And we have recycling bins for nearly everything. There’s a bin for newspapers, advertisements and that kind of “soft” paper, there’s a bin for cardboard and paper packaging. There’s a bin for metal containers. There’s a bin for “white” glass, and there’s another for color glass. And there are also special bins for stuff like batteries and light bulbs. And then, there’s a bin for plastics.

Sorting your trash before taking it out is fun. Instead of one basket in the kitchen, we have six, plus a special bag for pant-able bottles and drink cans. It’s a lot of work sometimes, but you get used to it pretty quickly. The whole system seems to work, and I feel better knowing that I am doing my part to help the environment. And I’m glad to live in a country that takes the environment so seriously.

So, I was very please to see that now we can also recycle plastic foil, bags, and other “soft” plastic products. We even got an official newsletter from our housing company telling us the good news.

I read the announcement very carefully and shook my head. Am I the only one that has a problem with this particular sentence:

En plastfolie/film rengör du enklast genom att torka av den med hushållspapper. (Plastic foil/film is easiest cleaned by wiping it off with a paper towel.)

I’m sorry, but isn’t it a bit odd to tell people to wipe off plastic foil (so it can be recycled) with a PAPER towel? Hmmmm…

Post from: Swedish Blog

That’s exactly what happened to me last Friday. Except that the lady didn’t sport a camel toe, because she was sitting behind a desk at one of the local governmental offices. I was picking up some useless papers and waiting for even more useless stamps. I was complaining about it in Swedish to my companion. The lady looked up from behind her desk and said to no one in particular - “jävla Svenssons” (bloody Swedes). Needless to say, we shut up and waited quietly for our turn.

Later, because I’m a dork who still sends postcards home, we went to a dinky little post office to buy stamps. The woman there took one look at “Sverige” in the address and responded “Ah! Jättebra! Min syster bor i Sverige.” (Great! My sister lives in Sweden.)

This was getting spooky.

Throughout the day I heard even more Swedish coming from random strangers. A Belgian guy said proudly, “I can say something in Swedish!” and proceeded with “Jag älskar dig!” (I love you.) We heard friendly shouts of “Skål!” (cheers!) in the evening and grateful thanks of “Tack!” (thank you).

I am no longer surprised when I hear odd words of Swedish abroad. And believe me, Swedish can be heard all over the place. In Poland it’s almost expected to have someone try to chat you up in Swedish if they hear you speaking this language. But on the beaches in The Gambia? Or on the streets of Phuket? True, both places are popular destinations for Swedish tourists, but trust me, the first time you hear Gambian bum boys or Thai hustlers address you in Swedish, you will feel a bit odd. And while at first, they may know only a few chosen words to attract attention, they are very quick learners – they know where their business is coming from. I’ve met some that after one tourist season speak better Swedish than many immigrants after years of SFI (Svenska för Invandrare).

Keep that in mind when you’re off to exotic lands this winter to escape the cold.

Post from: Swedish Blog

This time it was me who needed his help. I was asked to prepare something typically Swedish for my hosts and my mind went blank. “Typically Swedish?” I thought… hmmm, that would have be to falukorv and pasta with ketchup, but sadly, or rather happily, they’re not aware of the existence of falukorv in this country and I plan to keep it this way.

I went to a local supermarket to search the shelves looking for Swedish products. The idea was that maybe I could put together something Swedish using what I could buy in normal grocery stores. You see, when abroad I never really go shopping with a specific goal of buying only Swedish products. To be honest, I tend to do the opposite and sample the local specialties. But this time, I had strict orders – show us something native to Sweden. And so instead of trying 537 different varieties of sausages, I was diligently going through the supermarket looking for Swedish stuff. It turned out easier than expected.

In the refrigerated section I found a slew of Abba fishies in jars. All made the Swedish way – with copious amounts of sugar. I bought some sickly sweet dill herring (dill sill). In the bread and cracker section, there were several shelves of Wasa cracker bread. All the kinds we have back home and probably a few more made specifically for a foreign market.

In the dairy section half of the stuff was made by Arla – a brand we know from home (and from my post about dairy products) but I couldn’t find any typically Swedish cheeses, like Kloster, for example. But in a different isle, tiny jars of lingonsylt were neatly lined up. And in the ice-cream freezers, SIA hjortron glass (couldberry ice cream) was smiling at me.

Still, not enough to put together a proper Swedish dinner. And since I’m too lazy to make my own meatballs, I had to listen to the advice of my DB, which went more or less like that “Go to IKEA, stupid!” Yes, for those who don’t know – this Swedish furniture emporium also sells a variety of Swedish yummies. So, needless to say, I’m off to IKEA tomorrow.

Post from: Swedish Blog

A: What are you doing for Father’s Day?
M: Oh, dunno… Haven’t thought about it yet.
A: Ehmm, ehmm… Isn’t it, like, cutting it close?
M: Wait, you said “Father’s Day”???
A: Yeah, it’s today…
M: Oh *&%#!

So, before lunch we drove her to Ica MAXI where she could purchase a suitable Father’s Day cake. Because it was Sunday, Systemet was of course closed. Malin’s dad likes whiskey, and she was going to get him an expensive bottle of something aged for at least 12 years in an oak barrel. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Father’s Day cakes looked rather pitiful (see the photo above), and so we decided on a big slab of Budapest tårta instead. This being Sunday, our options were rather limited. And as it happens I rather like Budapest tårta, even though it’s nothing but a huge creamy cholesterol bomb.
Malin also picked up a carton of beer, a bag of chips and the new Indiana Jones movie on DVD. I suggested a book, Ica MAXI has a whole slew of paperbacks to choose from, but she gave me that “you can’t be serious” look, so we paid and left.

I drove her to her dad’s place and when she was getting out of the car, she looked at me reproachfully and said “next time can you remind me at least a day before, please?”

I don’t know if this was a “typical” Father’s Day celebration (I sure hope not!) but it seems that the holiday is treated almost as an afterthought. Sure, there were TV commercials for all the useless things that the marketing/advertising people think fathers would want. Meh… It’s the same the world over. A few stores downtown had sales on the manly stuff, like dress shirts and drill bits and rubber boots, and that seemed pretty much it. At least in our town.

Father’s Day in Sweden was initially celebrated in June, but then various commercial organizations wanted it moved, so it wouldn’t compete with Mother’s Day (Mors dag), but now, when it’s celebrated on the second Sunday in November, it seems that most people are already in their Advent-window lights mode. Poor dads…

So, let’s recap in Swedish:

Fars dag är en högtid då barn firar sina fäder och inträffar i Sverige den andra söndagen i november. Fars dag firas samtidigt i hela Skandinavien, förutom i Danmark där den firas den 5 juni.

Post from: Swedish Blog

We returned to vårdcentralen to yell at the doc some more. Finally, she said, “a new private dermatology practice just opened, why don’t you go there?” I wanted to know why she didn’t tell us that a few weeks ago during the first visit. “You didn’t ask,” she answered.
To make a long story short – my friend went to the private clinic, had a biopsy, turned out the spot was malignant, was admitted to the hospital and had it removed. She’s been cancer free ever since. I shudder at the thought of what might have happened if she had waited the initial 8 months for her appointment at the hospital skin clinic.

So, when last week I noticed something weird on my skin, I didn’t even bother with vårdcentralen, I called straight to the private practice and got my appointment immediately.

Wow! How the place has grown since the last time I was there. Now they’re giving the public hospital some serious competition.
Apart from a dermatologist (en dermatolog, hudläkare), they also have a regular surgeon (en allmänkirurg), an orthopedist (en ortoped), plastic/cosmetic surgeons (plastikkirurger), their own anesthesiologists (narkosläkare) and a whole slew of nurses (sköterskor). It’s a tiny private hospital they’ve got over there.

Now, in addition to a strictly private practice (like cosmetic surgery), they also accept regular and private insurance and referrals from doctors at vårdcentraler. This is what I call progress!

To provide a point of reference, my dearly beloved also had to see a doctor today. He got a referral for gastroscopy (gastroskopi), the poor thing… And the wait time at the hospital? 6 weeks… Let’s hope it’s nothing serious and he can survive. Technically, we have a 30 day guarantee to see a specialist, but in reality (and depending on what king of doctor you need), it may not happen.

The long waiting times to see specialist doctors are a very common problem in Sweden. In bigger cities, where there are more private clinics, the patients at least have options. In smaller towns, it may mean the difference between life and death. You think I’m exaggerating? Not so. Even the government decided it was time to finally do something about it. Here is what The Local wrote about it (in English) back in September, and here is a more recent article (in Swedish) from a local newspaper in Östersund.

And as for me, I’ll have my results next week. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious.

image: Landstinget i Östergötland

Post from: Swedish Blog

But anyway, you all want to know about the new Bond movie. But since this is the Swedish Blog, we need to somehow tie it in with something Swedish. Hmmm… Not easy… Neither one of the Bond girls was Swedish – one was British, and the other – Ukrainian. The movie doesn’t take place in Scandinavia, instead it jumps from Italy to Haiti (in fact filmed in Panama) to Austria to the UK to Bolivia (in fact filmed in Chile and Baja California) and very briefly to Russia at the end.

The only bit of Sweden that I could dig up was a product placement for Sony Ericsson and that’s it.

So instead, let me tell you about a certain custom you will experience when going to the movies in Sweden. Namely – assigned seating. I’m still not sure whether I like it or not. I miss the American way of rushing in and fighting for those prized middle-of-the row seats with all the accompanying mess and commotion akin to boarding a Ryanair flight to Barcelona.

There’s none of that in Sweden. Your seat is assigned when you buy your ticket. If you order your tickets on the Filmstaden website, you have a choice of selecting where you want to sit. Once you do that, you’re pretty much stuck with your choice, even if a very tall guy happens to sit in the row in front of you.

But on the other hand, there’s no need to rush and push, your seat waits for you and if you find someone else sitting in it, you just show them your ticket and they move to their assigned seats without arguing. But… Box office clerks tend to assign seats right next to the already filled ones. This can (and in 4 of out 5 instances does) lead to the super annoying situation when the entire row is empty, and yet you find yourself sitting right next to a couple who always engages in a vigorous make-out session practically in your lap (and for the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would pay 100 kronor to make out in a crowded room, if you can do it in the privacy of your car or home for free). If you are lucky, you can move to an empty seat once the film starts.

But chances are, there won’t be any vacant seats left during the opening weekend of a James Bond movie… Oh, the things we do for the love of Daniel Craig…

Post from: Swedish Blog

Yes, it’s Halloween tonight! Arsh wanted to know how it’s celebrated in Sweden. Well, by drinking, of course!

A few clubs downtown and by the university have Halloween costume contests, and I was going to visit one and take pictures for you, but unfortunately, they charge 100 kr cover and wouldn’t listen to my explanations that I could make them famous by posting the photos on this blog. Oh well…

Two kids that showed up at my door demanding candy, but since they were not dressed up in Halloween costumes, I chased them away with my broomstick. If you’re going to ask me for candy, at least have the decency to put on a witch’s hat, or something. Know what I’m saying? Candy is expensive these days, we’re in the midst of a credit crunch, you gotta trick for your treats and not just show up and extend your hand.

Now, some people will tell you that in Sweden, Halloween is celebrated on November 1st, which was supposedly due to a misunderstanding when the retail business organizations introduced the holiday in the mid-90s. Maybe it was so in the beginning. These days most people, and certainly the people who run clubs in our town, know that Halloween är en högtid som firas den 31 oktober.

Last year Svensk Handel decided to stop promoting the holiday, but really, you wouldn’t know it by looking at the stores – maybe they weren’t as full of Halloween items as shops in the US, but if you wanted to decorate your house for a creepy party, you could purchase everything you needed.

I didn’t decorate, and since I’m sitting here typing this, you can tell I didn’t go to any parties, either. I did want to buy a pumpkin to carve, but my dearly beloved said he preferred squash soup. OK, so I bought a squash and we’ll eat the soup tonight. And that’s my Halloween. ☺

OK, I will watch both of “The Grudge” movies – you got me!

Post from: Swedish Blog

So, to make sure that I stay alive and keep blogging, I went in search of my favorite full-spectrum light bulbs today. And wouldn’t you know it, I was late – apparently the whole town had the same idea. Elkedjan was all sold out. They only had one “natural sunlight” light bulb left and told me to come back next week when a new shipment arrives.

This is my yearly ritual – replacing all normal light bulbs with those bluish “natural sunlight” ones and plugging in massive greenhouse-style lamps. And leaving them all on until springtime. Yes, I know I said that I’m big on saving energy and all that, but I make up for my ginormous winter electricity consumption during summers when I don’t turn on any lights at all. So it all evens out, I hope, and my carbon footprint should stay more or less the same.

This is not just an Anna quirk, or a goofy habit with no scientific background. Seasonal affective disorder is a serious thing. And I’d never known just how serious until I moved to Norrland. My first winter was dreadful. So dreadful in fact, that I ended up popping anti-depressants like Pez candy. I gained a ton of weight, had to go on medical leave and eventually ended up hospitalized. Winter in Norrland – 1: Anna – 0. It wasn’t pleasant. Fortunately, I don’t remember much of it now.

The following year I was much better prepared. I read up on SAD (vinterdepression eller årstidsbunden depression) and was ready. I turned my living room into a greenhouse and got serious about light therapy (ljusterapi). And just to make sure I got adequate sun exposure, I also went to Gran Canaria in December. Yes, I know it’s a cheesy cliché, but it did help.

These days I feel like a veteran of northern winters. I know the drill now - over the years I’ve learned what works for me and perfected it to fit my needs. Winter doesn’t bother me anymore – it’s nothing but a few annoying pages in my wall calendar and a brilliant excuse to go somewhere on vacation.

But first things first, I need to replace those light bulbs. And then book a week-long break somewhere warm. This year it needs to be somewhere cheap, too. I’m thinking Cyprus or Egypt. Any suggestions?

Here are some common symptoms of årstidsbunden depression:

• en melankolisk sinnesstämning,
• ökat sömnbehov
• nedsatt social, fysisk och/eller sexuell aktivitet
• ändrad (vanligtvis ökad) aptit med ändrat ätbeteende (sockerbehov) och viktökning
• premenstruella spänningar
• koncentrationssvårigheter
• eller ofta en kombination av dessa.

And remember, if you feel like you just can’t take it any longer, seek medical attention. It’s been my experience that doctors in Sweden are familiar with those symptoms and treat them seriously.

Post from: Swedish Blog

In our building, we only get two-hour slots, and you can only book one slot at a time. With four washing machines this shouldn’t be a problem, but if two of them are broken at any given time and with the majority of tenants not knowing how to use the booking system (what can I say, it’s a little foreign colony here), then yes, problems do arise. More often than they should.

My dearly beloved does know how the booking system works, because I write down all booked wash times on our big wall calendar in the kitchen. So when the phone rang right before 6PM yesterday, I knew what was up.

“Do I have to do the wash?” It’s the same old story every time I’m away. And trust me, I’m not away that often. And besides, I like my laundry done in a certain way, so needless to say, I’m the one who always does it. Dearly beloved has enough socks and underwear to last him for at least a month, and enough shirts to look clean and presentable for about 3 weeks.

His next phone call came from the laundry room.
“But the instructions on all the machines are only in Swedish!” He seems genuinely surprised every time he notices it. Granted, he only goes to tvättstuga about once a year and he does have a short memory, but still… This is Sweden, what did he expect? Instructions in Swahili?

I told him that on the wall, there is a set of posters with pictures, which are easy to understand and easy to follow.

He somehow managed to follow them, because the next phone call came about 45 minutes later. The washing cycle just finished. We have a stand-alone centrifuge there as well, but I prudently neglected to tell him about it. For his own safety, mainly.

“How do I dry the stuff?” The tumble dryer didn’t seem to work. I vaguely recalled it had been broken since last week, so that much was true. And using our temperamental drying cabinets can be a challenge.

Drying cabinets annoy me, I admit it. I’ve been spoiled by industrial-strength tumble dryers with the capacity to dry piles of laundry the size of medium elephants, or at least king size duvets. So when our sole piece-of-doodoo tumble dryer doesn’t work, I simply don’t do the wash. It’s not just the effort required to hang all those wet clothes on the bars – a major PITA in itself, but the sheer waste of energy that goes into making those contraptions work. I did the math, granted, it was “household” math and the results were highly unscientific, but… a full load that fits into one tumble dryer will take up three drying cabinets. That is painfully obvious especially when drying bulkier items.

It’s true that one drying cabinet is more energy efficient than a tumble dryer, but if you need to run three cabinets to do the job, then it looks awfully wasteful to me. And that in a country where we’re practically ordered to replace our light bulbs with more energy efficient versions sounds really bad. (And yes, I’m one of those nuts who are a bit on the radical side when it comes to conserving energy).

So when my dearly beloved called an hour later once again, this time to tell me that after the drying cycle in the cabinets, the clothes were still wet, I told him to take them all upstairs and hang them up in the bathroom. I bet they will be still hanging there when I get home next week…

Some useful words:

• tvätt (def. tvätten, pl. tvättar, pl def. tvättarna) - kläder som man ska tvätta eller just har tvättad – wash, laundry (it’s a noun)
• tvätta (this one is a regular verb) göra så att något blir rent (tvätta händerna, tvätta kläder, tvätta sig) – to make something clean (wash hands, wash clothes, wash oneself)
• tvättmaskin (def. -maskinen, pl. -maskiner, pl def. –maskinerna) – washing machine
• tvättmedel (def. -medlet, pl. -medel, pl def. -medlen) – washing/laundry detergent
• tvättstuga (def. -stugan, pl. -stugor, pl. def. -stugorna) - rum eller hus där det finns tvättmaskiner – a room or a house where there are washing machines.

Do you see the pattern? There are tons of words that begin with “tvätt” and they all have something to do with washing.

The word “torka” (to dry) is similar – there are other compound words that include “tork” in them, and they all have to do with drying. Here are two:

• torkskåp (def. -skåpet, pl. -skåp, pl. def. –skåpen) - skåp som blåser varm luft och där man kan torka tvätt – drying cabinet
• torktumlare (def.-tumlaren, pl. -tumlare, pl. def. –tumlarna) - maskin där man lägger blot tvätt i en rund del some snuttar runt och torkar tvätten med värme – in other words, a tumble dryer.

Post from: Swedish Blog

A word of explanation is in order. My dearly beloved doesn’t speak a word of Swedish, and as you can see, he doesn’t do much shopping either. But he was right in noticing that Sweden has a dizzying varieties of dairy products, some of which would be considered unfit for human consumption anywhere in the world outside of Scandinavia.

And this observation is shared by all newly arrived expats. Sweden loves dairy. Fresh dairy, sour dairy, yogurt dairy, strange yogurt dairy and every imaginable flavor of sour cream under the sun. What it lacks, in my opinion at least, is in the cottage cheese (“keso” på svenska) and cheddar cheese departments. Fortunately, I’m not a fan of cheddar, and I can live with only a couple kinds of keso.

But just what is this mysterious filmjölk that my not-so-smart half bought today? You can say that:

• Filmjölk (fil) är en sorts tjock mjölk som smakar lite surt.

Which is a very gentle way of explaining it.

Mini mjölk is your garden variety skim milk.
Lätt mjölk is low fat milk.
Mellan mjölk (literally – middle milk) is milk with somewhat reduced fat content.
And then you have your standard mjölk - full fat milk.

Cheese is simply “ost” and there’s again a mind-boggling array of varieties of kinds of types of flavores of it. The most popular (at least it seems so in our town) is hushållost, which comes in huge plastic packages. And by “huge”, I mean really huge – the things are a kilo each, or more. I don’t know about you, but it would take me about a year, if not longer, to eat a kilo of cheese.

One of the largest producers of dairy in Sweden, and actually – in the world, is Arla. The company has a website in several languages, and the Swedish version makes for a surprisingly easy read. They even have a section where you can search for recipes (sök recept) or if you’re like me, too lazy to search, go straight to Arla Köket to read about the new cooking ideas. Check it out!

Now, let’s see just what kind of mess my dearly beloved will make on Saturday when he’s doing the laundry. I can’t wait to find out! LOL!

image: Arla Foods

Post from: Swedish Blog