Dr. Sturgis Strange who will use rock music to wicked ends, all the while having a sexy and gender-bending trip on California's better hallucinogenics. That is what that is saying to me.

One of the coolest things of all in Toronto is its urban beach - Sugar Beach! Unfortunately, the beach is not made of sugar (I tasted it) which is for the best as that would just attract ants. Despite the misleading name, Sugar Beach is a breath of fresh lakeside air in Toronto, a city that is on a lake, but you wouldn't know it to see it.

Sugar Beach is just moments from downtown Toronto, although currently those moments include walking alongside an abandoned railway track past some construction sites. I think they will improve access in the future. Sugar Beach takes its name from the neighboring sugar factory, which should make the area smell like warm candy. But it doesn't, instead Sugar Beach smells like seaweed and smoldering garbage, apparently sugar does not smell good on its way to refinement. Still, it's a cool and unique thing in Toronto! I had always heard about Paris' urban beaches on the Seine with some jealousy - if the beach is fun, and the city is fun, combined they must be the most fun! While Toronto is not Paris, its excursion into the world of urban beaches is a good thing. Except for the sand fleas, those were gross. Best of all, a liquor store is across the street! Sugar Beach was made for maximum fun.

And did I find hipness and fun? Why look:

 

There I am posing in front of some very authentic looking street art, and I look quite hip and cool, and appear to be having some fun! That is Lee's Palace, a concert venue which I haven't been to, but I appreciated the mural. It was giving me the right kind of Berlin flashbacks, now if only I could get a decent doner in this city I would be OK. Bloor West is quite fun, and I intend to explore the area more fully when I have the chance. All in all, Toronto impressed me once again, and proved that if you're willing to lower your standards, you can be pleasantly surprised.

"Milwaukee Run By the Swiss", or a visit to The Big Potato!

 

When I was abroad and someone asked me where I was from, I would usually answer simply "Canada," and if pressed to elaborate I would say "Toronto?" always in the form of a question, as I was unsure if anyone outside Canada had ever heard of it. To my surprise, people usually had heard of it. The girls at the detention center knew it as "Where Drake's From," and only once did I ever hear the response "But you don't look Mexican." 

Yet it is my secret shame that I am not a true Torontonian, but a suburbanite! (A Whitby-ite to be specific) I had visited the city often when I was growing up, but I hadn't been downtown in over a year. Toronto was the first city I grew up knowing, but in the interim I've been to London, Washington, Stockholm, Berlin, and of course, New York City. Toronto is frequently compared to New York City (by Torontonians) who claim it to be "New York but cleaner," or "New York run by the Swiss." I've been to New York, I've lived in New York, and Toronto is no New York. Still, my visit had me wondering, how does Toronto stack up to The Big Apple? In fact, Toronto is like a big potato, earthier and less glamorous than an apple, but just as starchy! (That's as far as that analogy can go.) 

Transportation:

New York's mass transit is world renowned, with its subway moving millions of people each day and providing the world's largest habitrail environment for rats. Toronto also has a subway, with two or three lines,but unfortunately Toronto's subway does not appear to have any rodent wildlife. There are caribou, as one can see above, a subterranean art ode to Canada's Northern wildlife, but unlike Berlin, Toronto does not have actual caribou within city limits (let alone caribou on hallucinogenic mushrooms).  I admit I was once afraid of New York's rats, until I began to view them as tiny little puppies. Once I imagined them as miniature dogs, I loved to watch them splash in puddles and frolic in junk food wrappers. I do not regret at all bringing one home on a leash and  taking it for walks! (I miss you Misty, if you're reading this.)

Toronto does have the streetcar system though, which is like a less cool version of the San Francisco trolley. Still, it is unique and recognizably "Torontonian". Regardless of the "Red Rocket" as Toronto public transit is called, New York edges Toronto out in Transportation.

New York: 1 Toronto: 0

 

Tyrant Mayors:

Toronto recently elected the human embodiment of Porky Pig to the office of mayor. He's a rude, uncouth, pink-skinned, corpulent swine. Worst of all, he's not even a billionaire! Mayor Bloomberg has his own issues, but at least he was able to afford buying three straight elections. It's a blight on Toronto that we have a xenophobic, homophobic mayor; we have a reputation of liberalism and Ford betrays Toronto from being the socialist paradise it ought to be.

New York: 2  Toronto: 0

Freaky People:

Big cities are home to all sorts of freaks - hobos, street preachers, hookers, crazies, winos, Amish, etc. When I remember my time in New York, I cannot recall too many freaks. In fact, the homeless of New York were very friendly and ordinary folks (I shared my cheesecake with one once). New York, particularly the Lower East Side is supposed to be renowned for its freaks, the kind of people who end up in Lou Reed songs.

Toronto on the other hand is known as "Toronto the Good", and it is supposed to be a city of well-behaved people. Yet it was in Toronto that I saw the above freaky people, a band of Hare Krishnas! I was rather impressed to see them, a rather retro 1960s kind of touch. Winner: Toronto

New York: 2  Toronto: 1

 

Strip Clubs:

New York was once known for its center of sin and depravity, Times Square, a lurid and filthy stretch of strip clubs, porn theaters, and sex shops that was bought by Disney, and begrudgingly turned into an anti-septic playground for overweight Middle Americans once Disney realized tchotchkes, family eateries, and Broadway productions of "The Lion King" made more money than pimping streetwalkers for $5 handjobs. Surprisingly, the heart of downtown Toronto is still filled with strip clubs, sex shops, and head shops, like an Amsterdam without any history or charm. Above is Zanzibar, where the girls never stop! 

Toronto strip joints are relatively high-brow however, the titty bar above features a verse of fine poetry. 

And Toronto strip-joints have something for everyone. The above features "Men of Steel", which is either indicative of it being an establishment for gay men, or some kind of robot-themed joint with mechanical strippers. I'm not sure which. In this regard, Toronto outdoes New York. 

New York: 2  Toronto: 2

Times Square:

Speaking of Times Square, Toronto made one of its own in order to deal with its crippling inferiority complex. It is called "Dundas Square", and they got the large advertisements and chain restaurant parts down-pat. The only thing is its rather small, a 1/6 scale model of the towering cavern of commerce that is Times Square. Times Square is so gaudy, bright, and terrible as to elevate itself into becoming a cathedral of commerce. Scaling that down simply results in an overgrown strip-mall. They did however have a moonbounce and a wedding covers band performing in Dundas Square, two things I never saw in Times Square. 

New York: 3  Toronto: 2

The Gays: 

New York is the cradle of the Gay Liberation movement, if not for the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn we wouldn't have had Will & Grace, or something like that. So New York should be the Sodom and San Francisco of the Eastern Seaboard. But, one must take into consideration that Canada is a radical homo-socialist commune, one which has had gay marriage years longer than New York, (In fact, the effort to forcibly gay marry all the school-children is going swimmingly. The livestock will be next.) In light of the fact that homosexuals have recently staged a bloody coup, conquering Canada and changing its flag as you can see above, I must say Toronto edges out NYC in this respect. 

The Gays have also taken over the construction industry too, with sexy results:

New York City: 3  Toronto: 3

In the end, to my surprise neither city comes out on top. While I fully expected my hometown to appear like a dump next the Big Apple, upon further comparison it holds its ground. I guess Toronto's not so bad after all!

Oh wait, one more comparison, fashion: 

Hold up, what's this? A fine evening-wear boutique called "Shkank"? Yes, please! Any city that is home to the preferred clothier of angels automatically wins. The elegant couture house "Shkank" purveys such glamorous garments as that black backless number in the center, which is perfect for showcasing one's rear cleavage. When an angel reaches heaven, they are outfitted by "Shkank", nothing less. 

New York: 3  Toronto: inifiniti!

Leaving America, or How I Failed at Being an Illegal Immigrant and Returned to My Northern Homeland

My last image of America is this, the flags of the State of New York, Canada, and the United States flying together outside a truck stop restroom. After four years of suckling at the teat of American freedom (Not being able to drink until the age of 21, the lack of free healthcare, etc.) I was heading home to a place that does not feel so much like home. I am hyper-aware of American dysfunction, reading the newspaper any day alerted me to new crises like the impending collapse of the debt ceiling or the increasingly strict immigration laws passed in Arizona, but despite my moral objection to the American political climate, I genuinely liked the US. It's where I went to school and worked for the past four years, and where all my friends live. It's where New York City is! During my stay in the US I had the opportunity to live in the economic and political capitals of the American Empire, (New York City and Washington DC respectively) and now I'm exiled to its cleaner, blander Northern franchise.

Despite mortgaging out my future and ensuring I'll spend the next decade in debt, I'm glad I came to Cornell. It was a launching pad to some great experiences, but the best thing that resulted from me being at Cornell was being constantly out of my comfort zone. When I first went away to school I didn't know anyone in the entire country, let alone at the school, a situation I wouldn't have been in had I stayed in Canada. And whether going to frat parties with free beer and dogs, or going to classes where I felt intellectually inadequate, I was out of my element frequently at Cornell, and that was a good thing. I felt uncomfortable and insecure at Upper East Side penthouse dinner parties, at boozy football tailgates, and strangers' house parties in Collegetown, all because of Cornell. Being uncomfortable all those times was useful, and now I relish embarrassment and making a fool of myself, or I don't feel so bad about it.

My last meal in America was at that great culinary institution, the Cracker Barrel! It is the essence of American Exceptionalism distilled into a roadside eatery. When one enters, they are sequestered in a gift shop, modeled upon a old-time General Store, where one can purchase penny candy, moon pies, and Dolly Parton CDs. Of course, it is the food that attracts the customers, and the Cracker Barrel serves American delicacies like fried chicken, sweet tea, and biscuits. I ordered the Chicken 'n' Dumplings, a white on white on white creation that tastes better than it looks. One of the things I will miss most about the USA (other than freedom) is sweet tea! American sweet tea is real brewed tea, an elixir that surely Jesus Christ himself would drink if he could. Yet in Canada, ordering "Iced Tea" in a restaurant will cause the waiter to serve you a sweet brown sugar water that has as much to do with tea as MTV's "Teen Mom" has to do with maternal love and common-sense. The Cracker Barrel is concentrated Americana, it is what Sarah Palin is talking about when she espouses the "Real America", it's a commercialized nostalgia for a particular time and geographic location that never existed. Regardless of that, if one is looking for America, look no further than the interstate Cracker Barrel.

I'll miss the US and its plethora of fast-food chains, but I look forward to getting to know Toronto again. I moved away when I was 17, so I've never seen Toronto as an adult. I'll give it a try, and while I doubt it's "New York run by the Swiss" or the "New York of the North" as some cliches say, it is perhaps at least "Milwaukee run by the Swiss", or maybe the "Philadelphia of the North". We'll see! 

Adventures in Norway, the most expensive place on Earth!

Recently my friend Monica visited and we decided to travel to Norway because it is so close. It is also very expensive, and Oslo is often regarded as the most expensive city in the world. Us being two broke college kids had no chance of staying on a budget in such a place, so we charged everything to our parents' credit cards. (Sorry Mom.) Sweden is expensive, but if Scandinavia were casual dining establishments, Norway would be the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and Sweden would be the IHOP. (Denmark would be Chili's, in between.)

Oslo is very picturesque. (Literally, I took lots of pictures.) It is on a fjord, surrounded by mountains, which makes for a very dramatic setting. We were there on a very warm and clear day, and could even see the Olympic ski-jump tower in Lillehammer. It isn't as historic as Stockholm, and there is not as much notable architecture, but the views of the city are beautiful.

 

The view of the fjord is incredible, it looks like the end of the Earth. While it was sunny when we were there, the above photos were taken around noon, although they look like sunrise.

Oslo is a conundrum, while it is an incredible wealthy city, it's difficult to see any of it on display. Oil wealth has made Norway fabulously rich - it's the only Western country to run a budget surplus during the recession, and it's national pension fund is the largest in the world. However, it is difficult to see any of that wealth in day to day life.

One of the first things I noticed about Norway was how dirty it is. There is actual filth on the streets - cigarette butts, bottles, food wrappers - which is never seen in Stockholm. There is extensive graffiti in the city, some political, others just tags. The neighborhood where our hostel was located was an odd place. It was apparently home to the Kurdish community and it was mostly comprised of downmarket wig shops. Poverty was visible. However, this is to be expected in a city that is one-quarter immigrant.

So just how expensive was it? A beer in a bar would usually cost $8. A mixed drink $12 - 15. Lunch would cost around $15 - 20, and dinner + $20. And with minimal exceptions we were trying to do everything as cheaply as possible. I had heard very negative things about Norwegian food, so I was pleasantly surprised by the food there. While we never ate any traditional Norwegian cuisine, we did have delicious Thai and American food while we were there. Strangely, there is a considerable amount of nostalgia for retro Americana in Oslo. We ate at the historic Teddy's Soft Bar, which is a fifties style juke joint. They served American food like Chili beans and bacon, which was life affirmingly good. They even had genuine rockabilly patrons, including the reincarnation of Kim Novak. Throughout the city there were many 1950s American style cafes, which is interesting for a country that never experienced that culture firsthand. I don't know if it's appropriate to fetishize the 1950s without considering the pain and turmoil the Civil Rights movement and the Sexual Revolution experienced in the 1960s. They did not entirely ignore the 1960s, we did go to a 60's style Tiki bar that was very Gilligan's Island. Even the bartender's name was Ginger, and she was from Hawaii!

Overall, Oslo was much cooler than I expected it to be. Sweden, and especially Stockholm get a reputation for being hip, but I think Oslo is more interesting. Stockholm is elegant but conformist, while Oslo is messy and weird. There were real sub-cultures, like the rockabillies, or the hippies and stoners. I was surprised by how different Oslo felt from Sweden, and while I've never been there, it's what I imagine Vancouver to be like.

As I prepare to leave Sweden this weekend, I will try to write once more about my last times in Sweden, including a visit to Gothenburg.

God Jul!

 

This year I spent Christmas away from home for the first time. Instead of returning to Canada, I spent the holidays with my friend Fennia in western Sweden. I did miss some Canadian and family traditions, for instance they don't show all the same Christmas specials here (No Rudolph, No Christmas Story, No Christmas episode of the Flintstones even!) Sweden does have its own Christmas viewing traditions though, and I watched Kalle Anka, or "Karl Duck" which is what they call Donald Duck here. He is arguably more popular than Mickey Mouse (or Musse Pygg "Energetic Mouse"). A lot of the clips on Kalle Anka were familiar from my childhood though, which was a nice touch. 

It was extremely snowy in Vastgotland, the area where I stayed. I heard that Toronto only received a little snow, but there were several feet of snow in Sweden, and more has continued to fall. Above is the guest house I stayed in at my friend's farm. 

 

Sweden is sometimes regarded as the least religious country in the world, but Christmas is still enormously important. It's mostly celebrated in a secular way, about cultural traditions rather than Jesus. I did attend a Christmas morning service for the first time in life. The service was in Swedish, so I didn't understand too much, but it was an interesting mix of old Sweden (The building was hundreds of years old, lit only by candles) with new (The minister was female and instead of telling the traditional story of Jesus' birth, she told a story about Astrid Lindgren.) 

 

While the weather was incredibly cold during Christmas (-15 celsius) it was relatively sunny. I think that Vastgotland is perhaps the most beautiful part of Sweden I've been to. Unlike the South, which is extremely flat, Vastgotland has hills and forests, and looks like what I imagined Sweden would look like. The architecture in the area is also very traditional and Nordic. 

These were some of the shortest days of the year, and this picture was taken shortly before noon. The sun just doesn't get any higher in the sky than this.

My favorite part of Christmas in Sweden was the food. For the Christmas julbord we had julskinka (Ham), turkey, meatballs (which I helped to make), herring, cheese, two kinds of sausage, mashed potatoes, and Jonssons frestelse, which I used to hate but it's now my favorite. It's a potato gratin with anchovy, and is a very strange and interesting flavor. 

Above is a symbol of Sweden's large and influential Jewish community, so powerful that every house displays a menorah in each window! Either they are menorahs or a Swedish Christmas candelabra, but it's funny to see something that would be identified very differently in North America. 

 

My friend lives on a pig farm, one that raises piglets. I had the chance to see the farm firsthand, which was alternately horrifying and delightful. Seeing the pregnant sows was somewhat horrifying. I was surprised at how large they were, although many were friendly and curious to see me. Also horrifying was the smells, a collection of some of the worst odors I've ever experienced. Each room in the pig farm smelled bad in a different way, according to the particular combination of urine, feces and pigs located there. The worst was the room where sick piglets were quarantined, which was such a noxious smell I had a vertigo sensation. After an hour though I couldn't really notice the smell anymore, and I was surprised by how strongly the smell clung to me and my clothes after I left.

The piglets themselves were very cute. They were shy of people, and scattered when we came. They mostly just nurse from their mothers or pile under the heat lamp. Interestingly, the piglets themselves don't smell bad, they smell rather like babies do. The piglets are very soft as well. The above piglet was a feisty one, and quite the screamer. The piglets varied in color, most pink but others gray, black or a combination of all three. Piglets are undoubtedly cute, but seeing them live first hand and what they grow up to become kills some of the cute piglet fantasy. They are livestock, not pets.

Seeing the piglets did not make me any more squeamish towards meat. Farming is not always pleasant, but seeing livestock in the flesh strips any romantic notions of pastoral farm animals. Farming is an industry now, and the animals are its products. The pigs leave brief, but not terrible lives, before they end up as food for us. The very same day I saw the piglets, I ate ham from a pig-shaped platter. I don't feel bad about eating pigs, they would probably do the same to us if given the chance.