In line with my food obsession, below is photo of Ameli from the office, eating what is known as a Neger (pronounced nigger) Ball. A chocolate ball covered in coconut flakes or sugar. They are a favourite sweet for children and the name comes from the 1930's. Although trying to be politically correct and now calling them Chocolate Balls, the original name lives on.
A colleague has sent me a list of about 50 points, titled 'You know you've been in Sweden too long when..."
These are the ones I can already associate with:
2.The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is look for the queue number machine.
3.You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.
5.You associate Friday afternoon with a trip to system bolaget. Bottle shop, open from around 9am - 5pm weekdays. It is not possible to get home after a hard day at work and run up to the local to buy a bottle of wine.
6.You think nothing of paying �30 for a bottle of 'cheap' spirits at system bolaget. In my case, around $30 for a Penfolds or Lindemans
9.You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage.
10.It's acceptable to eat lunch at 11.00.
11.Your front door step is beginning to resemble a shoe shop.
12.When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that:
a. he is drunk;
b. he is insane;
c. he is American;
d. he is all of the above.
13.You stay home on Saturday night to watch Bingolotto.It's real! I thought I may have been imagining it
40.When you no longer try to just present your VISA card on its own but in tandem with your obligatory ID card.I have not used my visa here yet as I don't have a personal number, so no-one will accept my credit card and I am therefore a non-person in Sweden
43.When you accept that you will never again wear your beautiful stiletto heels because:
a) there's snow everywhere and even if you did then,
b) you still have to take them off at the door which instantly ruins the hitherto glamorous line of whatever you were wearing as you drop, 4 inches, onto your flat feet in your short and sexy little black dress. Not the same effect at all........!!!
Posted at 1:30 PM
Nothing too exciting going on here, except it is bloody freezing. Problem is that it�s 'only' 10 degrees which is relatively warm compared to the �20 temperatures I�ll be living in in a few months � and I can�t even stand the cold as it is. Met up with a friend of Bec�s, Simon McCarthney on Saturday night and met some work people for drinks then played pool and ate a burger with Mikaela and Gav.
This is Eva Curlisa who works in our department and is married to an Australian called Paul. She calls everyone 'Sweetie' and is a brilliant designer.
The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, and very cold. I went for a walk though to take a look at the Silja Line ship - Silja Serenity - that Mum, Dad and I will be sailing to Finland on. It�s huge and looks quite glam, possibly even Love Boat-ish. It�s a short walk from my place so it'llbe just like in the Castle, walking up the highway with our bags.
Mikaela never goes anywhere without her footspray
James asked me to write about Swedish TV as apparently ABBA�s costume designer is on a Harry�s Practice type show here. I haven�t seen that but I have seen the Bingo Show which is obviously Bingo played on television, and definitely as exciting as it sounds. Also there is a very annoying Swedish TV habit of having a half an hour news program followed by sport in the middle of the evening movie. Last weekend, after watching the marathon and having our steak, I wandered home and settled down in my pj's with my icecream to watch �Seven�, and just as it was getting into it, it was interrupted for the news. And I can�t even understand the news as it�s in Swedish so I usually change the channel, start watching something else and miss the end of the movie.
During summer, it's time for outdoor Friskis & Svetis (it means happy and sweaty or something similar). I had to go just once to experience it and it was fabulous entertainment. I gave up after rolling around on the grass for about 15 minutes.
This is Sanna, also from the Corp Comms department. She works on our internal magazine, Routes (I'm not making that up, one of our in-house IT systems is called Saga) and the intranet.
The other thing that springs to mind is that Channel 10 have lied to us when they said they were broadcasting the complete and uncut Osbourne�s, If you ever wondered why it sometimes looks a little edited � like it did in the ham over the fence at the annoying neighbours episode � it is...it�s because the �c� word is also part of the Osbourne�s basic vocabulary.
Nothing much else going on, Mikeala leaves work at the end of the week so of course I am sad about that, the weather is horrible and I am getting homesick!
Posted at 4:40 AM
Hello from very wintery Stockholm. Apparently this is typical summer weather�overcoat and scarf is required to step outside. So I am waddling around in agony as my legs have all seized up after I walked down a massive rocky mountain in Bergen. A sensible person would have walked up and caught the cable car down, but I decided to do it my way, the stupid way.
Renay has arrived in London and has moved in with a group of Australians who have decorated their front door with Fosters beer cans and the sign �The Castle�. She says although she has received plenty of hassle about the size of her bags she can feel the serenity, and will start digging a hole in the backyard as soon as possible.
My backpacking parents arrive in two weeks�I can�t wait. I think it is going to be hilarious. And we�re off to Helsinki for two days which should be fun.
Finally I have developed my film with pics of my new home�the massive apartment pictured below. It�s pretty nice, just imagine that next to the chest of drawers sits a small single bed. And now the huge TV is where Wayne Lucas and my photos were so there is considerably less space.
Succumbed to another plank with Mikaela and Gav Monday night, accompanied by a quite few shandies�I am trying to bring the shandy to Sweden and I am educating each bar I enter.
Have also thought of a small business I could set up�do you think
people would buy T-shirts from Swedish tourist shops that say �I�ve been to G?stikland�?
Went out last night to a bar called Gondolen that is perched out above the harbour with views of the city�beautiful, but too many wines and ciggies and I sound like a trannie this morning.
The view from my apartament
Will write more later
Yvette
Posted at 1:39 AM
Ooops, seems I stuffed up the last post...I got back to Stockholm last night after meetings in Oslo and a weekend in Bergen, on the Norwegian west coast...more on that later, when I get the photos developed. I can't wait to get my digital camera, it'll make this so much easier. I've now added the photos from the staff party and will post more soon...
Mikko, Helena, Eva and me!
These pics are from from our staff party a few Friday�s ago.It was really well organised � we started off in a boat with champoo and nibbles and were put into teams based on Scandinavian and European countries. We then had to write a team song � I was in the Swedish team with mikaela and our song was to �Waterloo�. When we arrived at the venue we played a few team games, drank wine and beer and then went to dinner. Song lists were on the table and during the meal we sang Swedish songs which obviously put me in the mood for a stage invasion as when the DJ arrived I jumped on stage to give my rendition of Dancing Queen�not that I am actually holding the microphone cord in the photo�quite tragic really, and another habit I must get out of. Needless to say the 100 or so colleagues that were there know me now, although I�m not too sure that I�m seen in a positive way, and I think there will be microphone bans from now on�
The following night I went to Thom�s housewarming party with Mikko. His apartment is very nice and quite large by Swedish standards. The funniest thing is that apartment blocks face each other very closely and a group of us spent half the night in voyeur bliss watching the action in the apartment block across from Tom�s and making up stories and histories for the tenants. It was very entertaining, especially when one of the ladies quickly sneaked to the fridge and ate three icecreams and a bag of lollies while her husband was out of the room�
But drama of course on the way home which involved the Florence Nightingale action that I will write about next time, as well as my night out in Oslo last week with the boys from Logistics...they actually managed to find a karaoke bar in Oslo to take me too and it was a fabulous night!
Below is Gav and I being the Harour Bridge...
Posted at 3:33 AM
Monday, September 09, 2002
Now it's Cheese Doodles...It just gets better and better.
The Corp Comms department took me out for dinner Thursday night to a great Turkish restaurant, and they wouldn�t let me pay, so I decided to introduce them to Friday office drinks in return.
On Friday afternoon I went to the Systembloget (the Swedsh bottle shop which is another story in itself) and bought two bottles of Penfolds red and white, and then went to KonSum, the Coles of Sweden, to buy some nibbles.
When Mikaela suggested Cheese Doodles I nearly hyperventilated�and then I saw the doodles with my own eyes. This beats Plopp, Scum and Gastrikland hands down. Of course I had to buy the doodles, and we had hours of entertainment with them later that afternoon.
The Corp Comms team joined me for a few wines in our lounge area and I think it was a pretty good introduction, with the suggestion from Lena that we continue this every week from now on.
Then Mikaela and I went to meet Gav and drank the biggest glasses of wine I have seen in my life at a bar called Tonic. They filled two red wine glasses to the top for us, it was pretty intimidating but we managed, and Mikaela even drank two of them. We looked at the photos of Mikaela�s new little nephew, Herman, and from Gac�s mountain biking trip to Mount Blanc. Then I caught the train home and went via the shop for a big tub of Movenpick chocolate ice cream. It is divine but I need to get out of this habit.
Saturday I intended to go to Uppsalla, about an hour away from the city, but by the time I�d stuffed around and cleaned the apartment it was too late so I did some shopping and then watched Lleyton get beaten by Andre Agassi before falling to sleep.
Sunday I went to watch my friend Maria Mikko run the Stockholm half marathon. I stood on the bridge in front of the palace and watched the start before heading off to somewhere along the route where I waited for Maria and took a few photos of her at the 17 kilometre mark, before heading down to Gamla Stan where I bumped into Gav and Mikaela and we went for a couple of beers at Flyte � the ferry/pontoon bar, and at an English pub. We sat and watched the last lot of runners coming through, which was pretty sad as the marathon people seemed to have given up on them and had packed up.
That night I met Mikko and Thom and we went for a steak. I told myself I deserved it cause I�d walked for about three hours, however I ended up eating more than Mikko who�d run 20 k�s. Love my steak.
Mikaela has the photos back from the staff party so I�ll put that up in a couple of days, and I�m collecting my film from the photo shop tomorrow. Off to Oslo on Wednesday (I�m flying on September 11 so will be very happy when the plane lands) for two days of meetings and then I�m taking the train to Bergen and staying over night before flying back to Stockholm Sunday night.
Posted at 2:33 AM
Thursday, September 05, 2002
The truth about clothes washing in SwedenTwo weeks after I moved into the apartment I finally received keys to the laundry. Thankfully work had paid for my washing and dry cleaning until then as it�s pretty expensive � two bags of washing and five pieces of dry cleaning cost $120!
First of all, you have to find the shared laundry which standard in all apartment blocks. To get to mine I take the elevator to the basement, unlock the door and turn on the time light. Then down two sets of stairs, two right turns and I�m in the hot, wet, underground, under-basement laundry.
There are two rooms. One is for washing and one is for drying. The drying room is an empty room with a heater where you hang your clothes overnight on a clothesline and turn up the heat. This is what I do as the dryer just turns your clothes into hot wet rags.
In between the two rooms is a metal box with the numbers 1 � 31 listed across the top, and down the side three times, 8.00am � 12.00pm, 12.00pm � 6.00pm and 6.00pm to 10.00pm.
Everyone has a lock and a key and you select the date and time you want to use the laundry at and book it by putting your lock into that slot. No one can use the laundry at the time you have it booked. People have tried and find their half washed laundry strewn around the washroom.
The first time I went to use the washing machines I had had a few beers with Mikaeal and was pretty much looking forward to the novelty of the shared basement laundry. But I found to my dismay that I couldn�t read anything on the machines to tell me how to use them. I didn�t even know which was a washing machine and which was a dryer. So I took the digital camera home and took these photos and then at the Pub Day all the Swedes helped me decipher and gave me advice on which temperature to wash which type of clothes. They use only hot water for washing here so I had visions of shrinking all my clothes. You have to be very careful what temperature you choose, it is a very serious decision.
Anyway, that problem solved and my second attempt with pictures and instructions and it was successful, although it involves a lot of running up and down stirs and in lifts with clothes and washing powders etc.
My usual time is Thursday at 6pm, but tonight we�re going out for a Corp Comms dinner so I�m going to be home on Friday night doing my washing, but I�m not missing much as there�s not really a Friday Night Drink culture here. And I have cable.
Posted at 5:42 AM
Well it�s been an exciting past week so I�ll try to fill in on all the details�last Friday night Mikaela, May Johansson and I went to the ABBA Tribute concert. We had a few drinks in a nice little outdoor bar followed by dinner and of course by the time we finished the second bottle of wine we were late. So we jumped into a taxi and headed off for The Globe � a massive dome shaped arena where all the big concerts and sporting activities are held in Stockholm.
The concert had just started when we got there and I was ready to get up and dance but I left it for a few songs, and then could not wait any longer when Waterloo came on. However, dance problem, as I was the only one on my feet in the whole place. I couldn�t believe it!!! But that didn�t stop me, so I left everyone to their seat dancing and carried on�after intermission and a few beers more people were on their feet to Dionne Warwick and some fantastic Swedish singers and groups.
When we left Mikaela headed home and May and I went down to a bar called Flyte which is on a ferry and the wharf next to it. The lowlight was a 90 year old man giving me his phone number (on a big piece of A4 paper he got from the bar man) and the fun was chatting with the Bulgarian waterpolo team who had come last in the tournament, but were sportsmen all the same. We were drinking Bulgarian beer and I warn everyone against it cause I couldn�t lift my head from the pillow until 3pm the following day due to a massive head ache.
Unfortunatley, around this time the camera also decided to go off on an adventure of it�s own so all the photos from the concert have been lost�
The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet�possible because on the Tuesday before I got cable TV which was such a huge highlight I spent the evening in front of the TV watching Friends, the US Open and the Secret Life of Us (and have invested many hours in it since). I was so excited to see our favourite Aussie TV show and to know that Scandinavia is watching it too. Although it was only up to the episode where Sam is killed and Ritchie is embarking on his new lifestyle it was great to watch a show from home. I�ve since discovered McClouds Daughters on Hallmark, but I can�t stand that show, and All Saints is also on�I didn�t realise that so many of them were shown over here. I�m actually a bit worried about getting the cable cause it�s the first time I�ve ever had it and there�s been more than one occasion I�ve spend hours in front of the TV with a bowl of Movenpick icecream
Did yoga, went shopping, had a relatively calm week I think until Friday night, the night of the WWL staff party where my microphone obsession reared it�s ugly head to the detriment of the eardrums of my colleagues�
And there I�ll end and write more soon
Yvette
Posted at 4:27 AM