Sometimes the Clothes Do Make the Man

In the NUDE, all that is not beautiful is obscene.
Robert Bresson

Um, yeah, gotta agree with that one. There are definite stereotypes regarding the American comfort level with nudity and the European comfort level with nudity. If my gym locker room is the barometer of truth regarding that idea, the arrow is pointing way into the the truth side. I do not have a problem with nudity. It is just, as with everything else, I have strict parameters of people who should actually have the desire to walk around nude. It basically limits that pool of people to about two percent of the population.

In summary, people who shouldn't subject us to their nudity:

1. Anyone over 50

2. Anyone who does not routinely groom their pubic hair. (from my observations at the gym this pretty much leaves most European women out)

3. Anyone whose breasts are at the same level as their knees

4. Anyone who is just badly proportioned

Now, before I get the angry messages and emails, I am not saying anyone fitting the above criteria is less of a person. I am just saying, we need to know our limitations. It is healthy. And it's healthier for my burning eyes.

This morning at the gym was disturbing to say the least. I am pretty much used to turning around to have some woman's unshaved 1970s muff in my face as she reaches to get into her locker over me and the 15 person long line of naked women waiting to get into the showers barely causes me a pause anymore. I am growing. Just like you could count on that one country bumpkin from fly over they used to cast on the Real World every season to do. Today, though, it set me back. Set me way back; far, far, far back.

I am sitting on a step in the locker room eating my granola bar and listening to Von Mises as I do so many mornings, when she comes up. She says something to me in Swedish that I can only vaguely make out as needing to get into her locker that my bag is blocking. Then I make out something she says about a table and I assume she is saying something in reference to me eating on the stoop. Whatever, I think, and I go back to the world of the Lost 17 Years and the Japanese economic condition. Then she starts.

Madly she begins taking off her clothes. She takes out what appears to be a Tupperware kind of container with what looks to be water and a wash cloth. I am really trying hard not to watch but she is a mere three feet from me. Next thing I notice, she has one foot propped up on the bench and she begins dipping the washcloth into the water and washing her, having never seen a razor, crotch. In earnest. It's getting hard to finish the granola bar at this point because the area isn't exactly smelling like roses, if you catch my drift.

As I begin to pack up my stuff, she starts dressing. She gets dressed from the waste up. She's commando from the waste down. She begins assembling what I presume is her breakfast. She's bending and squatting and preparing it all in her little two feet of space. Is she airing out, I wonder? Why doesn't she just put on some frikking underwear, I think as she is squatting down, one knee at ten o'clock the other at about two? I am just thankful she was facing the lockers.

Out comes what appears to be an empty paper towel roll which she has inserted a piece of Tunnbröd, a sort of Swedish flatbread, a bit like a tortilla. Pretty ingenious I think, which led me into wondering if there was a market for some sort of portable plastic Tunnesbröd carrying product I could develop and sell. Then she takes out a, mostly empty, tube of something greyish, brownish and epoxy like. Just nasty. I do not know what it was. Food in a tube is just wrong on a lot of different levels.

Whatever it was, it could have been some cheap caviar product or a flavored cheese, she begins again frantically rolling it like an old toothpaste tube to get the remnants out of it onto her bread. Mind you, she's still wearing nothing from the waste down. And from my vantage, she really is not taking that into consideration.

At this point, as she was getting her rice milk out of the bag, I got up to leave. The show was over, for me anyway. The other girl in the area with a big Australian flag towel covering her body as she applied her mascara, looked through the mirror at me as we both rolled our eyes in a knowing kinship of shared understanding.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Movies and Flowers

Since I spend a healthy portion of my writing railing on (and on and on and on) about how expensive everything is in Sweden, I figured I would rack my brain and give a few examples of things that are actually a good value here. It is true that things are commonly two times, but often three, four or more times, as costly than in the States but occasionally there is a rare something that is not.

Not to fear, we have our own set of economic illiterates in charge hoping to destroy our standard of living as well. They are doing a might good job of it too, I might add.

So, here we go:

Dried Spices: For whatever reason, you can buy just about any dried spice for about the equivalent of two dollars. It is, many times, twice that in the US.

Fresh Herbs: Ditto. And they come in little pots so I guess if you are the green thumbed kind of sort you can "grow" them. Having a black thumb, I have never actually had any success with this endeavor.

Fresh Flowers: You can buy a gorgeous, big bouquet of fresh flowers for the equivalent of ten dollars. Even less sometimes. I shudder to think what they would cost in the US. Generally, a half dead bouquet of varying degrees of not so pretty flowers from the grocery store will run you $10.

Movie Rentals: You can rent 3 new releases for about the equivalent of $12. I think they average around $5 a rental in the US.

Bear in mind, I am basing this on my rate of 7.9SEK to the dollar. The currencies are doing a bit of jostling at the moment in favor of the US dollar as the Euro heads into the abyss, hopefully not taking the Swedish Krona with it.

Fabulous and Poor

Looking forward to a March ski trip to Klappen it dawned on me that none of us have any ski clothes. Faced with the idea of buying new ski clothes, that I'll likely use once or twice, at Swedish prices I was less enthused. Ironically, the quarterly newsletter I received from our relocation service had an ad for a second hand winter sports apparel shop.

I would have never found it left to my own devices. I had already asked the good folks at thelocal.se if they knew of any place and this store was not among the places they told me about. That was probably owing to the fact that it only recently opened for business in October. It is a little, really little, out of the way shop located on an off street in Kungsholmen. (Bergsgatan 18, tbana/Radhuset). In there you'll find everything you could need for skiing or snowboarding, quality stuff and only in good conditions, at relatively decent prices. For the price of one new pair of ski pants, I got three.

It is called Fabulous and Poor. You can visit their website at www.fabulousandpoor.com. Cash only, no debit or credit cards.

Jag lärde mig engelska från TV

The Swedes speak excellent English. Occasionally you might run into someone who has a really limited ability but they are few and far between. I had always assumed they learned it in school. But that still left me wondering how they got so fluent.

The answer I always get is - television. Swedish TV, like most other foreign countries, is many times bought from the American market. However, what is different, unlike other countries, they do not overdub the voices in Swedish. They leave the original audio and have Swedish subtitles.

That, mixed with the English they do learn in their studies, makes them have incredible fluency with the language. Typically they can move in and out of languages with ease. Signs and advertisements are commonly in English to the point where there has been some talk at the legislative level of limiting the amount of English used in that capacity.

I have also learned a few things about the Swedish dialects. Some Swedes, when you speak with them, will do a sort of, unnerving at first, "sharp intake of air" (as it is described). Almost the noise you might make when you see someone get hurt or watch something unpleasant. Typically, it is a gesture of agreement. A strange sort of "yes, aha, I see".

Some Swedes tell me this is a red neck trait. Which is funny because many of the people I hear do it are not anywhere in the realm of red-neckdom. I have noticed, though, someone may not do it when you initially speak to them but as they grow more comfortable with you it will begin to assert itself into the conversation.

I have also noticed it is habit forming. Sometimes, I must admit, my kids and I imitate it and it takes us a while to stop.

Additionally, I have learned that the more desirable accent to have is what has been described to me as a more southernly accent. I should preface this by saying I find Swedish to be a nice sounding language for the most part. Except for this accent. It is a throaty, maybe Pee Wee Herman sounding...oh, I'd go so far as to say Julia Child's sounding kind of thing. It is really not attractive. I am told it is some remnant of Danish which travelled northward and into the Swedish language.

I am still learning Swedish, at a snails pace because the urgency is not there. When I lived in Bremen, you either asked for it in German or you did not get it. Sink or swim language training, more efficient than Rosetta Stone.

The Sun Always Shines on TV, When it's Working.

My cable is out. It went out last Tuesday, the fourth. Initially, it was the internet and the TV but now it appears to only be the TV. Let me preface this by saying it was just a short time ago brought to my attention that the cable company recently went into private ownership and was previously a state run entity. With that knowledge, I went into this with low expectations. I was not disappointed.

First call to the cable company on Wednesday where I explained that my cable was out for both TV and the internet. I went through the obligatory restarting and re-plugging to no avail. The technician scheduled a maintenance call for sometime in the next few days.

I wait until Monday, I call back and ask if my maintenance call is still scheduled after receiving a vague email that they had tried to call me and, no worries, they could see everything was working fine. The guy on the phone could not find a technician scheduled for me. I guess because it had been cancelled by whomever emailed me to tell me, "no worries, everything is good".

This time the technician tells me he will schedule a time to come out and that they will call first to get my door codes. Why suddenly a time has to be scheduled, I have not a clue. Yet, another phantom phone call. The date they can come is not until the 22nd. That was ten days away. For real? I tried to explain it was unreasonable to wait what would amount to three weeks to have my stuff fixed. It fell on deaf ears. It was the way it was. Ten days.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. There was none, you had to email. I sent an email. Crickets. Ah, state run enterpises -- the gift that keeps giving. Sort of like Jason, you think it's been killed dead but the mentality lives on.

Miraculously, the internet is back up. The TV, not so much. I don't really watch TV so it's not much of a big deal other than the principle. Except those 6 hours of The Hills I caught on the local channels last Sunday. Ugh, that Spencer...he is so diabolical.

Deadly Swedish Roof Tops

Seek and you shall find. Answers to your queries, that is. Icy Swedish rooftops could be deadly

Snowy Cultural Nuances

Interesting that they do not shovel snow off the sidewalks in Stockholm when it snows. It has been snowing here for weeks I presume. It was snowing before I left for the states and the snow was still going strong upon my return. Sure, with lapses in between but the temperature has been below freezing the whole time which has allowed for the accumulation a of fair amount of snow. Not shoveling the sidewalks has left mini-icebergs of varying heights all over the sidewalks, some five or six inches high.

I guess the lack of ambulance chasers will leave the business owners a little more ambivalent about the idea of someone breaking their necks outside of their establishments but even and still, just shovel the 10 foot by 6 foot area outside of your store, already. I contrast that with my German neighbors whom I would routinely catch with buckets full of bleach water and scrub brushes scrubbing off their front steps. So, yeah, I couldn't picture them allowing ice, sand, snow and cigarettes accumulating at their stoops. Sometimes living in a litigious society has it's benefits.

Even stranger, I keep seeing people shoveling snow off the roof tops. I was walking along yesterday as an avalanche of powdery white snow came flying off the roof ahead of me. Later that day I saw the same scene coming from the roof of a different building. A middle aged Swedish dad had stopped with his two toddlers to witness the spectacle. I stopped and asked just why they were shoveling snow off the roof tops. I thought it unusual that they'd go to all the trouble to shove it from the roof tops as it accumulates on the streets below. His response was that it clogged the drain pipes. Further proof that you do indeed learn something new everyday.

Knowing a little more about the snowy weather than I would ever care to have to recollect, I do know salt is by far the best antidote for road or walkway slipperiness after a snowfall. The dirt thing, not so much. I gather it is some environmental concern why they do not use salt though I can not really say for sure. Why use what works seems to be the mantra of policy makers in modern times.

Although, the oddest thing I have seen relating to the snowy weather was walking into the entrance of the grocery store yesterday. It's a rather large store with a large brick face opening to an industrial sort of building. I believe it used to be an old train station. As I walked up the ramp to the entrance I noticed, strangely, no snow or ice but water and hot steam simmering up from the ground. I looked up to see boiling hot water streaming down from above the entrance way. I don't mean misters or some organized method of dispersing water I mean water haphazardly flying out of some sort of hose and lots of it.

I looked around thinking clearly something was wrong. A pipe had burst...something. I peeked in; the store appeared open. I carefully maneuvered my way in through the about seven inches of clear area through the hot shower coming from above. Pools of hot water lay in the walkway. About an hour later, I came out through the same small dry space, water still raging from above. I guess you just have to file this one under "shit you just can not make up". I will also file it under reasons why it's a good thing we'll never be as cultured and civilized as the Europeans. (;