WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2015
Downtown Stockholm's One Building in Need of RenovationI know I sound like a broken record, but Stockholm is a gorgeous city. The water, the topography, the historic buildings, and the brilliantly green parks create beautiful vistas. A noticeable lack of pollution helps to keep the views crystalline. A big part of the city’s loveliness is how perfectly maintained every single facade in the downtown area is. The high level of maintenance isn’t something I actively noticed until we were in Tallinn where there is a noticeable percentage of buildings in need of renovation. It suddenly clicked for me: Talinn’s half-deteriorated cityscape was so fascinating for me because in central Stockholm, literally every single facade is impeccable. Since that trip two years ago, I have been actively on the lookout for a building in Stockholm that “needs a little help.” It wasn’t until today that I found one:
FRIDAY, MAY 01, 2015
My Favorite Swedish Holiday 
During the celebration, as I stood there all bundled up, I was thinking about what I would have been wearing in Texas on the same day: as little as possible, as the summer heat has most likely already descended on San Antonio. In contrast, to attend the Valborg bonfire, I was wearing thick ski socks, long johns under my jeans, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a scarf, gloves, and a giant puffy down coat with hood.
Carl and I cheated a bit and went on our first spring hikes the weekend before Valborg in order to enjoy the vitsippa, or wood anemone. While vitsippa aren’t the first early-spring flowers to pop up in Sweden, they are the first wave of green to spread through the forests. Coming before the brush or the trees begin to leaf out, seas of vitsippa are the first real sign that spring is under way. From the first carpets of vitsippa to the last of the glorious autumn hues, Carl and I will be spending as much time outdoors as we can, enjoying Sweden’s fleeting green season on hikes, picnics, camping trips, and foraging expeditions.
TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015
Sweden vs. USA: The Profession of ArchitectureI’ve now been practicing architecture in Sweden for close to two years, and I have created quite the list of differences between the practice of architecture in Sweden vs. the US. Perhaps the biggest difference is the contract structure between the owner, the architect, and the building contractor. In the US, there is a triangular relationship between these three parties which gives the architect a good bit of control over the contractor. The architect makes regular visits to the construction site to ensure that the building is getting built according to the drawings and to the design intention. Because the architect approves the contractor’s invoices before the owner pays, the architect has a good bit of power (but not unlimited) to require the contract to re-do shoddy work. The architect also serves as a check-and-balance in the other direction, shielding the contractor from the owners’ unreasonable demands. In Sweden, however, the architect is often not involved during the construction process, and once the drawings have left the architect’s desk, the architect has no power what-so-ever to affect the outcome of the project.
The contract structure between the owner and the architect is also quite different in Sweden. In the US, the architect is hired directly by the owner. The architect then hires other necessary consultants such as the structural engineer and the landscape architect. The architect is the project manager and is responsible for the entire consultant group. This puts a lot of pressure on the architect, but being ”the boss” also lets the architect steer over the consultant’s work, hopefully resulting in a harmonious composition where all of the building’s functions contribute to the whole.
In Sweden, the architect’s role is much less clear-cut. Here, the owner hires a project manager (many of whom have no educational background in architecture or construction). The project manager then hires the architect, the structural engineer, the landscape architect, etc. In this contract structure, the architect is not the boss and is instead one of many consultants. However, while much of the responsibility rests with the project manager instead of the architect, the architect is still the figure with the best comprehensive view of the project. This puts the architect in the strange position of having to ask the other consultants to change things while not being ”the boss.”
Another contract structure phenomenon that is very foreign to me is the fact that in Sweden, the architect that designs the building is not necessarily the architect that draws and documents the building. This happens for two reasons. First, after the initial design has been approved, the owner can decide to hire a contractor to be in charge of the rest of the design and construction process. The contractor then chooses whichever architect they want to draw the building. If another architect offers to draw up the building more cheaply than the design architect’s offer, the contractor is under no obligation to continue with the original architect. Public projects (paid for by taxes) are another common situation which results in an architect switch. According to Swedish law, the design of a building and the drawing of a building are two different services. As such, the procurement process is divided into two contracts and the lowest bidder for each service gets the job, even if the design architect doesn’t continue with the project.
I find all of the above differences to have a negative impact on architecture in Sweden. I believe that it encourages poorer designs, poorer documentation, and poorer construction. But it’s not all bad in Sweden. Perhaps the most positive difference between the practice of architecture in Sweden and in the US is Sweden’s lovely lack of lawsuits. Here, a lawsuit between an owner and an architect is extremely rare, and occurs only in the most extreme cases of negligence. This is quite different than in the US where many owners will sue over any nit-picky detail in order to try to save a few bucks on design fees or more seriously, to try to blame a construction flaw on the architect. Also, the maximum damages that an architect is required to pay according to the Swedish standard contract is peanuts compared to what an architect can be liable for in the US. Of course, it is actually the insurance companies that pays out the damages in both the US and in Sweden, but bigger damages in the US = higher insurance premiums = smaller profit margins = lower salaries.
In order to cover themselves in the American climate of lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit, architects are forced to draw and detail every little nook and cranny of the building. Instead of spending more time on the over-archng design, architects are forced to spend more time drawing monotonous details that don’t really relay any extra information. For example, where one general waterproofing detail may have sufficed in the past, the architect now has to draw a similar waterproofing detail at every corner and junction in order to be able to prove that it was not their fault that the building started to leak. In Sweden, the one general detail still suffices, and architects produce far fewer drawings at a far lesser level of detail for the same building than architects in the US.
(I think that the fact that Swedish architects have far less control over how the building turns out also contributes to architects producing fewer, less detailed drawings. After all, while spend time drawing something in infinite detail when you know it’s not going to get built the way you envisioned?)
The presence / lack of lawsuits trickles down into many other aspects of the profession. For example, in the US, architects generally do not write their own specifications (the verbal part of design documentation that gets into the nitty-gritty of exactly which brand of which material will be used, and how). This service is usually hired out, leaving architects to the more interesting task of drawing, and placing much of the legal burden on the specification writer instead of the architect. At my company at least, the specifications are still written in-house.
Smaller, less detailed drawings also mean that architects can use smaller sheets of paper to document their buildings. This might seem like a trivial detail, but the consequences are actually quite far-reaching. In the US, the standard drawing sheet is 36” x 48”. Even if you print at 50% scale, you still have to use a larger-than-standard piece of paper. In Sweden, however, the smaller sheet size allows you to print on a standard 11”x17” (A3) sheet of paper. Not only do Swedish offices not need to spend inordinate amounts of money on expensive plotters and paper rolls, but a Swedish architect’s desk space is half or less of that of an American architect. In effect, Swedish architecture offices can be significantly smaller with significantly lower rents, purely due to the use of smaller sheets of paper!
There are a few differences in Sweden’s architectural profession that have a very personal positive impact. First, Sweden’s architects are much better paid than American architects when compared to other professional salaries, and the deal is especially sweet for younger architects. While there is less room to grow in Sweden’s salary world, Swedish architects still makes far more money over their career than do their American counterparts.
Another excellent perk is the understanding that one should work 40 hours / week. In the US, the understanding is that one should work at least 40 hours. This is much deeper than a linguistic difference; it is indicative of a much healthier attitude toward work in Sweden in general. Swedes generally have the attitude that work is only a part of life, and probably not the most important part. Although it is expected that a Swedish architect will have to work overtime at times, overtime is meant to be an exception and not the norm.
Who does what is also a little different in Sweden. Not only is the architect’s role different due to contract structures, but there is also an entire profession that doesn’t exist in Sweden. In the US, being an architect is both a creative and a technical job. On the creative side, architects continually make design decisions from the initial hand-wavy sketch in the beginning of the process to tile patterns toward the end of the process. On the more technical side, an architect carries out tasks ranging from light computer programming to detailing exactly how one material will be attached to another material. Of course, some architects are better at one side of the architect spectrum than the other side, but all younger architects are expected to be capable of carrying out the full range of tasks.
In Sweden, there are architects, and there are building engineers. Architecture is a five year degree that is focused on the more creative side of the spectrum. Building Engineering is a three year degree (as are all bachelor’s degrees in Sweden) that is focused on the more technical side of the spectrum. Different architecture firms have different ratios of architects and building engineers, but my firm is comparatively heavy with building engineers. I have still not figured out quite what an architect's role is compared to a building engineer’s role, and who does what, and the result is that I sometimes unintentionally step on my co-workers’ toes by butting into ”their” territory. In some projects, building engineers take on huge portions of the work, managing everything from the computer model and the drafting of the drawings to the nuts-and-bolts detailing. I am still not completely comfortable with this division of labor as it feels akin to outsourcing to me—giving someone else the brunt of the boring work while paying them less to do it.
Tasks are even sometimes divided differently among the various consultants. For example, in the US, the architect is responsible for the lighting design—choosing lighting fixtures, determining their spacing, and drawing details for how the fixtures will be incorporated into the building. It is quite common that the architect hires a specialized lighting designer, but the lighting design is still under the architect’s purview and control. In Sweden, however, the lighting design is under the purview of the the electrical engineer. The architect can try to veto particularly offensive fixtures, but the architect generally doesn’t have much control over how the lighting turns out. I find this to be particularly strange because while an engineer is needed to figure out the wiring and circuit capacities and such, I believe that a designer is needed for envisioning a mood and atmosphere.
In the US, being an architect is similar to being a doctor. Specific university degrees are required as the first step. After university, architects intern for a minimum period of time (at least 3 ½ years in most states). Then the architecture candidate takes a series of exams (7-9 depending on the state). After passing all of the tedious exams and proving that they have a working knowledge of everything from codes and accessibility standards to mechanical ventilation systems and circuitry to calculating building loads and choosing structural members, the candidate can then apply for licensure. After being approved by the state board and paying a steep fee, the candidate is officially an Architect. By law, only licensed architects are allowed to use the title ”Architect,” and only Architects can stamp and sign drawings for construction. Non-architects who use the title are liable for hefty fines. None of this is true in Sweden where architecture is not a licensed or accredited profession, and anyone can use the title.
Interestingly, even though Swedish architects generally draw much less than their American counterparts, they must undertake a great deal more paperwork. The number of checklists and ”quality plans” that an architect must fill out is still bewildering to me. Much of this paperwork crosses over into what in the US is the contractor’s roll—in the US, the architect is clearly separated from any and all construction workplace issues such as worker safety. But in Sweden, architects (as well as all of the other consultants) fill out a checklist outlining which worker safety risks they believe will be present on the construction site.
I’m not sure if this applies only to my firm or if this is generally true in Sweden, but the making of physical, 3-D models in Sweden seems to be extremely rare. This saddens me because models are such a great design tool as well as an excellent tool for helping the client to understand the building.
Phew! This has turned out to be quite a long post, and I haven’t even gotten to differences in the building permitting process, the zoning process, or the like! I’ll write about such things another day.
But for now, I can summarize by saying that being an architect in Sweden and being an architect in the US are fundamentally the same: in both countries, the main goal is to design a building and to produce drawing documentation so that a contractor can build it. However, the ”how” and the ”by whom” and the ”what” are often dealt with quite differently in the two countries. Practicing in one country vs. another is not merely an issue of cold/wet vs. hot/dry climates, of metric vs. imperial measures, and of differences in legal norms and regulations. It is also an issue of framework—the entire framework surrounding the profession of architecture is different, yielding in an entirely different set of expectations, circumstances, perspectives, tasks, and rolls.
MONDAY, APRIL 13, 2015
Travel to CopenhagenI just posted about our trip to Copenhagen on my Travels page. While writing that post, I realized that one of the more interesting aspects of our trip was the journey to and from our destination.
We planned our Easter trip to Copenhagen back in November and were surprised when the trains down from Stockholm were already all fully booked. I mean, the trains were fully booked six months in advance! We were pretty convinced that we’d have to choose another destination for the long weekend, but we thought we’d see if there happened to be any reasonably priced plane tickets for the trip down. Crazily, the plane ticket down cost less than half the price of the train ticket home again! And when you factor in the fact that the flight is only an hour but the high speed train takes five hours to travel between the capitol cities, you start to wonder why anyone ever takes the train at all!
Train travel in Sweden is not cheap. A round trip ticket between Stockholm and Copenhagen is in the $300-$500 range, depending on how many seats are already booked.
I mentioned this half-priced plane ticket phenomenon to some work colleagues, and they weren’t surprised at all. They mentioned that the airlines are highly subsidized, and it turns out that my colleagues are correct. A short session on google revealed the following: In 2012, the Swedish air industry was subsidized by 18 billion Swedish crowns, or about $2.5 billion US. Additionally, there is no sales tax on international flights, and airlines do not pay taxes on their fuel. One hidden subsidy is that while car and truck owners pay a tax on their carbon-dioxide emissions, airlines do not have to pay this emissions tax. I read several statistics that mentioned that if airlines had to pay a similar tax on their emissions, plane tickets would be at least double their current cost.
Why does Sweden seem to favor the air industry over the train industry, especially when flying releases 53 times more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than the high-speed train?
I know that the answer is more complex and involves a whole history of lobbying, politics, and country-club deals, but a large part of the answer is that Sweden needs flights. Sweden is a comparatively large country (almost the exact same shape and size as California) but has a population of only 10 million people. Additionally, the population is heavily concentrated in the southern 1/3 of the country. However, the northern part of the country is responsible for a gigantic portion of the GDP due to the gigantic logging and mining industries. Without low-cost flights, the northern industries would cease to function, and the northern portion of the population would be more or less stranded. (While there is a train several times a day between Stockholm and Sweden’s north, the trip takes about 18 hours.)
Simply, Sweden subsidizes its airlines to make domestic air travel possible. While I understand the need for low-ish-cost flights, I do not understand why flights are so often significantly cheaper than the train. I think that a happy medium would be to keep airline tickets relatively low, but always slightly more expensive than the train.
I also think that the subsidy savings should be used for a major new investment in Sweden’s train infrastructure—while there is high-speed train service between Sweden’s three largest cities (Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö), the remaining tracks are not suited to high-speed travel, resulting in long, inconvenient travel times. Additionally, many of Sweden’s tracks are still single tracks, meaning that trains can only pass each other at stations, resulting in even slower travel times and significant delays throughout the system the minute one train is slightly off schedule. There is not even a double track or a high-speed train between Stockholm and Oslo!!! I strongly believe that some of the airline subsidies would be better used in modernizing and updating Sweden’s network of railway tracks in order to make train travel faster and more convenient.
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015
Highway Underpass |
| Walking beside Karlberg Canal on the way home from work. |
SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2015
GravelI was about halfway through writing this blog post about how the post-snow spring cleanup of Stockholm was underway when a surprise snowstorm blew through town! The city has had to pause the spring cleanup until the snow melts, but it’ll be underway again soon.
For environmental reasons, Stockholm avoids using salt on icy roads and sidewalks to every extent possible. Instead, the city spreads massive quantities of sand and gravel to provide traction to cars and pedestrians. The system generally works pretty well, but it has a major downfall when the temperature hovers around freezing. As soon as the ice starts to melt, the gravel sinks. At night, the water freezes again into a slippery sheet of ice, and the gravel is trapped below the surface not contributing to traction at all. Gravel crews generally don’t get to my part of town before I leave for work, so the sidewalks are a dangerous sheet of ice when I walk to the subway in the mornings.
Once the ice and snow have melted, the entire city is coated in a layer of gravel, and by law, the city has two weeks in which to remove all of the gravel. Street sweepers suck up the gravel, and cleaning crews finish the job by hand by sweeping up whatever debris the machines couldn’t get to. The other day, I saw one such crew lunching in a cafe—they had left their carts all neatly lined up out on the sidewalk.
According to my neighborhood newspaper, over 200,000 tons of gravel is annually gathered and cleaned up in my little area of town alone. Wow. Over the entire Stockholm region, tens of millions of tons must be cleaned up. Cleaning up all that gravel turns out to be much more work than scattering it in the first place.
Perhaps the most amazing part of this process is that all of that sand and gravel is taken to a plant where it is cleaned of oil and other hazards. The gravel is then stored for the summer and re-used the next winter.
In Stockholm, street sweepers are just as sure a sign of spring as are crocuses, snowdrops, and eranthis.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
Stockholm's Six SeasonsI know that I write an awful lot about the weather. It’s just that I find it so very interesting and it’s so, so different than what I’m used to! After being born in the Arizona desert, growing up in sub-tropical Atlanta, and then living in bipolar humid/dry Central Texas, I can’t help but be amazed by the fact that the weather in Stockholm actually changes. And that there are distinct seasons. After a lifetime of wishing for a clothing-catalogue life with four distinct seasons (and four distinct wardrobes), I feel like I have finally arrived! Leaves change color in the fall. There is (some) snow in the winter. Flowers blanket the landscape in the spring. Summers are green and sunny.
However.
I am now into my fourth Stockholm winter, and I have come to realization that Stockholm actually has six distinct seasons. Summer and Fall are followed by Dreary, which is pre-winter. Dreary is followed by Winter, and then there’s Not-Spring. Not-Spring is of course followed by Spring, and then comes Summer again.
After the leaves fall, there is a long, grey, wet period that lasts for about two months before the snow comes. (See my post below entitled “The Depression of November.”) With the snow comes Winter, and when the snow melts, Not-Spring begins. The length of Not-Spring varies quite a bit depending on the year, but it can last anywhere from one to three months. Not-Spring is the period after the snow seeps away and the ice begins to break up, so cross-country skiing and long-distance ice skating is no longer possible. However, the ground is still ankle-deep in icy mud, so hiking isn’t really an option, either.
We now find ourselves in Not-Spring. The spring-like temperatures might fool you into thinking that Spring is on its way, but I refuse to be fooled for the fourth year in a row. Even though the snow stopped being skiable in early February, I know that crocuses and daffodils are still at least four to six weeks in the future and that trees won’t have a full crown of leaves for at least three more months. Three more months!
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015
Brighter Times
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2015
Cross-Country Skiing
This weekend was 2015’s second cross country weekend. The first was not ideal due to extremely icy tracks, but this weekend was absolutely perfect. There is still not enough snow to cover forest tracks, so we stuck to open trails instead. On Saturday we skied on a really well-prepared trail on a golf course (great off-season use for a golf course!). The day started with a “fluffard,” Carl’s and my term for “fluffy blizzard”—lots and lots of big, fluffy flakes. But in the middle of our loop, the skies cleared and we even had a bit of sunshine when we stopped for a picnic lunch in the snow!
Today we skied through the meadows of Säby Gård, a historic farm just a few stops outside of Stockholm on the commuter train. The farm has an extremely extensive network of open meadows which meander through the forest. The cross-country trail is mostly through the various meadows, but every now and then the trail takes you through short stretches of forest. The trail also swings by a lake and past a variety of historical barns. Even though the terrain is gloriously flat, the scenery is beautifully varied and interesting. There was not a cloud in the sky today, and the snow conditions were perfect. It was the kind of winter day that we dream of all year long, the kind that only comes once or twice a year, if at all.
We have now tried twelve or so cross-country trails around Stockholm. They vary quite a lot. One of the trails closest to us is on a golf course but isn’t prepared, so the tracks are made by people skiing along. Sometimes the tracks are good, but a lot of times, they are iffy at best, which requires a lot of extra energy to keep your skis heading straight ahead instead of off to the side. Generally, though, the track is prepared, and the prepared tracks are freshened up every time there’s a big snowfall. Most of the trails have one set of tracks, so they are one-way to keep collisions to a minimum. The golf course that we were on yesterday had two sets of tracks, enabling the really fast skiers to easily pass slow pokes like Carl and I. Today’s trail was super fancy with four sets of parallel tracks, two in each direction.
Just about every trail is dependent on snowfall, but there are one or two trails where man-made snow extends the cross-country ski season. These trails tend to be fairly short, however, so it’s more like running on a track than a nature experience.
Amazingly, just about all of the trails are free of charge as most trails are prepared and maintained by the city parks department.
Carl and I would love to cross-country ski many more times this winter, but sadly, the prognosis isn’t so good. Tomorrow, the temperatures are supposed to rise to 40 degrees, and there is no new snow in the ten day forecast. Sigh. But we are thankful to have had at least one ideal cross-country ski day this season!
MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2015
Finally Snow!It has FINALLY snowed in Stockholm, and Carl and I took full advantage of it by cross-country skiing all weekend last weekend. The conditions were far from ideal (not enough snow and slippery, icy tracks) but we still had a blast playing outside in the snow and enjoying the snowy scenery. Today, however, my whole body is sore and in protest against all of that skiing!
I have been waiting ALL winter for it to snow so that I could take photos of these sun chairs covered in snow. My language school was near this park, and I used to study in the summertime in these sun chairs. While these chairs are just about as far away from water as you can get in Stockholm, they still manage to create a beachy atmosphere. In a foot of snow, however, they are just silly and hilarious and they just make me smile.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2015
Together Placed WordsEnglish has its fair share of compound words such as bedroom, farmhouse, workshop, fireplace, and fireproof. Basically, two nouns that commonly occur together get smooshed over time into one big word. Speakers no longer think of fire and place as two separate concepts; instead, the two words form a new word with its own integral meaning.
In English, compound words tend to be the exception rather than the rule, and compound words are not consistently accepted. For example, bedroom is a single compound word while dining room is two separate words. However, the Swedish language is largely composed of compound words. This makes learning the Swedish language a little bit easier, because once you have a grip on a handful of basic words, you easily understand more complicated words. For example, you might not yet know the word for “hospital,” but one quickly learns the words for “sick” and “house.” Even without seeing the word before, you immediately know that “sjukhus,” or “sick house,” must be something like “hospital.”
Swedish is full of these kinds of compound words. Even the word for “compound word” is a compound word: “sammansatt” means “together placed.” Other examples include
Sjuksköterska: literally translates to “sick caretaker,” means nurse
Fruktträdgård: literally translates to “fruit tree garden,” means orchard
Kylskåp: literally translates to “cold cabinet,” means refrigerator
Väggmålning: literally translates to “wall painting,” means mural
Kyrkogården: literally translates to “church yard,” means cemetery
Kyrkosång: literally translates to “church song,” means hymn
Bildhuggeri: literally translates to “picture carving,” means sculpture
Häftklämmer: literally translates to “booklet clip,” means staple
Realisationsvinstbeskattning: literally translates to “relative profit taxation,” means capitol gains tax
After learning a bit of the Swedish language, you can begin to predict what a word will be before you look it up. It makes me even more amazed that people successfully learn English which has a specific word for nearly every little thing. On one hand, Swedish feels “lazy” to me because instead of naming something, the language just describes the object using already existing words. On the other hand, it makes me wonder why English needs so many different words!
Another form of compound word in Swedish is formed when any descriptive noun acting like a modifier gets placed with the modified noun in one big word. For example, a “concrete wall” isn’t two separate words but is one long word: betongvägg. Following this rule to the extreme, you can get some very long words: according to Guiness, nordvästersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystem- diskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten is Swedish’s longest word. This word is a long string of modifiers which modify the final word. This ridiculous word translates to “northwest seacoast artillery flight reconnaissance simulator plant equipment maintenance follow-up system discussion contribution preparation work.” I’ve never come across a word quite like this in my daily life, but words consisting of three or four smooshed-together words do pop up every now and then.
Long words like this can make Swedish look intimidating, but once you learn to break down the word into its components, it’s pretty easy to understand the meaning.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014
The End of an EraThere is now a Starbucks in downtown Stockholm.
It feels like the end of an era. Unlike most of Europe, Sweden has been largely impervious to American chains. There are no Wallmarts and the local fast food hamburger joint Max is more ubiquitous than McDonald’s. Until a few years ago, there were no Starbucks in Sweden. The first Starbucks in Sweden was in the international lounge at the Stockholm airport. Then a franchise at the Göteborg train station popped up. Last year, another opened at Stockholm train station. And now, there is a location in downtown Stockholm.
It will be interesting to see how the new Starbucks does, because Swedes don’t actually like Starbucks. They think Starbucks coffee is weak and tasteless and since Swedes never add sugar to their coffee, all of the flavored coffees are considered syrupy, sugary and wholly disgusting. Swedes prefer local cafes or the two very popular Swedish coffee chains. The three previous Starbucks locations have all been in places where tourists can easily outnumber Swedes, and they were probably supported entirely by foreigners. Although this new location in Stockholm is in a relatively touristed shopping district, I am guessing that foreigners are less than half of the people strolling down Götgatan. Ironically, the new location is on the island of Södermalm which is jam-packed with local botiques and cafes as well as hipsters and granola-types. Will hipster Södermalm warm to Starbucks?
Today must have been the grand opening because there was a chorus of aproned “baristas” singing Starbucks-themed carols outside of the store. They changed the words of recognizable Christmas carols and I was completely affronted to hear “Hallalujah, Starbucks has come” as I walked along the street.
In moments of homesickness, I have been known to relish a Starbucks drink every now and then on international travels. But I just can’t see going to a Starbucks in Stockholm. I so hope that they don’t take over and shut down the Swedish chains. I would be so sad to see a Starbucks on every corner—then you might as well be in New York. Or in London.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2014
Christmas MooseOne of the things I love about living in a big city with a vibrant downtown is how festive the downtown area is during the Christmas season. There are beautiful lights strung over all the streets in the downtown shopping districts, and the departments stores have lovely animated window displays. Every now and then, you even see giant moose marching across the city!
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 03, 2014
 |
| In the middle of the day, on my lunch break, at the Stockholm City Library |
Not
too long ago, I wrote a brief post about the Depression of November. I
mentioned that November tends to be grey and drizzly, and that the sun
hides for the entire month. My observations have been confirmed as this
year was even Stockholm’s darkest November ever (at least since hours
of sunshine began to be recorded in 1908). The previous record was in
2000 when Stockholm received eight hours of sunlight. This
November, Stockholm received a grand, whopping total of three hours of
sunlight. I would like to add that those three hours were not clear and
bright but were murky at best.
Ironically, Kiruna, which lies above the artic circle, also hit a November sunshine record with an all-time high of 42 hours of sunshine.
Thank goodness we’ve now moved into December. We’re only three days into the month but I’m pretty sure that we’ve already had more sunshine than the entirety of November!
For
me as an American, it’s hard to think of cheddar cheese as an exotic
cheese. In Stockholm, however, it is only found in the “fancy” cheese
section with the fancy French Camemberts and Morbiers. Cheddar also
comes with a fancy price—the small block in the photos cost about $11!
On the subject of cheese, Sweden specializes in hard cheeses and there are a whole array of Swedish cheeses, ranging from Prästost (Priest Cheese) to Herrgårdsost (Manner House cheese). I find it interesting that prestige and exclusivity are built into the Swedish cheese names. Who would want to eat commoner’s cheese when they could eat the cheeses of the nobles and the priests, the two highest classes in the old-fashioned Swedish hierarchy?
While one can find cheddar in the fancy cheese section, there is no glimpse of other common American cheeses. Finding something similar to Monterrey Jack is hopeless, as is a block of mozzarella. You can get fresh mozzarella, but slightly aged mozzarella for grating onto pizzas or lasagnas just doesn’t exist. Instead, you have to buy pre-grated “pizza cheese,” which is some sort of nameless, tasteless, and characterless cheese that does a good job of melting but a terrible job of adding flavor to the dish. Similarly, Mexican cheeses for tacos or for queso don’t exist here, either, and the replacement is a similarly tasteless and characterless pre-grated “taco cheese.” I am pretty sure that the only difference between “pizza cheese” and “taco cheese” is the packaging.
In general, I find the Swedish banking system to be uber-modern. For example, Swedes think that America is crazy because we still use checks, which are considered completely old-fashioned in Sweden; Swedish kids don’t even know what a check is, and all payments are made electronically, directly from one bank account to another. Swedish credit and debit cards also have chips embedded into them, and when you use your credit card, you have to type in a 4-digit pin in order for the transaction to be accepted. Way more secure than relying on the check-out clerk to check your ID! Additionally, signing into an online banking account here is way more complicated and secure that the American system of just needing a username and password.
When you first open your bank account, the bank mails you a small calculator-looking code box. The code box does not arrive in your mail box, however; you have to go to the post office and show your ID in order to pick up the package. The first step to logging into your account online is to type in your username and password. After the username and password combo have been accepted, you type a pin code (a different code than your debit/credit cards) into the code box. The code box then generates a seemingly random 8-digit code that you type into the next log-in screen. Every time you use the code box, you get a different code, and the bank knows which code should be coming next. If the code you type in matches what the bank thinks is the next code, you are finally allowed to access your account information.
Once you are logged in, you can see your accounts but you can’t do anything with them. In order to transfer money, make a payment, or open new accounts, you have to verify with another pin code that it really is you moving money around.
Swedes are currently in an uproar because it has been proven (unfortunately) that it is, in fact, possible to break into someone’s banking account despite the fairly heavy security measures that the Swedish banking system has in place. It’s not just any hacker that can hack through all of those layers of security, though, so I do still feel relatively safe. I’m way more worried about my US bank accounts which have far fewer layers of security!
November is definitely the hardest month in Stockholm. It is very dark, with very little sunlight. The skies are cloudy for four to six weeks on end, and you literally don’t see the sun for a month or more. It drizzles nearly constantly. The joy of Christmas with all of the associated lights and markets and celebrations hasn’t yet begun. There is no Thanksgiving highpoint. Snow hasn’t started falling to brighten up the environs and provide outside fun.
Just to underline my point that it is very dark at this time of year: the streetlights outside of my apartment have daylight sensors and are programmed to turn on and off according to how light it is outside. Today, they turned on at 1:52 p.m.!
Looking forward to Christmas time, and to snow.
Stockholm’s
water authority is running a particularly fun and effective clean water
campaign with billboards in the subway stations urging people to keep
paints and chemicals out of the system and to encourage folks not to
overdose their laundry.
I
have hit a new landmark in my Swedish language abilities—I can now
understand Swedish so well that we can go to the theater! Our first
fall in Stockholm we had season tickets to the Royal Ballet since that
didn’t require any language skills. Once I could read Swedish fairly
well, we had season tickets to the Royal Opera. And now I can
understand spoken Swedish so well, even without subtitles, that we can
finally enjoy season tickets to the Royal Dramatic Theater! I suppose
that the next logical step would be able to speak Swedish so well that I
could be a member of the cast, but I’m not holding my breath.
Carl and I are now officially in Stockholm’s Housing Queue. In about 20 years or so, we should qualify for an apartment that is relatively inexpensive but wonderfully full of character and in a beautiful neighborhood in the city center!
Stockholm has basically had a housing shortage since about 1880 or so. Throughout the decades, there have been various programs to try to solve the crisis, of which some have been more effective than others. However, the housing shortage continues and in the present, apartment construction can’t keep up with the influx of new residents to the city.
Even more serious than the general housing shortage is Stockholm’s severe shortage of rental apartments. There are many contributing factors, but the result is that it is nearly impossible to get a long-term first-hand rental contract.
Stockholm’s method of “combatting” the rental apartment shortage is a housing queue for Stockholm-owned apartments. Here, “public housing” ranges from luxurious, opulent flats in historical buildings in the city center to run-of-the-mill apartments in deathly boring suburban areas built in the 1970’s. There is no stigma to living in “public housing.”
In fact, people wait in line their whole lives in order to get a chance at living in public housing. Because the shortage of rental apartments is so severe, parents sign their kids up for the housing queue at birth in the hopes that they might get a decent rental apartment by the time the graduate from university. It is my theory that this is a huge contributing factor as to why the housing queue is so long.
Even though Stockholm has managed to thrive for more than a century despite the housing shortage, I am convinced that the dearth of rental housing is not good for Stockholm. In order to move here, you basically have to have about $60,000 cash in hand in order to put a down payment on an flat. This is a major deterrent to businesses because it is hard to attract talent to Stockholm when there is basically zero chance of renting.
In order to deter “casual” queuers, there is a yearly fee of about $50 to be in the queue. Over 20 years or so, the yearly fee adds up! It is nothing, however, compared to the amount of money you will potentially save living in a publicly owned apartment. For example, a two bedroom apartment of about 900 square feet in the city center costs a little over a million dollars, and has a monthly condo fee that’s anywhere from $500 to $1200. Even with a 50 year mortgage (which is typical in Sweden), the monthly cost for such an apartment is about $4000. The monthly rent on a similar public apartment, however, would be in the $2000 range. With an investment of only $1000 ($50/year for 20 years), you could be saving $2000/month! No wonder the housing queue is so popular!
It is possible to qualify for an apartment in less than 20 years, if you’re ok with an hour-long commute into the city and living in a deathly boring area.
Apartments
are doled out on a points basis, and you accrue a point for every day
that you have been in the queue. When an apartment becomes available,
anyone who likes can register their interest in the apartment. The
registered person with the most points gets the apartment.
When we signed up for the queue, we received a brochure with a map of greater Stockholm and waiting times for various areas. In an uninteresting suburban area, you could get an apartment within about three years! But, once you accept an apartment, you lose your place in the queue, and the only way to move to another public apartment is to exchange apartments with someone who wants to move into your apartment. And who would want to move from a beautiful apartment in the city center to a much less desirable apartment way out in the suburbs, especially when the monthly rent isn’t all that different? Much better to wait 20+ years until you can get the apartment that you really want!
And once you’ve gotten the apartment you really want, you hang on to it until you die, even if you don’t need the apartment any longer. It’s just too valuable of a commodity to let go! This is another (spiraling) reason why the housing queue is so long—there just isn’t much turnover.
Apartments such as these
or these
are so desirable that you have to have 20 to 30 years worth of points in order to have a chance of getting the apartment.
So, in the meantime, Carl and I are going to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And sometime, maybe when we’re ready to retire, we may possibly move into the apartment of our dreams.
Despite
the unusually warm weather (it’s still in the upper 60’s every day),
the trees have begun to notice the fading daylight and the leaves have
started to turn. Autumn is my favorite season of the year, but I’m not
quite sure that I am ready for it yet. This spring, Carl and I made a
list of all the things we wanted to do and see this summer, and of the
13 things on the list, we only managed to cross four of them off. We’ll
have to wait until next summer for the remaining items because many of
them are only open during a short eight or twelve week window during the
summers.
I have now officially participated in Sweden’s democratic process. I have voted in my city and county elections. In order to vote in the national election, I would have to become a citizen, something I don’t really feel a need for.
The first time I voted was when I was 18 and I still lived in my home state of Georgia. I really enjoyed voting there—the feeling of the whole community coming together and doing something constructive together. Even though you had to stress about getting to your voting station in time and then stand in line for a while, it was a powerful feeling to be part of such a big, robust community.
When I moved to Texas, I found voting to be anti-climatic. Texas has a whole early voting process, and you can vote any time for something like a month before the election. I suppose that this early voting process is more democratic in that it is much more flexible and probably thus opens up the possibility to vote to more people, but it didn’t have the same feeling of being part of a larger community. With early voting in Texas, voting became just another chore among grocery shopping and picking up dry cleaning to cross off of my to-do list.
Sweden also has an extensive early voting process. Note only can you vote any time for several weeks before the actual election day, but you can vote anywhere in the nation, not just at your registered location. Because we were planning on being out of town on election day proper, we made an effort to vote early. I needed to pick up a book anyway, so I chose to vote at Stockholm’s central library. Voting there was a powerful experience—not only are libraries a symbol of knowledge and thus power, but Stockholm City Library is an architectural icon worshiped by architects world-wide. And I had to wait in line to vote, giving me that sense of being a part of a larger, meaningful whole.
If you decide not to vote early and want to vote on Election Day instead, you’ll be voting on a Sunday. This is in definite contrast to the US where Americans vote on Tuesday in order to avoid the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim days of rest. Even though Christianity is the state religion of Sweden, it is a very moderate form of Christianity and it is apparently not a conflict to vote on the day of rest.
When you get to the front of the line, the election monitor will checks your voting registration card which is mailed to every eligible voter a few weeks before the election. Depending on if you’re eligible to vote nationally or only locally, the monitor gives you two or three envelopes. Although voting is supposedly a secret process in Sweden, it is actually quite public, and there is no such thing as a ballot here. Instead, you go up to an open display of cards. Each party has a card, and you choose the card for the party that you wish to vote for. Everyone in vicinity can see which card you choose, so it’s not really a secret or a private matter at all.
You
then go into a curtained voting booth to stuff the cards into the
envelopes that you received from the voting monitor. I’m a little
confused as to the purpose of the booths when everyone already saw which
card you chose... Some people take one card from every party and then
stuff their envelopes in secret, but the number of people doing so was
very limited, and given the long line to get in the door, I felt some
pressure to just choose my one card and to get things over with. The
public nature of voting was the one (and important!) thing that I
disliked about the voting process.
Once you have stuffed your envelopes, you hand them in to another voting monitor. They check your ID and check that you have filled the correct number of envelopes. They then label the envelopes so that they get sent to the correct district. And that’s it!
I’m just fascinated by how even the most elementary of things can be so different in a foreign country, even if the cultures are relatively similar. Voting in a democracy. You wouldn’t think that there are so many ways to go about it, but living in Sweden has proven to me that there are many ways to do even the simplest of things.
It’s
election time in Sweden, and the entire city it plastered in campaign
posters. Campaign advertisements have taken over the subway, the buses,
the bus stops, every light pole and railing and just about every public
surface imaginable. Every public square is littered with campaign huts
and campaign volunteers handing out flyers.
I like that the Swedish words for “vote” and for “voice” are the same: röst.
I wasn’t expecting to be able to vote since I’m not a citizen. But apparently, having lived in Sweden for over three years, I’m eligible to vote in the city election and in the county election, but not in the national parliamentary election.
Despite what the media and the parties themselves would have you believe, I find voting in the US to be a fairly cut-and-dry affair. With only two choices, it’s not too hard to decide. However, in Sweden, the decision-making process is not so black and white because the options are far more numerous. There are eight (!) parties in Sweden’s parliament, and additional parties can get seats as long as they secure 4% of the vote. Seats are divided strictly by percentage vote, so geography has no role.
Even more interesting than the multifaceted nature of Swedish politics is the fact that you vote first and foremost for a party, not for a person. The party then decides who will represent the party in parliament. While it is possible to vote for a particular person, most people just vote for the party. I really, really appreciate this approach—instead of voting on a likable face or based on name recognition, you’re voting on ideas.
Not having grown up here, getting to know the eight parties is a little overwhelming. I’ve had to do a bit of research to figure out which party represents my convictions. Here’s what I’ve found, approximately from right to left:
On the Right
Sweden’s Democrats: A relatively young party that was founded in 1988, with deep roots in nationalistic, racist, and neo-Nazi parties. Supposedly, the party has toned down its racist policies, but it is still extremely conservative, nationalistic, and narrow in focus. I am saddened by the fact that this party has been growing in popularity and currently claims twenty of the 349 seats in parliament.
Christian Democrats: As the name implies, this party is rooted in Christian values and “family values” is its central argument. The party was founded in 1964. Interestingly, the party is in favor of abortion and a civil, non-marriage status for both homo- and heterosexual couples. The Christian Democrats claim 19 parliamentary seats.
In the Middle
The Moderates: This party was founded in 1904 as a self-proclaimed center party. The Moderates are very business-oriented with policies to lower taxes, encourage privatization (schools, trains, healthcare), and support small businesses. The Moderates are critical of Sweden’s welfare state. Given Sweden’s reputation as a welfare state, I was surprised to learn that the Moderates are Sweden’s second-largest party and that they nearly match the Social Democrats in parliament with 107 seats.
Center Party: The Center Party was founded in 1913 as the Farmer’s Party, and was traditionally nationalistic, protectionist, and advocated decentralization. The party became much more powerful in the 70’s when it resisted nuclear power and championed environmental causes. However, since then, the party has changed its tune, moved more to the right, and sanctioned the construction of new reactors. Today, the party’s main focus is on self-determination (being able to choose schools, doctors, etc), decentralization, jobs, companies, and the countryside/small towns. Today, the Central Party has 23 seats in parliament.
The Folk Party: Founded in 1934, this party is a little difficult for me to figure out. They claim to be the “liberal bourgeoisie” party, something that sounds like an oxymoron to me. They are allies of the Moderates, the Center Party, and the Christian Democrats, which seems to mean that they are more on the bourgeoisie side than on the liberal side of politics. The Folk Party has 24 seats in parliament.
The Environmental Party: Established in 1981, the party’s roots lie in Feminism, the peace movement, the environmental movement, and the anti-nuclear movement. Today, the party values sustainability over economic growth and a high standard of living. The party also promotes a more direct democracy where constituents vote directly on more issues, taking some power away from parliament. For this reason, the Environmental Party was initially against the EU (and it was thus ironic that the Environmental Party placed second in Sweden’s most recent election for EU parliamentary members). Twenty-five parliamentary seats are currently allocated to the party.
Social Democrats: Sweden’s “worker’s” party was founded in 1889 and was the leading party throughout most of the 20th century. Much of what we think of as “Swedish” such as the strong social safety net and the idea of Sweden as “the people’s home” was created under the Social Democrats. During the 1990’s, the party drastically cut back on the welfare state and swung much more to the center. In response, the party has been steadily loosing support, but it still holds 112 parliament seats—more than any other party.
On the Left
The Left Party: Founded in 1917, this party had common roots with Sweden’s communist party. In more recent times, the Left Party has left communism behind and has instead embraced less extreme but leftist politics. The party is grounded in feminist and socialist ideas and is based upon the belief that the state is better at distributing economic resources than the market. The party promotes the equalization of economic rifts, a strong welfare state, and higher taxes to pay for a high level of social services. The Left Party has 19 seats in parliament.
I really find all of this incredibly fascinating. Just like in the US, popular opinion is really quite split between left and right, with the difference that there are so many shades of grey here. And wow. The Environmental Party in Sweden is considered a center party! I love that more of the spectrum is represented in parliament, although it is quite scary that there are so many people who vote for the neo-nazi-ish party.
I am also fascinated by the poll that Sweden’s Architects did on its members: 36% of the members said that they planed to vote for the Environmental Party! Second place was the Left Party with 13% of the vote, and the other parties had 10% or less of the vote. This is quite different than national polls which predict that 30% of the population will vote for the Social Democrats and that 22% will vote for the Moderates, with 10% or less of the vote going to the remaining parties. Fully 69% of architects plan to vote for the left-most parties while only 48% of the general population plan to vote on the left side of the spectrum.
Carl and I have lived in Sweden for just over three years now, and we’ve been in our apartment for nearly as long. While we have no intentions of leaving Stockholm (probably ever), we are starting to think about moving. Our apartment is quite comfortable, and it has served us well, but it is small (although not cramped) and the suburban location is, well, suburban. We know what we want, but we also know that we can’t afford it. We have several second-best scenarios, and the problem is choosing which one (if any).
What I really want is to move into the city. Our current neighborhood is fine, but it is not inspiring to me in any way. I want to live in an environment that inspires me. I want to live within walking distance of cafes and restaurants and cutesy boutiques. I want to live in a historic building with beautifully preserved details. Deep window niches? Yes! A working tile stove? Yes, please!
For Carl, moving into the city isn’t nearly as important as being able to quickly get out of the city. He likes our current location because we are close to two commuter rail lines that get you out of the city and into the countryside very quickly. We are also close to some longer distance bus routes that get you out into the inland archipelago within 20 minutes. If we moved into the city, Carl wants to make sure that we are close to a commuter rail station and that there is some urban green space nearby.
Two other big factors for us are wanting a little more space. Our current apartment is about 550 square feet. Luckily, the space is really well planed and proportioned, so we manage quite well in our small space. However, it is not ideal for guests, and we have a lot of guests, and we have people sleeping on our couch about four weeks every year. We love hosting our visitors, but it does get cramped with extra people and luggage sharing the space.
We also have a storage unit back in Texas that is jam-packed with our precious belongings. A couple thousand books (we gave away hundreds of the non-essentials before we moved!), furniture that has been passed down through the generations of both of our families, furniture that my great-grandfather and grandfather made, the quilts that I have sewn, lots of camping gear, twenty or so photo albums, a generous supply of lovely china from both families, our beloved cooking equipment... We would love to use our things, and hence to bring them over to Sweden, but in order to do so, we need more space. A lot more space. Even if we doubled the size of our apartment, we’d probably still have to purge a few things.
A city apartment in Stockholm is ridiculously expensive, think Manhattan prices. We could probably squeeze our wallets into making the monthly payment for an equally sized apartment in the city, but anything bigger is almost certainly out of our range.
Stockholm has some of the most lovely and charming early 20th century suburbs that I have ever seen. Although my strongest urge is to move into the city, I would also love to live in one of those national romantic neighborhoods and homes. Sadly, these areas are also way out of our range.
We have also talked about moving further out and buying a house. Out there, we would have more than enough space. We could even potentially rent out the basement as a separate apartment. We wouldn’t have a problem fitting in our storage unit belongings, and we’d even have apple trees and a garden and a porch for summer evening cocktails! Sadly, while most of the areas we can afford are quite ok, they aren’t very inspiring. Lots of housing stock from the 60’s and 70’s, not the loveliest period of design in Stockholm’s history.
Yet another option is to keep our current apartment and to but a country cottage instead. Most likely, this would also involve buying a car, and that would involve paying for a parking space... Even so, you don’t have to get more that 90 minutes out of Stockholm before country cottages become relatively affordable (by Stockholm standards). Out there, we could find something historical and inspiring and lovely and spacious, with a fireplace and a yard and fruit trees and a garden and the potential to cross-country ski out our front door...
We’re just not 100% sure if we’re up to it. Leaving the city most weekends would mean that we would see even fewer of the city’s art exhibitions and spend even less time relaxing in cafes. Having a country cottage would complicate life with owning a car and having to paint the siding every few years and driving in and out of the city all of the time. We’d have to change the car’s tires twice a year and mow the lawn.
Carl would love to find a waterfront country cottage someplace. He grew up on the water and really misses it. I would be content with a forest cottage, or with a view over rolling farm fields, but an island cabin out in the archipelago wouldn’t be amiss. Waterfront cottages approach Stockholm prices, however, so it’s sadly unlikely that we’ll end up buying one.
Right now we’re feeling very torn and confused about all the various ideas and options. As Queen so perfectly said, we want it all. We’d love to live in the vivacious, sophisticated city during the week and have a cute and quiet country cottage for the weekends. Knowing that we can’t have both, it’s hard to choose sides between the city-loving and the countryside-loving parts of ourselves. In the meantime, I am feverishly scanning Sweden’s real estate website, falling in love with every beautiful property that comes along. Eventually, Carl and I will settle into a path that feels right, but for the time being, the possibilities seem so open and endless. It is wonderful to have endless possibilities, but it is also unsettling, because you have to choose. And in choosing, you inevitably close doors, stifling ways of life that could have been.
It wasn’t my intention to end this post on such a dark note, especially considering how excited Carl and I get just thinking about all these options. Figuring out what we want is an overwhelming process, but it is overwhelming in a positive way because the opportunities are so amazing.
Quite a while ago, I wrote about our favorite running loop in the winter. I have finally taken summertime photos. What a different world Stockholm is when it is leafy and green!
Sweden
converted to the metric system of measurement in the 1880’s, but
evidence of the older, traditional system lingers in the grocery store.
Eggs are available both by the dozen and in packages of ten. I
personally prefer to buy a dozen eggs, partly out of habit, and partly
because a “ten-pack of eggs” just doesn’t have the same ring as a “dozen
eggs.”
Eggs come in a bewildering variety of “organic-ness,” and there must be stringent laws about labeling exactly how the hens are treated because each box of eggs has a different combination and permutation of variables listed. There are eggs that come from hens that are allowed to roam freely indoors. There are eggs that come from hens that are allowed to roam freely out-of-doors. There are eggs that come from hens that receive organic feed. There are brown eggs, light brown eggs, white eggs. There are washed eggs and unwashed eggs.
Like most things in Sweden, eggs are staggeringly expensive. I remember a dozen, organic, free-range eggs being about three or four dollars in Texas. Here, it’ll cost you about seven or eight dollars. Yikes! However, the fact that eggs come in differently sized packages makes it a lot harder to compare pricing between all of the various organic combinations.
One thing that I have never understood about Swedish grocery stores is why the onion bins are always full of half-rotten onions. Almost all of the onions are squishy or moldy, and you have to root around to find the one onion that hasn’t started to rot.
It’s doubly weird because the rest of the produce section is full of top-notch, beautiful fruits and veggies. During the winter, the selection is definitely limiting, but the produce that is in the shelves is always fresh and colorful and tempting. So why the rotten onions?
Last Friday was Midsommar, or as it is known in English, it was the summer solstice. Like most of the Swedish holidays, Midsommar’s roots are pagan. However, unlike all of the other holidays, Midsommar was never successfully Christianized so nowadays there is no attempt to paste a Christian face over the pagan rituals. There are petroglyphs that depict Midsommar celebrations in Scandinavia that date back as early as the Bronze Age, but the rituals probably originate even farther back in time. Historically, the celebration was a fertility ritual, but today, only the symbolism remains. Today, the holiday is mostly a great excuse to skip work, enjoy traditional foods, take advantage of the warm weather outside, spend time with family or friends, and drink snaps. However, despite the fact that the holiday is a bit watered-down these days, the sheer ancientness of the holiday gives me goose bumps and celebrating the holiday makes me feel like I am one link in a timeless chain.
Midsommar is one of Sweden’s most important holidays, second only to Christmas. This is evident with some museums that close only for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Midsommar Eve. Just about everyone in the country celebrates Midsommar—many in the traditional way that I’ll describe below, but many also escape the city and go camping, boating, or to their summer cottage. Talking about what you are going to do and how your Midsommar celebration was is the main fika (coffee break) topic for a week before and after the holiday. Doing nothing is not an option, and there is a social pressure to have the coolest Midsommar plans of everyone at the fika table.
Carl’s sister is in town, and since she has two little kids, the whole family chose to celebrate the holiday in the traditional manner. We have now celebrated three Midsummers in Sweden, and every time we have celebrated in the exact same way. The first activity of the day is to go to the neighborhood celebration. I get the impression that Carl’s parents’ neighborhood celebration is a lot more kid-centric than most celebrations, but I think the premise is pretty similar. First, all the families gather at the park, spread out picnic blankets in a wide circle, and enjoy an afternoon fika together. In the middle of the circle is a huge Midsommarstång or midsummer pole that is completely covered in green vines, branches, and leaves. At the beginning of the celebration, the pole is lying on the ground, but the first organized activity is to lift the pole into place. All the men gather around the pole and lift it into vertical position with the help of long, wooden forks while the women stand around and applaud the masculine efforts. It’s not until the pole is raised that you can really appreciate its true height—at least 40 feet tall, the pole is taller than all of the telephone poles around.
While the pole is being raised, you can finally see the geometry and appreciate the fertility symbolism. It is cross shaped, but two garlands connect the top of the cross to the arms forming an arrow pointing up. A ring of flowers hangs from each of the arms. As it is the men who lift the pole into vertical position, it is pretty easy to understand the fertility symbolism.
After the men have shown off their strong masculinity and thus proved their fertility, it is time for the dancing to begin. Each celebration features a live band that plays the traditional Midsommar dance songs, and the audience gathers in layers of circles around the poles. The songs are really quite strange and don’t really have to do with Midsommar and they definitely make you wonder why such seemingly insubstantial songs are the focus of the year’s second-most important celebration.
For example:
Morsgrisar är vi allihopa,
allihopa, allihopa
Morsgrisar är vi allihopa,
allihopa och ja' me
Ja' me' och du me' och ja' me'
Insipid are we all,
We all, we all
Insipid are we all,
We all, and I’m included
I’m included and you’re included and I’m included.
And:
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Small frogs, small frogs are funny to see
Small frogs, small frogs are funny to see
No ears, no ears, no tails have them.
No ears, no ears, no tails have them.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
(The last 4 lines are just nonsense sounds)
And:
Så går vi runt om en midsommarstång, midsommarstång, midsommarstång,
så går vi runt om en midsommarstång, tidigt på måndagsmorgon.
Så göra vi, när vi tvätta våra kläder, tvätta våra kläder, tvätta våra kläder,
så göra vi, när vi tvätta våra kläder, tidigt på måndagsmorgon.
Tisdag: Så göra vi när vi skölja våra kläder
Onsdag: Så göra vi när vi hänga våra kläder
Torsdag: Så göra vi när vi mangla våra kläder
Fredag: Så göra vi när vi stryka våra kläder
Lördag: Så göra vi när vi skura våra golvet
Söndag: Så göra vi när till kyrkan vi gå
So go we around the midsummer pole, midsummer pole, midsummer pole,
So go we around the midsummer pole, early on Monday morning.
So we do, when we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes,
So we do, when wash our clothes, early on Monday morning.
The pattern continues alternating going around the midsummer pole and doing chores:
Tuesday: So we do, when we rinse our clothes…
Wednesday: So we do, when we hang up our clothes…
Thursday: So we do, when we mangle our clothes…
Friday: So we do, when we iron our clothes…
Saturday: So we do, when we scrub the floor…
Sunday, So we do, when to church we go…
I get the impression that the dancing around the midsommar pole was historically more of a romantic scene than a kid-centric scene. The holiday is, after all, a celebration of fertility, and it’s hard to imagine that hopping like a frog is a good way to find a partner. Slow dancing, on the other hand, seems more appropriate.
At the celebration we went to, there were only a few people dressed in the historic costumes, but celebrations in other, more rural regions feature a majority of attendees in folk dress.
Folk
costumes were scarce but wreaths of flowers and leaves were more
common. Women and children of both sexes wear the wreaths. It’s hard
to imagine an eight-year-old American boy wearing a flower wreath in his
hair, but here in Sweden, it seems to be a cool thing to do.
Following the pole dancing was game time. At our celebration, it was only the kids who got to participate in yard games like the sack race and the potato-on-spoon race, but I think it would have been far more fun if the adults had been involved, too. Standing around watching kids have fun is really not all that interesting, if you ask me.
The public celebration winds down late in the afternoon, but that’s when the private family dinner begins. After cocktails and appetizers, it was time to dig into the smorgasbord. I believe that our spread was pretty typical with smoked salmon, cured salmon, pickled herring with a cream and caviar sauce, pickled herring in a mustard sauce, pickled herring with juniper berries and onions, meatballs, fried sausages, bread, cheese, salad, radishes (eaten whole like an apple), and dill boiled fresh potatoes. I feel like I’m forgetting about five dishes, so I hope my mother-in-law forgives me. With the meal, you drink beer. The eating and beer sipping is intermittently interrupted with silly songs and followed by shots of snaps. Everyone holds up there shot glasses in an extended toast, sings along, says skål (cheers!), and drinks. Unlike in the US, it is socially acceptable to drink only a sip out of the shot glass and it is ok if the glass of snaps lasts two or three toasts. Otherwise, everyone would be under the table before their second round at the buffet.
It seems that silly songs are a theme of Midsommar, although the same drinking songs get repeated at several holidays throughout the year. A lot of the songs feature puns that are hard to translate, and many of them are about drinking snaps in one way or another. The songs are generally sung to the melody of well-known children’s songs, so they tend to sound alike. Some examples:
Amanda gångar sig ut i lunden
Får se en ko stå bunden
Amanda gångar sig hem igen
Slår upp en nubbe och tommer den
Amanda walks herself out into the grove
Catches sight of a cow that stands tied up
Amanda walks herself home again
Pours a shot and empties then.
And:
Det satt en mås på en klyvarbom
och tom i krävan var kräket.
Tungan lådde vid skepparns gom,
där han satt uti bleket.
Jag vill ha sill hördes måsen rope
och skepparn svarte: Jag vill ha O P
Om blott jag får, om blott jag får.
There sat a seagull on a boom
And empty in the gut was the wretch.
His tongue was pasted to the roof off the seaman’s mouth,
Where he sat out in the glare.
“I will have herring,” the seagull was heard to cry
And the black seaman said “I will have snaps
If wet I get, If wet I get.”
And:
Nu!
Now!
Midsommar desert always consists of strawberries. It might be a strawberry cake, it might be strawberries with ice cream, it might be strawberry pie. I don’t think it really matters as long as the focus is strawberries. And not just any strawberries, but Swedish strawberries. Belgian or Spanish strawberries simply won’t do. This might not seem like such a big deal, but considering the climate, producing ripe strawberries by June 21st is quite a feat and Swedish strawberries are usually at least twice as expensive at this time of year.
Our family celebration petered out around 10pm, but it is quite traditional to party all night. Midsommar is one of the drunkest and therefore most accident-prone days of the year. It’s not too surprising that the party typically continues all night because it doesn’t get dark at this position on the globe. Even though the sun officially sets for a couple of hours at night, it never travels far below the horizon and the three or four hours of “night” are bright enough to read a newspaper without extra lighting. I can tell when it’s getting close to midsommar in Stockholm because it is so bright outside that I don’t think about closing the bedroom curtains before we go to bed.
If you do go to bed on midsommar, you’re supposed to put seven different types of wildflowers under your pillow. If you do so, you’ll dream about the person you’re going to marry. I suppose that that tradition is meant to provide hope for future romance for the unlucky ones who don’t find a partner dancing around the midsommar pole.
The official tourism board of Sweden put out an amazing video called “Midsommar for Dummies.” It is hard to imagine an official American entity publishing such a humorous video that gently pokes fun at Americans and American traditions. I highly recommend watching the video for a quick glimpse into the Swedish sense of humor.
Midsommar Eve is the last public holiday before Christmas Eve. The spring is flooded with holidays, and there is at least one day off every two weeks from the beginning of April to the end of June. It is very typical to take summer vacation during July, but that means no days off all the way from August till the end of December. Kind of depressing!
I also find Midsommar a bit depressing for other reasons. Even though its name is contradictory, Midsommar mentally marks the beginning of the summer season in Sweden. But for me, it the solstice marks the decline of summer. From here until the end of December, it’s just going to get darker and darker and darker. While I love fall and winter, I do get a bit depressed by the lack of sunlight. The continuous light at Midsommar gives me so much energy and makes the days feel so much longer and so much more productive. Midsommar sadly marks the beginning of the end of summer before summer has even had a chance to get started.
Ironically, Kiruna, which lies above the artic circle, also hit a November sunshine record with an all-time high of 42 hours of sunshine.
Thank goodness we’ve now moved into December. We’re only three days into the month but I’m pretty sure that we’ve already had more sunshine than the entirety of November!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2014
Exotic CheddarOn the subject of cheese, Sweden specializes in hard cheeses and there are a whole array of Swedish cheeses, ranging from Prästost (Priest Cheese) to Herrgårdsost (Manner House cheese). I find it interesting that prestige and exclusivity are built into the Swedish cheese names. Who would want to eat commoner’s cheese when they could eat the cheeses of the nobles and the priests, the two highest classes in the old-fashioned Swedish hierarchy?
While one can find cheddar in the fancy cheese section, there is no glimpse of other common American cheeses. Finding something similar to Monterrey Jack is hopeless, as is a block of mozzarella. You can get fresh mozzarella, but slightly aged mozzarella for grating onto pizzas or lasagnas just doesn’t exist. Instead, you have to buy pre-grated “pizza cheese,” which is some sort of nameless, tasteless, and characterless cheese that does a good job of melting but a terrible job of adding flavor to the dish. Similarly, Mexican cheeses for tacos or for queso don’t exist here, either, and the replacement is a similarly tasteless and characterless pre-grated “taco cheese.” I am pretty sure that the only difference between “pizza cheese” and “taco cheese” is the packaging.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014
Internet BankingIn general, I find the Swedish banking system to be uber-modern. For example, Swedes think that America is crazy because we still use checks, which are considered completely old-fashioned in Sweden; Swedish kids don’t even know what a check is, and all payments are made electronically, directly from one bank account to another. Swedish credit and debit cards also have chips embedded into them, and when you use your credit card, you have to type in a 4-digit pin in order for the transaction to be accepted. Way more secure than relying on the check-out clerk to check your ID! Additionally, signing into an online banking account here is way more complicated and secure that the American system of just needing a username and password.
When you first open your bank account, the bank mails you a small calculator-looking code box. The code box does not arrive in your mail box, however; you have to go to the post office and show your ID in order to pick up the package. The first step to logging into your account online is to type in your username and password. After the username and password combo have been accepted, you type a pin code (a different code than your debit/credit cards) into the code box. The code box then generates a seemingly random 8-digit code that you type into the next log-in screen. Every time you use the code box, you get a different code, and the bank knows which code should be coming next. If the code you type in matches what the bank thinks is the next code, you are finally allowed to access your account information.
Once you are logged in, you can see your accounts but you can’t do anything with them. In order to transfer money, make a payment, or open new accounts, you have to verify with another pin code that it really is you moving money around.
Swedes are currently in an uproar because it has been proven (unfortunately) that it is, in fact, possible to break into someone’s banking account despite the fairly heavy security measures that the Swedish banking system has in place. It’s not just any hacker that can hack through all of those layers of security, though, so I do still feel relatively safe. I’m way more worried about my US bank accounts which have far fewer layers of security!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2014
The Depression of NovemberNovember is definitely the hardest month in Stockholm. It is very dark, with very little sunlight. The skies are cloudy for four to six weeks on end, and you literally don’t see the sun for a month or more. It drizzles nearly constantly. The joy of Christmas with all of the associated lights and markets and celebrations hasn’t yet begun. There is no Thanksgiving highpoint. Snow hasn’t started falling to brighten up the environs and provide outside fun.
Just to underline my point that it is very dark at this time of year: the streetlights outside of my apartment have daylight sensors and are programmed to turn on and off according to how light it is outside. Today, they turned on at 1:52 p.m.!
Looking forward to Christmas time, and to snow.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014
Clean Water Campaign
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014
Language Landmark
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
Housing QueueCarl and I are now officially in Stockholm’s Housing Queue. In about 20 years or so, we should qualify for an apartment that is relatively inexpensive but wonderfully full of character and in a beautiful neighborhood in the city center!
Stockholm has basically had a housing shortage since about 1880 or so. Throughout the decades, there have been various programs to try to solve the crisis, of which some have been more effective than others. However, the housing shortage continues and in the present, apartment construction can’t keep up with the influx of new residents to the city.
Even more serious than the general housing shortage is Stockholm’s severe shortage of rental apartments. There are many contributing factors, but the result is that it is nearly impossible to get a long-term first-hand rental contract.
Stockholm’s method of “combatting” the rental apartment shortage is a housing queue for Stockholm-owned apartments. Here, “public housing” ranges from luxurious, opulent flats in historical buildings in the city center to run-of-the-mill apartments in deathly boring suburban areas built in the 1970’s. There is no stigma to living in “public housing.”
In fact, people wait in line their whole lives in order to get a chance at living in public housing. Because the shortage of rental apartments is so severe, parents sign their kids up for the housing queue at birth in the hopes that they might get a decent rental apartment by the time the graduate from university. It is my theory that this is a huge contributing factor as to why the housing queue is so long.
Even though Stockholm has managed to thrive for more than a century despite the housing shortage, I am convinced that the dearth of rental housing is not good for Stockholm. In order to move here, you basically have to have about $60,000 cash in hand in order to put a down payment on an flat. This is a major deterrent to businesses because it is hard to attract talent to Stockholm when there is basically zero chance of renting.
In order to deter “casual” queuers, there is a yearly fee of about $50 to be in the queue. Over 20 years or so, the yearly fee adds up! It is nothing, however, compared to the amount of money you will potentially save living in a publicly owned apartment. For example, a two bedroom apartment of about 900 square feet in the city center costs a little over a million dollars, and has a monthly condo fee that’s anywhere from $500 to $1200. Even with a 50 year mortgage (which is typical in Sweden), the monthly cost for such an apartment is about $4000. The monthly rent on a similar public apartment, however, would be in the $2000 range. With an investment of only $1000 ($50/year for 20 years), you could be saving $2000/month! No wonder the housing queue is so popular!
It is possible to qualify for an apartment in less than 20 years, if you’re ok with an hour-long commute into the city and living in a deathly boring area.
When we signed up for the queue, we received a brochure with a map of greater Stockholm and waiting times for various areas. In an uninteresting suburban area, you could get an apartment within about three years! But, once you accept an apartment, you lose your place in the queue, and the only way to move to another public apartment is to exchange apartments with someone who wants to move into your apartment. And who would want to move from a beautiful apartment in the city center to a much less desirable apartment way out in the suburbs, especially when the monthly rent isn’t all that different? Much better to wait 20+ years until you can get the apartment that you really want!
And once you’ve gotten the apartment you really want, you hang on to it until you die, even if you don’t need the apartment any longer. It’s just too valuable of a commodity to let go! This is another (spiraling) reason why the housing queue is so long—there just isn’t much turnover.
Apartments such as these
So, in the meantime, Carl and I are going to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And sometime, maybe when we’re ready to retire, we may possibly move into the apartment of our dreams.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2014
Already Autumn
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
Voting in SwedenI have now officially participated in Sweden’s democratic process. I have voted in my city and county elections. In order to vote in the national election, I would have to become a citizen, something I don’t really feel a need for.
The first time I voted was when I was 18 and I still lived in my home state of Georgia. I really enjoyed voting there—the feeling of the whole community coming together and doing something constructive together. Even though you had to stress about getting to your voting station in time and then stand in line for a while, it was a powerful feeling to be part of such a big, robust community.
When I moved to Texas, I found voting to be anti-climatic. Texas has a whole early voting process, and you can vote any time for something like a month before the election. I suppose that this early voting process is more democratic in that it is much more flexible and probably thus opens up the possibility to vote to more people, but it didn’t have the same feeling of being part of a larger community. With early voting in Texas, voting became just another chore among grocery shopping and picking up dry cleaning to cross off of my to-do list.
Sweden also has an extensive early voting process. Note only can you vote any time for several weeks before the actual election day, but you can vote anywhere in the nation, not just at your registered location. Because we were planning on being out of town on election day proper, we made an effort to vote early. I needed to pick up a book anyway, so I chose to vote at Stockholm’s central library. Voting there was a powerful experience—not only are libraries a symbol of knowledge and thus power, but Stockholm City Library is an architectural icon worshiped by architects world-wide. And I had to wait in line to vote, giving me that sense of being a part of a larger, meaningful whole.
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| waiting in line outside Asplund's Stockholm City Library |
If you decide not to vote early and want to vote on Election Day instead, you’ll be voting on a Sunday. This is in definite contrast to the US where Americans vote on Tuesday in order to avoid the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim days of rest. Even though Christianity is the state religion of Sweden, it is a very moderate form of Christianity and it is apparently not a conflict to vote on the day of rest.
When you get to the front of the line, the election monitor will checks your voting registration card which is mailed to every eligible voter a few weeks before the election. Depending on if you’re eligible to vote nationally or only locally, the monitor gives you two or three envelopes. Although voting is supposedly a secret process in Sweden, it is actually quite public, and there is no such thing as a ballot here. Instead, you go up to an open display of cards. Each party has a card, and you choose the card for the party that you wish to vote for. Everyone in vicinity can see which card you choose, so it’s not really a secret or a private matter at all.
Once you have stuffed your envelopes, you hand them in to another voting monitor. They check your ID and check that you have filled the correct number of envelopes. They then label the envelopes so that they get sent to the correct district. And that’s it!
I’m just fascinated by how even the most elementary of things can be so different in a foreign country, even if the cultures are relatively similar. Voting in a democracy. You wouldn’t think that there are so many ways to go about it, but living in Sweden has proven to me that there are many ways to do even the simplest of things.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014
Election SeasonI like that the Swedish words for “vote” and for “voice” are the same: röst.
I wasn’t expecting to be able to vote since I’m not a citizen. But apparently, having lived in Sweden for over three years, I’m eligible to vote in the city election and in the county election, but not in the national parliamentary election.
Despite what the media and the parties themselves would have you believe, I find voting in the US to be a fairly cut-and-dry affair. With only two choices, it’s not too hard to decide. However, in Sweden, the decision-making process is not so black and white because the options are far more numerous. There are eight (!) parties in Sweden’s parliament, and additional parties can get seats as long as they secure 4% of the vote. Seats are divided strictly by percentage vote, so geography has no role.
Even more interesting than the multifaceted nature of Swedish politics is the fact that you vote first and foremost for a party, not for a person. The party then decides who will represent the party in parliament. While it is possible to vote for a particular person, most people just vote for the party. I really, really appreciate this approach—instead of voting on a likable face or based on name recognition, you’re voting on ideas.
Not having grown up here, getting to know the eight parties is a little overwhelming. I’ve had to do a bit of research to figure out which party represents my convictions. Here’s what I’ve found, approximately from right to left:
On the Right
Sweden’s Democrats: A relatively young party that was founded in 1988, with deep roots in nationalistic, racist, and neo-Nazi parties. Supposedly, the party has toned down its racist policies, but it is still extremely conservative, nationalistic, and narrow in focus. I am saddened by the fact that this party has been growing in popularity and currently claims twenty of the 349 seats in parliament.
Christian Democrats: As the name implies, this party is rooted in Christian values and “family values” is its central argument. The party was founded in 1964. Interestingly, the party is in favor of abortion and a civil, non-marriage status for both homo- and heterosexual couples. The Christian Democrats claim 19 parliamentary seats.
In the Middle
The Moderates: This party was founded in 1904 as a self-proclaimed center party. The Moderates are very business-oriented with policies to lower taxes, encourage privatization (schools, trains, healthcare), and support small businesses. The Moderates are critical of Sweden’s welfare state. Given Sweden’s reputation as a welfare state, I was surprised to learn that the Moderates are Sweden’s second-largest party and that they nearly match the Social Democrats in parliament with 107 seats.
Center Party: The Center Party was founded in 1913 as the Farmer’s Party, and was traditionally nationalistic, protectionist, and advocated decentralization. The party became much more powerful in the 70’s when it resisted nuclear power and championed environmental causes. However, since then, the party has changed its tune, moved more to the right, and sanctioned the construction of new reactors. Today, the party’s main focus is on self-determination (being able to choose schools, doctors, etc), decentralization, jobs, companies, and the countryside/small towns. Today, the Central Party has 23 seats in parliament.
The Folk Party: Founded in 1934, this party is a little difficult for me to figure out. They claim to be the “liberal bourgeoisie” party, something that sounds like an oxymoron to me. They are allies of the Moderates, the Center Party, and the Christian Democrats, which seems to mean that they are more on the bourgeoisie side than on the liberal side of politics. The Folk Party has 24 seats in parliament.
The Environmental Party: Established in 1981, the party’s roots lie in Feminism, the peace movement, the environmental movement, and the anti-nuclear movement. Today, the party values sustainability over economic growth and a high standard of living. The party also promotes a more direct democracy where constituents vote directly on more issues, taking some power away from parliament. For this reason, the Environmental Party was initially against the EU (and it was thus ironic that the Environmental Party placed second in Sweden’s most recent election for EU parliamentary members). Twenty-five parliamentary seats are currently allocated to the party.
Social Democrats: Sweden’s “worker’s” party was founded in 1889 and was the leading party throughout most of the 20th century. Much of what we think of as “Swedish” such as the strong social safety net and the idea of Sweden as “the people’s home” was created under the Social Democrats. During the 1990’s, the party drastically cut back on the welfare state and swung much more to the center. In response, the party has been steadily loosing support, but it still holds 112 parliament seats—more than any other party.
On the Left
The Left Party: Founded in 1917, this party had common roots with Sweden’s communist party. In more recent times, the Left Party has left communism behind and has instead embraced less extreme but leftist politics. The party is grounded in feminist and socialist ideas and is based upon the belief that the state is better at distributing economic resources than the market. The party promotes the equalization of economic rifts, a strong welfare state, and higher taxes to pay for a high level of social services. The Left Party has 19 seats in parliament.
I really find all of this incredibly fascinating. Just like in the US, popular opinion is really quite split between left and right, with the difference that there are so many shades of grey here. And wow. The Environmental Party in Sweden is considered a center party! I love that more of the spectrum is represented in parliament, although it is quite scary that there are so many people who vote for the neo-nazi-ish party.
I am also fascinated by the poll that Sweden’s Architects did on its members: 36% of the members said that they planed to vote for the Environmental Party! Second place was the Left Party with 13% of the vote, and the other parties had 10% or less of the vote. This is quite different than national polls which predict that 30% of the population will vote for the Social Democrats and that 22% will vote for the Moderates, with 10% or less of the vote going to the remaining parties. Fully 69% of architects plan to vote for the left-most parties while only 48% of the general population plan to vote on the left side of the spectrum.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2014
Dreaming our Next MoveCarl and I have lived in Sweden for just over three years now, and we’ve been in our apartment for nearly as long. While we have no intentions of leaving Stockholm (probably ever), we are starting to think about moving. Our apartment is quite comfortable, and it has served us well, but it is small (although not cramped) and the suburban location is, well, suburban. We know what we want, but we also know that we can’t afford it. We have several second-best scenarios, and the problem is choosing which one (if any).
What I really want is to move into the city. Our current neighborhood is fine, but it is not inspiring to me in any way. I want to live in an environment that inspires me. I want to live within walking distance of cafes and restaurants and cutesy boutiques. I want to live in a historic building with beautifully preserved details. Deep window niches? Yes! A working tile stove? Yes, please!
For Carl, moving into the city isn’t nearly as important as being able to quickly get out of the city. He likes our current location because we are close to two commuter rail lines that get you out of the city and into the countryside very quickly. We are also close to some longer distance bus routes that get you out into the inland archipelago within 20 minutes. If we moved into the city, Carl wants to make sure that we are close to a commuter rail station and that there is some urban green space nearby.
Two other big factors for us are wanting a little more space. Our current apartment is about 550 square feet. Luckily, the space is really well planed and proportioned, so we manage quite well in our small space. However, it is not ideal for guests, and we have a lot of guests, and we have people sleeping on our couch about four weeks every year. We love hosting our visitors, but it does get cramped with extra people and luggage sharing the space.
We also have a storage unit back in Texas that is jam-packed with our precious belongings. A couple thousand books (we gave away hundreds of the non-essentials before we moved!), furniture that has been passed down through the generations of both of our families, furniture that my great-grandfather and grandfather made, the quilts that I have sewn, lots of camping gear, twenty or so photo albums, a generous supply of lovely china from both families, our beloved cooking equipment... We would love to use our things, and hence to bring them over to Sweden, but in order to do so, we need more space. A lot more space. Even if we doubled the size of our apartment, we’d probably still have to purge a few things.
A city apartment in Stockholm is ridiculously expensive, think Manhattan prices. We could probably squeeze our wallets into making the monthly payment for an equally sized apartment in the city, but anything bigger is almost certainly out of our range.
Stockholm has some of the most lovely and charming early 20th century suburbs that I have ever seen. Although my strongest urge is to move into the city, I would also love to live in one of those national romantic neighborhoods and homes. Sadly, these areas are also way out of our range.
We have also talked about moving further out and buying a house. Out there, we would have more than enough space. We could even potentially rent out the basement as a separate apartment. We wouldn’t have a problem fitting in our storage unit belongings, and we’d even have apple trees and a garden and a porch for summer evening cocktails! Sadly, while most of the areas we can afford are quite ok, they aren’t very inspiring. Lots of housing stock from the 60’s and 70’s, not the loveliest period of design in Stockholm’s history.
Yet another option is to keep our current apartment and to but a country cottage instead. Most likely, this would also involve buying a car, and that would involve paying for a parking space... Even so, you don’t have to get more that 90 minutes out of Stockholm before country cottages become relatively affordable (by Stockholm standards). Out there, we could find something historical and inspiring and lovely and spacious, with a fireplace and a yard and fruit trees and a garden and the potential to cross-country ski out our front door...
We’re just not 100% sure if we’re up to it. Leaving the city most weekends would mean that we would see even fewer of the city’s art exhibitions and spend even less time relaxing in cafes. Having a country cottage would complicate life with owning a car and having to paint the siding every few years and driving in and out of the city all of the time. We’d have to change the car’s tires twice a year and mow the lawn.
Carl would love to find a waterfront country cottage someplace. He grew up on the water and really misses it. I would be content with a forest cottage, or with a view over rolling farm fields, but an island cabin out in the archipelago wouldn’t be amiss. Waterfront cottages approach Stockholm prices, however, so it’s sadly unlikely that we’ll end up buying one.
Right now we’re feeling very torn and confused about all the various ideas and options. As Queen so perfectly said, we want it all. We’d love to live in the vivacious, sophisticated city during the week and have a cute and quiet country cottage for the weekends. Knowing that we can’t have both, it’s hard to choose sides between the city-loving and the countryside-loving parts of ourselves. In the meantime, I am feverishly scanning Sweden’s real estate website, falling in love with every beautiful property that comes along. Eventually, Carl and I will settle into a path that feels right, but for the time being, the possibilities seem so open and endless. It is wonderful to have endless possibilities, but it is also unsettling, because you have to choose. And in choosing, you inevitably close doors, stifling ways of life that could have been.
It wasn’t my intention to end this post on such a dark note, especially considering how excited Carl and I get just thinking about all these options. Figuring out what we want is an overwhelming process, but it is overwhelming in a positive way because the opportunities are so amazing.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2014
Our Favorite Running Loop in Summer |
| Out our door, through a park, and down an allee |
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| Flowerbeds and new apartments being built above an existing shopping center |
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| A relatively new apartment building at the subway stop, continuing down the allee |
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| Huvudsta Palace stables |
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| Huvudsta Palace village and the main palace building |
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| Lots of people out picnicing and playing, goats and sheep in a small petting zoo |
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| Down at the water! Swans, boats, and views over to Kungsholmen |
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| More water views, the water facade of Huvudsta Palace |
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| Boat sheds, more water |
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| Gardening shed, new waterside apartments |
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| New waterside apartments and boardwalk, up from the waterfront |
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| At the top of the stairs |
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| Climbing through the forest away from the water, apartments |
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| New apartments under construction, more flowers |
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| Back through the park, home again |
TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2014
Metric or Imperial Eggs?Eggs come in a bewildering variety of “organic-ness,” and there must be stringent laws about labeling exactly how the hens are treated because each box of eggs has a different combination and permutation of variables listed. There are eggs that come from hens that are allowed to roam freely indoors. There are eggs that come from hens that are allowed to roam freely out-of-doors. There are eggs that come from hens that receive organic feed. There are brown eggs, light brown eggs, white eggs. There are washed eggs and unwashed eggs.
Like most things in Sweden, eggs are staggeringly expensive. I remember a dozen, organic, free-range eggs being about three or four dollars in Texas. Here, it’ll cost you about seven or eight dollars. Yikes! However, the fact that eggs come in differently sized packages makes it a lot harder to compare pricing between all of the various organic combinations.
SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2014
Rotten OnionsOne thing that I have never understood about Swedish grocery stores is why the onion bins are always full of half-rotten onions. Almost all of the onions are squishy or moldy, and you have to root around to find the one onion that hasn’t started to rot.
It’s doubly weird because the rest of the produce section is full of top-notch, beautiful fruits and veggies. During the winter, the selection is definitely limiting, but the produce that is in the shelves is always fresh and colorful and tempting. So why the rotten onions?
SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 2014
MidsommarLast Friday was Midsommar, or as it is known in English, it was the summer solstice. Like most of the Swedish holidays, Midsommar’s roots are pagan. However, unlike all of the other holidays, Midsommar was never successfully Christianized so nowadays there is no attempt to paste a Christian face over the pagan rituals. There are petroglyphs that depict Midsommar celebrations in Scandinavia that date back as early as the Bronze Age, but the rituals probably originate even farther back in time. Historically, the celebration was a fertility ritual, but today, only the symbolism remains. Today, the holiday is mostly a great excuse to skip work, enjoy traditional foods, take advantage of the warm weather outside, spend time with family or friends, and drink snaps. However, despite the fact that the holiday is a bit watered-down these days, the sheer ancientness of the holiday gives me goose bumps and celebrating the holiday makes me feel like I am one link in a timeless chain.
Midsommar is one of Sweden’s most important holidays, second only to Christmas. This is evident with some museums that close only for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Midsommar Eve. Just about everyone in the country celebrates Midsommar—many in the traditional way that I’ll describe below, but many also escape the city and go camping, boating, or to their summer cottage. Talking about what you are going to do and how your Midsommar celebration was is the main fika (coffee break) topic for a week before and after the holiday. Doing nothing is not an option, and there is a social pressure to have the coolest Midsommar plans of everyone at the fika table.
Carl’s sister is in town, and since she has two little kids, the whole family chose to celebrate the holiday in the traditional manner. We have now celebrated three Midsummers in Sweden, and every time we have celebrated in the exact same way. The first activity of the day is to go to the neighborhood celebration. I get the impression that Carl’s parents’ neighborhood celebration is a lot more kid-centric than most celebrations, but I think the premise is pretty similar. First, all the families gather at the park, spread out picnic blankets in a wide circle, and enjoy an afternoon fika together. In the middle of the circle is a huge Midsommarstång or midsummer pole that is completely covered in green vines, branches, and leaves. At the beginning of the celebration, the pole is lying on the ground, but the first organized activity is to lift the pole into place. All the men gather around the pole and lift it into vertical position with the help of long, wooden forks while the women stand around and applaud the masculine efforts. It’s not until the pole is raised that you can really appreciate its true height—at least 40 feet tall, the pole is taller than all of the telephone poles around.
While the pole is being raised, you can finally see the geometry and appreciate the fertility symbolism. It is cross shaped, but two garlands connect the top of the cross to the arms forming an arrow pointing up. A ring of flowers hangs from each of the arms. As it is the men who lift the pole into vertical position, it is pretty easy to understand the fertility symbolism.
After the men have shown off their strong masculinity and thus proved their fertility, it is time for the dancing to begin. Each celebration features a live band that plays the traditional Midsommar dance songs, and the audience gathers in layers of circles around the poles. The songs are really quite strange and don’t really have to do with Midsommar and they definitely make you wonder why such seemingly insubstantial songs are the focus of the year’s second-most important celebration.
For example:
Morsgrisar är vi allihopa,
allihopa, allihopa
Morsgrisar är vi allihopa,
allihopa och ja' me
Ja' me' och du me' och ja' me'
Insipid are we all,
We all, we all
Insipid are we all,
We all, and I’m included
I’m included and you’re included and I’m included.
And:
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Small frogs, small frogs are funny to see
Small frogs, small frogs are funny to see
No ears, no ears, no tails have them.
No ears, no ears, no tails have them.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
(The last 4 lines are just nonsense sounds)
And:
Så går vi runt om en midsommarstång, midsommarstång, midsommarstång,
så går vi runt om en midsommarstång, tidigt på måndagsmorgon.
Så göra vi, när vi tvätta våra kläder, tvätta våra kläder, tvätta våra kläder,
så göra vi, när vi tvätta våra kläder, tidigt på måndagsmorgon.
Tisdag: Så göra vi när vi skölja våra kläder
Onsdag: Så göra vi när vi hänga våra kläder
Torsdag: Så göra vi när vi mangla våra kläder
Fredag: Så göra vi när vi stryka våra kläder
Lördag: Så göra vi när vi skura våra golvet
Söndag: Så göra vi när till kyrkan vi gå
So go we around the midsummer pole, midsummer pole, midsummer pole,
So go we around the midsummer pole, early on Monday morning.
So we do, when we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes,
So we do, when wash our clothes, early on Monday morning.
The pattern continues alternating going around the midsummer pole and doing chores:
Tuesday: So we do, when we rinse our clothes…
Wednesday: So we do, when we hang up our clothes…
Thursday: So we do, when we mangle our clothes…
Friday: So we do, when we iron our clothes…
Saturday: So we do, when we scrub the floor…
Sunday, So we do, when to church we go…
I get the impression that the dancing around the midsommar pole was historically more of a romantic scene than a kid-centric scene. The holiday is, after all, a celebration of fertility, and it’s hard to imagine that hopping like a frog is a good way to find a partner. Slow dancing, on the other hand, seems more appropriate.
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| Zorn's Midsommardans, 1897 |
At the celebration we went to, there were only a few people dressed in the historic costumes, but celebrations in other, more rural regions feature a majority of attendees in folk dress.
Following the pole dancing was game time. At our celebration, it was only the kids who got to participate in yard games like the sack race and the potato-on-spoon race, but I think it would have been far more fun if the adults had been involved, too. Standing around watching kids have fun is really not all that interesting, if you ask me.
The public celebration winds down late in the afternoon, but that’s when the private family dinner begins. After cocktails and appetizers, it was time to dig into the smorgasbord. I believe that our spread was pretty typical with smoked salmon, cured salmon, pickled herring with a cream and caviar sauce, pickled herring in a mustard sauce, pickled herring with juniper berries and onions, meatballs, fried sausages, bread, cheese, salad, radishes (eaten whole like an apple), and dill boiled fresh potatoes. I feel like I’m forgetting about five dishes, so I hope my mother-in-law forgives me. With the meal, you drink beer. The eating and beer sipping is intermittently interrupted with silly songs and followed by shots of snaps. Everyone holds up there shot glasses in an extended toast, sings along, says skål (cheers!), and drinks. Unlike in the US, it is socially acceptable to drink only a sip out of the shot glass and it is ok if the glass of snaps lasts two or three toasts. Otherwise, everyone would be under the table before their second round at the buffet.
It seems that silly songs are a theme of Midsommar, although the same drinking songs get repeated at several holidays throughout the year. A lot of the songs feature puns that are hard to translate, and many of them are about drinking snaps in one way or another. The songs are generally sung to the melody of well-known children’s songs, so they tend to sound alike. Some examples:
Amanda gångar sig ut i lunden
Får se en ko stå bunden
Amanda gångar sig hem igen
Slår upp en nubbe och tommer den
Amanda walks herself out into the grove
Catches sight of a cow that stands tied up
Amanda walks herself home again
Pours a shot and empties then.
And:
Det satt en mås på en klyvarbom
och tom i krävan var kräket.
Tungan lådde vid skepparns gom,
där han satt uti bleket.
Jag vill ha sill hördes måsen rope
och skepparn svarte: Jag vill ha O P
Om blott jag får, om blott jag får.
There sat a seagull on a boom
And empty in the gut was the wretch.
His tongue was pasted to the roof off the seaman’s mouth,
Where he sat out in the glare.
“I will have herring,” the seagull was heard to cry
And the black seaman said “I will have snaps
If wet I get, If wet I get.”
And:
Nu!
Now!
Midsommar desert always consists of strawberries. It might be a strawberry cake, it might be strawberries with ice cream, it might be strawberry pie. I don’t think it really matters as long as the focus is strawberries. And not just any strawberries, but Swedish strawberries. Belgian or Spanish strawberries simply won’t do. This might not seem like such a big deal, but considering the climate, producing ripe strawberries by June 21st is quite a feat and Swedish strawberries are usually at least twice as expensive at this time of year.
Our family celebration petered out around 10pm, but it is quite traditional to party all night. Midsommar is one of the drunkest and therefore most accident-prone days of the year. It’s not too surprising that the party typically continues all night because it doesn’t get dark at this position on the globe. Even though the sun officially sets for a couple of hours at night, it never travels far below the horizon and the three or four hours of “night” are bright enough to read a newspaper without extra lighting. I can tell when it’s getting close to midsommar in Stockholm because it is so bright outside that I don’t think about closing the bedroom curtains before we go to bed.
If you do go to bed on midsommar, you’re supposed to put seven different types of wildflowers under your pillow. If you do so, you’ll dream about the person you’re going to marry. I suppose that that tradition is meant to provide hope for future romance for the unlucky ones who don’t find a partner dancing around the midsommar pole.
The official tourism board of Sweden put out an amazing video called “Midsommar for Dummies.” It is hard to imagine an official American entity publishing such a humorous video that gently pokes fun at Americans and American traditions. I highly recommend watching the video for a quick glimpse into the Swedish sense of humor.
Midsommar Eve is the last public holiday before Christmas Eve. The spring is flooded with holidays, and there is at least one day off every two weeks from the beginning of April to the end of June. It is very typical to take summer vacation during July, but that means no days off all the way from August till the end of December. Kind of depressing!
I also find Midsommar a bit depressing for other reasons. Even though its name is contradictory, Midsommar mentally marks the beginning of the summer season in Sweden. But for me, it the solstice marks the decline of summer. From here until the end of December, it’s just going to get darker and darker and darker. While I love fall and winter, I do get a bit depressed by the lack of sunlight. The continuous light at Midsommar gives me so much energy and makes the days feel so much longer and so much more productive. Midsommar sadly marks the beginning of the end of summer before summer has even had a chance to get started.
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