More funny food

The name of this candy is "Floppy Scum Dolphins."  All I can say is WOW.

I didn't have the guts to try these...but just to clarify a little, skum here really means "foam," not the type of scum we think of in English as something floating on top of old bathtub water.  Still....no thanks.

Bye bye, American food...

Every time I start to feel like Sweden isn't really that much different from where I grew up (Michigan), all it takes is a quick stroll through the grocery aisles to remind me how far away from home I really am.  While all the trees, fields, barns, and mossy forests might look a lot like the upper Midwest, the food is much different and obviously most American brands of food are nowhere to be found.

Honestly, I'm thankful for this...we eat WAY too much processed crap in America and Swedish food is mostly based on whole, natural ingredients instead of different parts of corn that have gone through five different chemistry labs and processing plants on the way to our stomachs.  The food here is delicious and I can find substitutes for most things that I really miss if I need to.  But, I can't help feeling a little bit of nostalgia in saying goodbye to the food that just isn't sold here:

Root beer is nowhere to be found.  No substitutes either and therefore no cold, frosty root beer floats.  

Yellow mustard is not used here.  There are a lot of different types of mustard (senap), and fancy brown spicy mustards are available, which I like.  But, regular everyday mustard here is weird and sweet and sticky....and everyone will look at you like you're nuts if you put it on a turkey sandwich.  

Chocolate chips are absolutely not available...although there are lots of different types of chocolate and wonderful stuff like Nutella, but no chocolate chips = no chocolate chip cookies.  Boo.

 All brands of American Candy are, you guessed it, apparently only sold in America.  None of our delicious chocolatey peanutty candy bars are here, and Swedish candy is mostly based on gummy, licorice-flavored, half-salty concoctions.  Great for the diet because it's so gross for the tastebuds.

Same goes for all this junk: no Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Fig Newtons, or Nutter Butters.  Anyone else starting to realize how us Americans have become such fat-a$$es?
(***Update*** Just found out that they DO sell Oreos here, they just started last year :)

Cilantro doesn't seem to be grown or used in Sweden.  Can't find it anywhere.

There are a few sad excuses for Mexican food, but as a girl who lived in Guatemala for two years, it doesn't even come close.  They put CUCUMBERS on their "tacos" here.  No, no, no.  And on top of that, no Pacifico (my favorite) beer to wash it down with.

So, that's my food eulogy for the day...there is still plenty of crap food available here in Sweden, and I feel a twinge of shame every time I see my country's wonderful contributions to the world when we drive past the golden arches.  And I'm sure all this junk food tastes much better in my nostalgic mind than it does in real life....in the meantime I'm sure I'll survive on all the fresh and delicious real food here in Sweden.

No running today.

I'm supposed to be running the Stockholm Half-Marathon in one hour.  I was all registered and trained and ready to go, and then what happened last Sunday?  I came down with an evil case of babysittee-kid-acquired flu that hit me like a ton of bricks....fever, sore throat, dizzy, achy...which settled nicely into my respiratory system over the past few days and turned into a hacking cough and runny nose.   I missed the training that I was supposed to finish last weekend so now I think it would be really stupid to attempt running the longest distance of my life.  With the beginning of school it seems like everyone on Värmdö has been coming down with some form of sickness, but I'm still going to try running the half-marathon distance on my own once I'm feeling up to it.

In better news, over the past couple of weeks I began svenska för invändare (Swedish for immigrants, or SFI) classes.  Luckily I tested out after the first week and was moved ahead to svenska som andra språk (Swedish as a second language) which is closer to the junior-high level.  I was glad to skip over SFI as I had heard some horror stories of how painfully slow it could be.  During the week that I was in class we spent a good amount of time being told to sit in the library and quietly "study," with no real structure or lesson plans aside from a few websites with grammar and vocabulary quizzes.  In order to practice speaking Swedish we were told to talk to each other...which felt pretty limited and frustrating, sitting there speaking broken Swedish with other students whose Swedish was even worse than mine.  I can imagine it'd be difficult to teach a group of people from different education levels and backgrounds, and some of the students were really trying hard, but my last straw was the day we were in the computer lab and it took AN HOUR for everyone to correctly login to the computers (after we had just been given our computer logins and passwords earlier in the day).  The teacher even had to say at one point, "Don't click the X at the top of your screen or everything will disappear." Bye bye, SFI!

So, the new classes I'm in are a little faster and the students seem to be more motivated to actually learn.  I'm also taking a high-school level general science course online, which is fun for the science dork in me and great for learning new vocabulary.

Finally, in addition to my part-time babysitting job, I was hired as a modersmål lärare (native language teacher) to teach weekly after-school classes in English.  The Swedish school system provides supplemental education for any kids who speak a language other than Swedish in their homes.  I'll have a group of nine kids aged 6-12 every Wednesday afternoon so it'll be interesting to come up with age-appropriate lessons and activities for them.  Most of the kids were born in Sweden and have one English-speaking parent, so their Swedish is better than their English...hmmm, maybe they should be the ones teaching me?

 

Things I Like About Sweden, Part 2: Everybody Sing!

Since I started visiting Sweden last year and have spent one full and wonderful summer here as a resident, I've been finding more and more overwhelming evidence that Sweden Is Adorable.  One cultural phenomenon that initially felt a little too over-the-top and cheesy when I first witnessed it was the sing-along.  Swedes love to sing, they tend to sing quite well, and they especially like to sing all together in very large groups. 

One of my goals for next summer is to attend the famous Allsång på Skansen, a huge sing-along that started 75 years ago at Stockholm's outdoor park/zoo/cultural museum.  Ten to fifteen THOUSAND people attend this weekly event in the summertime, showing up to wait in line ridiculously early in the morning in order to get a good seat and hopefully get their smiling, singing faces broadcast live to the whole country:
   


Look at these people, standing out in the rain and loving it!  There are a few different live sing-along programs on TV throughout the summer, and they always include the lyrics so everyone at home can watch and sing along.

Not only is the sing-along phenomenon popular in the summertime, but at any social occasion with an excuse to belt out a birthday, wedding, holiday, or drinking song.  When I attended a birthday party earlier this spring I was surprised to find pages of numbered song lyrics at every plate, and all the guests linked arms, swayed back and forth, and cheerfully bellowed out the songs between bites of the meal.  I felt pretty silly at first and I was giggling like crazy, but it was quite honestly a blast.  Later on there was a live band with song quizzes and competitions which was also a lot of fun.

Now I just have to learn all these songs in Swedish....

You Know You've Been In Sweden Too Long When....

I compiled this list of my favorites from a longer list on an expat website...


You know you've been in Sweden too long when:

1. A stranger on the street smiles at you, and you assume (a) he's drunk, (b) he's insane, (c) he's an American, or (d) all of the above.
2. You can pick out the real blondes from the fake blondes.
3. Your coffee consumption exceeds six cups per day and the coffee is too weak if there are less than ten scoops per pot.
4. The first thing you do when entering a bank, post office, drugstore, etc. is to look for the queue number machine, and you accept you'll have to stand in line in order to take a queue number.
5. The reason you take a ferry to Finland is (a) duty-free vodka, (b) duty-free beer, or (c) to party hearty; no need to get off the ferry in Helsinki, just turn around and keep partying all the way back to Sweden.
6. You hear people speaking loudly on the train.  You immediately assume (a) they are drunk, (b) they are Americans, or (c) all of the above.
7. You know how to fix herring 105 different ways.
8. Your front step is beginning to resemble a shoe store.
9. You only have two facial expressions, smiling or blank.
10. You don't find it strange when a couple has been engaged for six years and have no plans to get married.
11. You assume that anyone who apologizes after bumping into you is a tourist.
12. You get into a Mercedes taxi cab and think nothing of it.
13. You think it's normal that EVERYTHING is regulated and you obey the rules voluntarily.
14. Pigs say "nerf, nerf," frogs say, "kvack, kvack," and roosters say, "kuckileku."
15. You can use the words bra, fart, and slut in a sentence without giggling.
16. You refer to weeks by their number.
17. You are no longer surprised when you see topless women, full-frontal male nudity, or hear the word "f*ck" on prime-time television.
18. You think an hour-and-a-half cycle on your machine is a "quick wash."
19. A sharp intake of breath has become part of your vocabulary, as has the word, "Ja haaaa."
20. You use "mmmmm" as a conversation filler.
21. You eat your pancakes and waffles with jam instead of syrup.
22. Silence is fun.
23. Your native language has deteriorated to the point where you begin to "eat medicine," "open the television," "close the lights off," "take a beer," "look upon TV" and tell someone to "follow with me." 
24. You associate pea soup with Thursday.
25. Your idea of nightlife has been reduced to a few teenagers hanging out in front of the railway station on a Friday night.
26. The fact that all the V's and W's are together in the phone book seems okay.
27. You no longer have to search for the flushing mechanism.
28. When you're hungry you can peel a boiled potato like lightning.
29. You accept that 80 degrees C in a sauna is chilly, but 20 degrees C outside is freaking hot.
30. You think that riding a bicycle in the snow is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
31. Someone calls you a "good moron" first thing in the morning and you smile in acknowledgment.
32. You think it's more fun to stay home and drink than to go out.
33. You get extremely annoyed when the bus is two minutes late.
34. Americans start to look entertaining, witty, and fun.
35. You think that if you smoke a joint you will wind up (a) in an insane asylum, (b) as a habitual criminal, or (c) all of the above.
36. Your wardrobe now consists of 20 different shades of black and gray.
37. You think that an unripe tomato wedge on a limp leaf of iceberg lettuce can be called a salad.
38. Seeing a young woman with lit candles stuck to her head no longer disturbs you.
39. You become extremely skilled at assembling pre-packaged furniture kits.
40. You mutter "Oy, oy, oy," to yourself continually even if you are the only one in the room.
41. When someone asks you for "sex," you assume they mean a half-dozen.
42. You would rather squeeze past someone and bump into them in the process instead of saying "Excuse me."
43. You are no longer offended by the fact that you are a Swedish size XL when at home you are a medium.
44. You begin to understand Norwegian and Danish.
45. Someone cuts you off on the freeway and instead of giving them the finger, you simply mumble "eedeeyout" under your breath.
46. You aren't surprised to see children trick-or-treating on Easter, all dressed up as witches.
47. You are concerned when the picture on the front page of the paper is not of some random person watering their garden or of a child holding an animal.
48. Anything really good is "giant good."
49. You eat pizza with a knife and fork.
50. You accept that you pay bills at the post office, pick up packages from the grocery store, and you have to drive 5 miles to find a mailbox to put your outgoing mail in.
51. You know that "religious holiday" means "let's get hammered."
52. Paying $6 for a cup of coffee seems reasonable.
53. "Candles" are a permanent feature on your weekly shopping list.
54. It's your birthday and YOU have to make the cake.