midsummer's eve

Midsummer in Sweden is a big deal. It's the holiday of the year. Celebrations usually involve friends, family and lots and lots of spirits.

There can be nothing more Swedish than raising a May Pole, dancing around it singing about little frogs, then settling in for a hearty lunch of pickled herring, new season potatoes, and strawberry cake. Lunch should be punctuated with frequent drinking and singing.

Luckily for me, I was able to get involved thanks to a work mate, Anders, hosting some of us for midsummer's eve. I had company as well, Carmen joined me in Göteborg from London. Also from work there was a couple of Spaniards, a couple of Chinese, and a few more Swedes just to make sure it was a Swedish enough day!

Did I mention the May Pole?

What's it look like? Squint a bit and use only the slightest bit of imagination. Yup, that's right. It symbolises a giant cock being shoved into mother earth, hence kick starting another year of fertile ground, good crops, etc.

After the raising of the May Pole, kids and parents are encouraged to dance around the pole. One of the more popular songs is Små Grodorna, or Small Frog. Basically it goes something along the lines of: small frogs are funny to see, the have no ears, and no tail. And they go kvack ack ack, kvack ack ack.

That's a funny conversation to have over a few drinks: what do animals "say" in other languages. In Swedish, frogs say kvack, kvack, and definitely not ribbit! I forget some of the others now, but commonly ducks, dogs, pigs and birds say things other than quack, woof, oink and tweet in Spanish, Swedish and Chinese. Cats seem to be the only animal that is the same in all: meow.

It was hungry work standing in a park on a Friday afternoon, so soon enough we headed back to Anders' place for a traditional midsummer's eve lunch.

Note: when a Swede offers you "seal" don't jump to conclusions. They do not slaughter baby seals in celebration of midsummer... There's a nicer explanation, as we found out. The Swedish word for herring is sill... Actually the English speakers were fine, as the Swede's told us sill is herring, but the Spanish call herring, aringa, (which is actually an Italian word!). No wonder we were all a bit confused! But don't worry: if you are in Norway, and they offer you seal, then it's a good chance it actually is seal!

After a lunch and a few Aquavit's: O. P. Andersen, and Skåne, to name just two. We headed outside for a game of Kubb. This is an old Swedish game, where you take turns to throw sticks at each other... sort of...

The game is played informally in back yards and parks all over the country whenever the sun is out. The playing field is set up with six kubbs either side, and one king in the middle (pictured). There are six throwing sticks, and two opposting teams. The teams throws all six sticks in a turn to attempt to knock over the kubbs. Once one teams' kubbs are all knocked over, it's time to knock over the king. The king should not be knocked over until the very end, otherwise you lose instantly (kind of like the black ball in pool).

Kubb was really enjoyable. Standing around in the sunshine, talking, and occasionally throwing sticks (and insults). All in all midsummer's eve was really enjoyable! Thanks to Anders for hosting us.

sunny bergen

Bergen is Norway's second biggest city. Which actually means, it's Norway's biggest country town! It's located on the Western side of the country, deep in fjord territory. The city is surrounded by seven mountains. This is good for tourists as it's very easy to get a good view of the town.

This photo was taken from Fløyen, the easiest of the seven mountains to access. It has a funicular, a kind of tram on a cable, that takes you up the mountain at a 45° angle. Of course... it is Swiss built.

Three hundred meters above a city, on a beautiful mountain, you'd expect it to be nice and peaceful. Not so actually. Bergen has a big reputation for it's music scene, and sure enough I could hear plenty of noise from the city. There were two marching bands battling for attention; one somewhere beyond the left hand side of the photo, one somewhere near the right hand side. Smack bang in the middle of the photo, in the harbour, a jazz band were playing on a boat. Combined with the noise of boats coming and going in the harbour it was quite a cacophony.

The Norwegians have a few sly jokes at the Swedes expensive, as discovered when buying lunch that day. As I rummaged through my wallet for Norwegian krona, I muttered something about having Swedish krona mixed in there too. "That's too bad" said the barmen, "they're worthless these days". The Swedish krona used to be stronger than both the Danish and Norwegian krona, but it's not the case any more. It's annoying though, as Norway is expensive! This local brew cost around $12 Aussie! Damn!

Again, you can see I was pretty lucky with the weather I had on this trip. Bergen is even further north than Oslo. The sun set around 11pm, and it was dusk until well after midnight.

Since it was a Saturday night, and Bergen had a reputation for music, I decided to have a look at whatever bands were playing at Garage. Equivalent in Bergen to the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. That's what I had decided. What actually happened though, was I walked out of my hostel and headed down a cobble stoned street. Just around the corner there's bar that looks like it's someone's living room. Turns out it is.

Cafe Sanaa is a small bar, in a living room of a house. Hungry at the time, the owner told me I could simply look at the menu from next door - a Vietnamese restaurant - and order it to the bar! Nice. We then started to chat, how long had the bar been open? Only 9 months. What band is playing tonight? My husband and his jazz band. It was time to change my plans.

I stayed for a few pints, and then a few more.

pining for the fjords

What better to do on Sweden Day long weekend, than to bugger off to Norway. Land of fjords, and the lovely Norwegian Blue parrot. My plan was to hitch a ride to Oslo, catch the train to Flåm, then a ferry to Gudvangen, a bus to Voss, and a train to Bergen. Stay a couple of nights in Bergen, fly back to Oslo, and then hitch a ride home again. Nice plan, but I had to make a few alterations along the way.

A friend from Swedish language classes, Marcos, works as an engineer for Volvo. He was visiting some friends near Oslo, and offered to drive me up there. Either half of Oslo commutes to Göteborg, or there quite a few others had the same idea. The traffic was quite heavy crossing the border.

We got to Oslo about an hour later than predicted by the Portuguese speaking GPS receiver. The awesome thing about Scandinavian summer is, however, it was only just dusk; at 11pm! I checked into my hostel and hit the sack, I was getting the early train to Bergen.

The next morning I had breakfast with some Norwegian troops who were also staying at the hostel. Breakfast was very Nordic: boiled eggs, cheese, ham and bread.

As I settled in on the train, I realised that I should travel this way more often. The train station was in the centre of town, only a short walk away from the hostel. There was no stringent security, the seat was large and comfortable, and of course the window is massive compared to an aeroplane!

Soon we were scooting through scenery that later, when showing Carmen the photos, she exclaimed that it must be fake, as if I'd made the photo up! I assure you it's real :-)

Unfortunately my pleasant train journey was interrupted by an announcement: The train is cancelled between Gol and Bergen due to fires in the mountains. This threw a spanner in the works!

The train company organised bus replacements, and gladly it was quite well organised. The buses were at the station waiting for us. Sadly I didn't get to the descend from Myrdal to Flåm, which is reported to have wonderful views, and for an interested engineer like me, also some interesting engineering to get the train down the steep decent. However, the bus ride did have it's highlights with some impressive hairpin bends in the road, and similarly steep descents. There were also a very long road tunnel. Twenty-four kilometres long. Until I just looked it up on Wikipedia then, I didn't realise that it is the worlds longest road tunnel! It's called Lærdalstunnelen.

Flåm was tourist central. Lunch was very expensive (but then, so was the rest of Norway). Surrounded by a number of snow capped mountains, and positioned on the edge of the water, it was very pretty.

I would have liked to spend more time there to climb a mountain or two. Instead I had to make a detour to a tourist office overrun by people from the cancelled train. The train wasn't running from Myrdal, or Voss, so no one could go to Oslo or Bergen from Flåm without catching a ferry or a bus. I opted to catch the "express" ferry to Bergen.

While it was labelled "express", the ferry still stopped at a few villages along the way, and took five hours to reach Bergen. When the countryside is as beautiful as World Heritage Aurlandsfjorden and Sognefjorden, there's no need to rush. Below is one of the villages we stopped at:

As you can see I fluked a sunny day. Western Norway is a bit like Tasmania: expect around 280 days of rain a year, and many more cloudy days on top of that. While it was a bit chilly in the wind outside on the boat, the days were warm and calm, with great visibility.

After a while I went inside and had a nap. At this time of year in Bergen, the sun sets at 11pm, and dusk lasts well past midnight, so I needed a daytime nap! Here's the view we were leaving behind:

No matter, Bergen was equally as good... but more on that later.

välkommen til sverige

As I'm flying back from Melbourne after quick holiday, I think it's interesting to reflect on what it's like to live, work and relax in Sweden.

Did I get culture shock? Damn straight! They don't pack your shopping bags in the supermarket. You have to do it yourself. How uncivilised! It took me a number of weeks to work up the coordination to pack my groceries while simultaneously signing the credit card authorisation. On the topic of credit cards, they also need photo ID with a credit card purchase if you don't have a PIN number on your credit card. Bizarrely the Victorian drivers licence seems to satisfy the requirements for photo ID.

What about eating? Talk about flipping the day on its head, not only have I shifted my day 8 hours into the past, I now eat my main meal at lunch time. The Swedes have a culture of large lunches and light dinners. Every restaurant has a set lunch menu with 3 or 4 dishes (ie. one meat dish, one soup, one fish and one vegetarian). This is called "dagens lunch" in Swedish, which is translated as lunch of the day. Around work all the restaurants publish the whole week's menu on the web, so we can decide before going out where we go. Once at the restaurant you pick up a tray and load your food up like you see on American high-school TV shows. Included in the price is a salad and usually a drink and coffee. Coffee is essential when returning to work after such heavy lunches! No wonder the Swedes are the 2nd highest per capita consumers of coffee.

The phrase (in English) "after work" is a noun in Sweden, e.g. "lets go for an after work". Go drinking! What if it's too cold? It doesn't matter, the bars give you complimentary blankets if you are drinking outdoors! That's right... there's no such thing as too cold, you just haven't got enough blankets yet.

I've spotted some productivity improvements Swedish bars could make: get rid of unisex toilets! Urinals are fast and efficient, forcing the guys to queue for cubicles is just bad business practise. The faster I'm out of the toilet and back at the bar, the sooner I can buy more beer! Mind you, buying beer at Swedish prices is not something you want to rush into... better check with your bank manager first. It's not uncommon to pay around 50kr for a 400ml beer ($10). Yup, that round of 3 beers just set you back $30. A Swedish mate offers this phrase whenever I complain: "welcome to Sweden: last communist state on earth". Thanks Olly.

Another not-quite-right Swedish-English expression in common use is: "how many are we?". Which the reply could be: "we are three". You'd use this when asking how many people are going to lunch (or to an after work!). I think it's a cute expression, and it's shorter than asking properly "how many of us are there?".

Mind you, you'll be eating alone if you are not on time. Swede's are punctuality freaks. You might find they even turn up early to meetings! Crazy I tell you. A meeting time is the time to leave you desk and make your way to the meeting in my books. And keep in-mind lunch is at 11:30am, no later, or you might miss out.

When visiting a friend's house in Sweden, don't forget to take off your shoes. The best way to lose a friend in Sweden is to, turn up to their house late for dinner, and then keep your shoes on. It's probably quite a practical piece of etiquette though, since I suspect it's pretty muddy here in winter.

What are some of the good things about living in Sweden?

• The public transport is usually on time, and it runs all night.
• Holidays are no problem, the rest of Europe is not far away.
• Summer has awesomely long days (though, I'm glad I'm not here for winter darkness).
• Everyone speaks English - this is good and bad - makes learning Swedish hard.
• Innebandy, see my previous post on that.
• Most people eat lunch out, it's good for socialising with workmates, and getting out of the office.
• Fika: a Swedish coffee break, everyone attends, lasts at least 15 minutes, and sometimes includes cake.
• No water restrictions.

What's bad?

• 25% GST.
• Coffee is usually bad, unless you find "Italian" style coffee.
• Pizza is terrible. And it doesn't come pre-sliced.
• Eating out costs heaps if it's not dagens lunch.
• Queuing is taken way too seriously here.

I'll finish this post with a few amusing things.

• You order beer like so: en stor stack tack! This literally means, a big strong one thanks.
• Fart, bra and slut are all common words: go, good and end.
• If it's over 20°C and sunny, then everyone in the office goes out for ice cream.
• Oh... and seriously... everyone drives Volvo's.

Postscript: I found an awesome list of "you know you're Swedish when..." from an Australian perspective at http://www.coolabah.com/sweden/youknow.html.