Winter Comes to Sweden

 

It has been some time since I last wrote, but I was ill, and while I was convalescing I had to write a final paper, but now I offer an update now that we are deep in the grips of winter.

It is very cold and snowy here, and while I know winter being a Canadian and all, it has been snowy ever since the beginning of November, which is earlier than I'm accustomed to. The snow does brighten the landscape up, which is a plus seeing as the sun sets at 3:30pm now.

One of the more unusual features of Uppsala is its very large and old cemetary in the middle of town. Swedish cemeteries look different from their North American counterparts. There are no rolling, grassy lawns. Instead all the plots are very orderly and each plot is covered with gravel neatly raked with a small garden of perennials. In winter the care taken to the cemetery is less apparent, but it is still beautiful.

Here in the cemetery, just as elsewhere in life, size denotes importance. Some monuments are impressive like the obelisk above, others are much more humble. Strangely, most of the graves in this section of the cemetery date from the 19th century, but they are still visited regularly with flowers and candles.

On All Souls' Day, everyone visits their ancestors' graves and lights candles. I went to the cemetery that night with friends, and it is a very strange sight to see, each grave marked by candles, some with many, and groups of mourners wandering in the darkness. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so I cannot share that magic moment. 

 

It is funny to see that even in the cemetery in winter, on a bare iron fence, things are living. On the curlicues of the fence at one grave, lichens were colonizing the iron. 

Lest you think I spend ALL my time creeping around cemeteries (I limit my time to an hour a day, tops!) I do normal activities as well. I was recently in Stockholm, at a garden market, where vendors apparently did not learn that pumpkins are supposed to be sold BEFORE Halloween. I suppose buying a discount pumpkin the week after Halloween is a good value, but unlike discount Halloween candy, or Bowing Day gifts, pumpkins won't keep till next year. I feel as though I should educate Swedes about Halloween, because currently they are doing it at a remedial level. 

 

The flower market in Stockholm was incredibly beautiful, and something I just came across.

 

I had previously written that Copenhagen is more outgoing and fun than Stockholm. I went back into Stockholm to see if my perception was truly correct, and I still feel it's true. Stockholm is very beautiful, but has an air of formality and propriety throughout the city. Copenhagen was in parts, genuinely dirty. There were people who were truly trashy. While I've had a more positive experience with Swedes, Copenhagen is more of a party town. Partying requires a certain level of filth and disregard for order, and Stockholm never loses its composure. 

 

But it is pretty. This picture above was taken at 4:30pm. The sun now sets a full hour earlier. It also noticeable now that the sun never gets very high in the sky. At noon it never seems to rise high enough, and then just begins setting. 

Strangely, the lack of sun hasn't bothered me here. Usually I have a lot less energy in the fall even in North America, but currently I'm getting less sunlight than Toronto gets during winter solstice, and I feel no urge to sleep 14 hours a day.

Now that it's winter, Jul season begins. As in North America, the Christmas season begins here the first of November. Also, it is highly commercialized and consumerist, so don't feel like you've got that on lock America. One Jul product is vinglogg, a wine spiced with cinnamon and clove, and served warm. It's very sweet, but it's tasty. However, unlike regular wine I don't think it has the same intoxicating feeling, despite its 15% alcohol content. 

Another Swedish culinary tradition I tried recently is Fiskbullar, or fish balls. The name alone put a stop in my throat, but I figured it is worth trying. I like meatballs and I like fish, so why not some meatball made out of fish? The fishballs come in various sauces: tomato basil, mustard, dill, shrimp. I tried the lobster flavor, which suffice to say tasted nothing like anything in the crustacean family. I don't know if Swedish people know what lobster is, but I'll tell you what it isn't: wet cardboard. I tried zesting up the paste that the balls came in to little avail. The balls themselves are soft and mealy. They are not chewy (something I was afraid of.) They weren't traumatizing, but I don't think I would eat them again.

 

As Swedish winter continues, as I still ride my bike everywhere. Above is an idea of the conditions I have to contend with. It is easy to see why Scandinavians found themselves in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Snow and flatness is familiar to them. While the local accent is more charming than any Minnesota braying, parts of Sweden looks not unlike any snowy part of the Midwest. 

 

One positive image to end on. Even in Sweden, the tropics are not so far away.  

PS: Recently, this author received comment that this blog is among the least pretentious a certain reader had ever read. I was dismayed to learn I'm not doing my job right! I am trying to be more pretentious, like a true blogger. Maybe later I'll upload some Godard film stills juxtaposed with Joy Division quotes. I promise I'll continue to become more pretentious until I'm genuinely insufferable! 

Denmark: The Mexico of Scandinavia

This weekend I went to Copenhagen (called Koebenhavn there) to visit the delightful Kasper and Maria. Denmark is a fantastic place, very warm and festive. It's hotter and sunnier than Sweden, and the nightlife is more raucous. For this reason it is considered the Mexico of Scandinavia. 

However, I arrived in Copenhagen too late, and the country has since been renamed McDonaldstan. However, Denmark is largely responsible for today's world of corporate entertainment, not only did they give us Lego, but:

They invented the amusement park. Tivoli was the world's first amusement park, although it's a long way from Disneyworld. 

It has an old-timey circus vibe, but I don't mind. Elephants are nice. 

Copenhagen was also home to Hans Christian Andersen, the world's most famous tortured-closted-homosexual-depressed-misanthrope whose work has been adapted into Disney feature films. Here are the stars of his tale, "The Ugly Duckling". In fact a swan with her three cygnets. There are marshes and lakes everywhere in the city. 

While I was there it was Halloween!

I did get to celebrate Halloween a little while I was there. I went as a man with a dinosaur for an arm:

The Danish do not have a strong tradition of Halloween and it has only recently begun to be practiced, but there is no excuse for this:

No Denmark, Halloween is not "15th - 24th of Oktober", it is October 31st! There is no room for debate over this issue, it's a fact, just like there are 365 days in the year, and that "Blackout" is the best Britney Spears album. Inarguable facts. 

Perhaps we cannot blame Denmark for its Halloween confusion. It is, afterall, a lawless society. Here is a view of Christiana, where cameras and police officers are forbidden. It is a commune separate from the rest of Denmark where they administer their own laws. Marijuana is legal, but needle drugs are a no-no. While being there on a Friday night felt like being in an apocalyptic hobo camp at the end of the world, they do accept Visa. 

There were 8-year olds in Halloween costumes playing beside the hash vendors, and I watched two dogs get in a fight - they bit each others faces! Kasper was scared, but I thought it was exciting. 

To overcome our fear, we went to an all-you-can-eat Sushi bar, called "Running Sushi" because the food is on a conveyor belt. Those with quick reflexes are rewarded. AYCE sushi is my favorite thing about Canada, so I was glad to see it in Denmark. The lack of AYCE sushi in America is truly a failure of liberty. 

Copenhagen is similar to Stockholm in size and both feel Nordic. Copenhagen is different though with its canals, which appear rather Dutch. 

Copenhagen is more casual than Stockholm, which is quite conservative by comparison. Copenhagen has a more lively nightlife and arguably has a larger culture scene with a large amount of contemporary art and architecture being produced there. 

Building on its historical traditions, Copenhagen is still a major design center. I met a designer while I was there, and her job is to use a computer to figure out how clothing should be assembled and fit. I didn't know that job existed, but apparently it happens here. 

This is the apartment my friend Maria shares with an architecture student. In Scandinavia, real life looks like Ikea. (Disclaimer: They decorated the room themselves, and painted the furniture. No actual Ikea was used in the making of this photo.) 

Denmark is also a city of romance. While walking back home at 4:00 am because the trains stopped running (I was so unhappy.) Kasper and I came across a romantic bridge where a new tradition has started. Couples place a lock on the rail of the bridge, and throw away the key. Some locks are kind of weird, and have three names (Polygamy is practiced in Denmark). Me and Kasper wanted to add our own lock of undying affection, but we couldn't find a locksmith that was open at 4:00 am! 

Basically, Copenhagen is really good and I would highly recommend it. It's what I imagine Amsterdam to be like, only less tacky. Being the Mexico of Scandinavia, Copenhagen is a Nordic Tijuana, a meticulously clean and effortlessly stylish party town! 

PS: Danish newspapers are shocking! On the front page there was a picture of a naked woman in the middle of childbirth, this was done to illustrate an article about natural birth, but still, the NYT would have ran a picture of smiling mother and child, freshly clean. 

Danish cartoons are also vulgar and provocative. One featured a nude Lars von Trier hanging is mother with his own umbilical cord. Another featured a phallus erupting from a beaten man's head. I know the Danish papers got a lot of flack over the Mohammed cartoon, but I doubt that is the most offensive piece they have published. 

I am a huge proponent of free speech, so I like that the Danish papers are challenging and provocative, but it is very different from the "family newspaper" that exists in North America. 

Fall, Candy, Ducks

In Swedish autumn, the days grow short, the sun setting noticeably earlier by the week. When the sun is up, it's beautiful and clear and bright. When it gets dark, now before 6:00pm, there's little reason to go outside at all. So, I've furthered my investigations into Swedish candy.

Daim is one of my new favorites. It's milk chocolate with bits of toffee crunch inside it. 

Basically, it's the Swedish version of what in Canada is called Skor, and in the US is known as a Heath bar. It's tasty but not revolutionary (Not in a Marxist way at least.) 

Pigall is more interesting, different enough not to warrant any direct comparison. The inside is a light, airy, yet crispy chocolate flavored filling that is reminiscent of a 3 Musketeers in taste but not in texture. The texture is unusual and not uniform, some areas are crispier than others. 

This is known as a "Japp". It is a rather thick chocolate coating with caramel and a fine chocolate flavored nougat. It is essentially a Mars bar/Milky Way (which are essentially the same themselves.) More confusing is that Japp copies the same font and packaging as Mars, and both are sold widely in Sweden. I love Mars bars, but I fail to understand the existence of Milky Way and Japp imposters. 

Now this is a weird one, and lives up to Sweden's international reputation as a producer of disgusting food. Plopp (with three 'p's) is a milk chocolate bar with a salted licorice filling. Imagine if someone replaced the caramel in a Caramilk bar with a salty black tar. That is what this is. It is at once offensive, but intriguing. The licorice filling is strong tasting, but is perhaps balanced by the milk chocolate? I don't know. I once ate salted chocolate chip cookies that were very interesting. This is also interesting, but harsh. Salt and chocolate is a strange flavor, but not destined to failure. The addition of the rather herbal tasting licorice is very typical of the Swedish palate, and I doubt this is sold anywhere that wasn't settled by Vikings. 

But Sweden is more than objectionable chocolate. Sweden is also known for the deep respect they pay to nature.

Here a duck enjoys a bottle of wine and some snus in its natural habitat. 

Ducks have an eclectic taste in beer. Here they enjoy Red Stripe and Carlsberg, domestic brands are not sufficient. 

Here a duck rejects a proffered Abro. Discount brands are frowned upon. 

So that is all I have to say this week on the subjects of fall (pretty), candy (varying in quality), or ducks (silly). 

Food and Festivities

The traditional way to end summer in Sweden is with a kraftor-fest, in English, a crayfish dinner party. I believe summer in Sweden ended long before I arrived in the middle of August, I still wanted to try out the tradition, and had the chance to do so with my old Cornell Swedes (Maria #1, Maria #2, and Erik - Swedes are infamous for uncreative naming.) 

In order to properly enjoy crayfish, one must have themed plates and napkins. The crayfish on the plates are cheerfully gathering dill and lemons to aid you in eating them, while the napkin crayfish is lighting fireworks. The crayfish we consumed were not as lively, but they were tasty. The taste is similar to lobster, but the crayfish are cooked in a dill brine. We also ate shrimp, which come with their heads on here. The shrimp head contains some organs, possibly a stomach/brains. It is very flavorful though.

A large part of the tradition is singing songs and drinking liquor. The songs are all old Swedish drinking songs that come in a song book, with lots of variations that use basic nursery rhyme melodies. After each song you drink some snaps, with is a Swedish spiced liquor. I don't understand the songs, but snaps is nice. 

Also, I discovered a new fruit recently! Physallis, I don't think we had these in North America, but they are pretty common in Sweden, served as a cocktail fruit. It is sweet and tart, like a citrus-y strawberry. (It's hopeless to write about food, it's like dancing about architecture.) But it is exciting to discover a new fruit after I had eaten all the "big ones", it's like seeing a new color. 

I went on a cruise of the Stockholm archipelago recently on one of the few beautiful days this autumn. 

The boat we took was apparently 100 years old, but it was very well preserved. 

We left from downtown Stockholm, where the boat was docked in Ostermalm. This is the poshest section of Sweden. Here are some highly enviable apartments on Strandsgatan ("Beach Street", an optimistic name if there ever was one.)

We passed by a haunted amusement park which looked very Scooby-Doo. 

No children spin in the strawberry-octopus' arms any more, and so he sits by the dock forlornly. 

A large amount of the Stockholm archipelago looks like Canada, more specifically like the Thousand Islands on Lake Ontario. (But the Stockholm archipelago never lent its name to a dressing.) I actually took few pictures of it because I had a "seen-it-already" feeling. 

It is very much autumn in Uppsala now. The leaves are changing and falling (but not as beautifully as in Ithaca.) The days are also getting much shorter. When I arrived here in August, the sun would rise at 5:30am and set just before 9:00pm. Now the sun doesn't rise until at least 6:30am and it sets at 6:00pm. I've still got another 5 hours of daylight to lose though, so I'm trying to enjoy the sun while I can. 

And finally, a treat for all the Daniel Craig fans who have visited my little blog since I mentioned the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie that has been shooting in Uppsala. Here he is for you to enjoy. 

Maybe I enjoy it a little bit too.