Summertime laziness, I presume.

Since I've come out of the dark ages and use an RSS feed reader to follow the various blogs I like, I've found it easier to include more and more and more blogs and newsfeeds. The reader tracks two of Sweden's biggest newspapers for me, the Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish Daily Blade) and Sydsvenskan (The Southern Swede). Both big newspapers, both on the newsy beat 24/7. So every time I open the feed reader, the count is over 100. 50 or 60 or more of the new, unread items are from the newspapers. And I can't deal. I end up clicking the "mark all as read" button rather than slogging my way through the headlines.

I read Swedish OK. I speak it far better than I write it, but I'd judge myself at about a 4th or 5th grade reading level, whereas my writing looks like a 2nd grader. I'm overly proud, even smug sometimes about my ability to speak it, I haven't had to say, "I don't understand" in a very long time. Conversation is noooo problem. The only way I've managed to retain the Swedish all these years (and the 18th anniversary of the day I left for Sweden was this week, damn, when did that happen?) is because I've worked hard at it. Often. The rise of teh interwebs really helped that, because even back in those dark, early days of the technology, all of the major media jumped right on board and I could look at the newspapers. Sometimes it made me sad to even see Swedish written, because I missed it a lot. And the Swedish newspapers, even the reputable ones, tend toward the tabloid end of things, much like the British press. Three inch tall screaming headlines, sensationalism at its finest. Sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying, always attention-getting.

Anyway. I'm off track. Again.

When I'm speaking Swedish, I understand it with no problem. When I'm reading it, sometimes I have to read it out loud, sounding it out, reading the same sentence 3-4 times before I get a grasp on it. For an avid reader, it is frustrating, to say the least. But this dis-inclination to read the headlines is an odd thing. I changed the language setting on both Facebook and GMail to Swedish, and I'm dealing fine with that. Of course, you're seeing the same thing all the time on both of those, your in-box for e-mail and the list of who has commented on what for Facebook. Whereas the headlines change frequently, so I'd actually have to work at that. Mmm-hmm, I'm calling that. Summer laziness.

Hemlängtan

Swedish -- of course -- for 'homesickness'

How is it possible to be homesick for someplace that isn't your home? I don't know. The way I feel about Sweden is NOT the same way that someone would feel about a favorite vacation spot...like on a bad day, you wish you were there instead of wherever "here" happens to be. No, this is more than that. Sweden isn't my home, and really, I can't honestly say it was my home when I was an exchange student, either. Home then, just as now....Ohio, USA.

I got an e-mail last weekend from a Swede, showing a picture of his new sailboat and his faithful canine companion, a pug, in a harbor near Jonstorp, Skåne. As the picture opened on my browser, it showed the harbor in the background first, and then the boat and puppy appeared. The first house that came clear, a yellow 2-story with what must be a stellar view of the water, hit me like a shot to the gut.

Swedish houses out in the country, summer cottages, usually, or old farmsteads, tend to be one of two colors, red or yellow. A very distinctive red, and a particular shade of yellow. When I was 17, someone in Sweden told me a story of why, exactly, those two shades of those two colors were used, but I don't remember the details. It probably had something to do with class status, once upon a time, nobility vs. non-nobility, but these days, even though Sweden still has both royalty and nobility, they're pretty egalitarian.

That yellow two-story house in the picture my friend sent to me says "SWEDEN!" at the top of its lungs. I can imagine how the place is furnished. Light blonde wood. White walls. Light-colored window coverings. No attached garage. Sparse furniture. The windows have latches that require downward pressure to close. The kitchen is large, but the appliances are small. Everything is orderly. Bookshelves line the walls in every available space, and the books are mingled with small curiosities from all over the world. There's an orange or blue Dala Häst on a shelf, along with a few small pieces of crystal from Orrefors. Every wall has artwork. Family pictures from the recent past are small. Pictures from the early days of photography, or paintings of ancestors are large. Light is abundant, each room has big windows. There is no air conditioning, because until the very recent past, it has not been necessary. (Sweden has felt the realities of global warming.) Rooms that have been redone (at least the bathroom, if not the entire house) have radiant heat in the floors, and you never place a foot on an ice cold floor on chilly mornings. Places near the water, be it the ocean or one of the many inland lakes, have a breeze that cools the house when the windows are open.

I suppose that it is only natural to be thinking a lot more about Sweden than usual, having only recently returned from there. In the normal course of life, I did/do think about Sweden nearly daily, so it isn't that this line of thought is unheard of. I often wish I lived there. I often wish I could spend more time there. I often wish that I could see my host family more frequently, and I don't care which side of the pond that happens. (I've been trying to convince them for years that we should meet up in Florida in the winter, with no success. Of course, they've been trying to get me to Croatia, where they have a second home, for nearly two decades, with no success there, either.)

I wish I could say that I remember what I felt like when I came home from Sweden in 1992, but I can't quantify that other than by saying I was miserable, and an incredible brat to everyone in my life, I do remember that. I had wanted to stay so badly, and Mama wanted me to stay too. She in fact encouraged me to stay after my visa expired, enraging my mother a little. Ooops. At 17, I didn't know how hurtful me saying I didn't want to come back to America was for her. That was never my intention. On the other hand, I know that I could have done much more to attempt to stay, including the very easy step of having a conversation with the immigration authorities, but I never did.

I hate to say this, because it feels fiercely disloyal to the region where I lived as an exchange student, but I thought that Skåne was incredibly beautiful, even prettier in parts than Västmanland is. They're radically different, and so I treasure them each in their own way, but were someone to offer me a choice of job & apartment in Stockholm or Malmö, I'd have a hell of a time picking one over the other. (n.b., we ain't talking about reality here, folks.)

Hemlängtan means literally 'to long for home'. An accurate descriptor of how I feel about Sweden. It is with wistful longing that I look to the north and east, wondering when I will get to go back.

get, acquire, take, recieve

All translations for the Swedish verb "att få". As in to receive a present, be gifted with something, or in the context of illness, to catch something.

I was having a conversation with one of my hosts in Sweden about Sweden and Swedish. (wow, that sounds a weeee confusing. Are ya with me?) We'll call him Per. It was all I could do not to roll around laughing on the floor at this comment of his:

I think you like Sweden.

Hmmm, I wonder what made him think so! The rest of the conversation was also amusing, but more for semantics of grammar than 'funny'. I have to take it in Swedish, then in English for it to make sense.

Per: Du få flytta hit. (You should move here)

Lucy, (through giggles): Gärna! Det finns några problemar med det; jag har ingen jobb, kan inte lasa eller skriva så bra på Svenska.... Willingly! There's only a few problems with that; I don't have a job here, I can't read or write so well in Swedish....

Per: Nejmen entligen. Du skulle trivs har, och vi behover ju folk som ville vara har, och ville jobba. (No, really. You'd do well here, and we need people who want to be here, and want to work.)

Translation is NOT an exact science, and translating directly to English from Swedish can result in errors like this:

"Since five years, I have been working for ABB,"

instead of

"For the last five years, I've worked for ABB."

Yes, I really read that in a Swedish person's English translation of their own bio. Urgh. Doesn't anyone proofread ANYTHING, anywhere in the world? Good to know that the crappy grammar of the common era isn't limited to English. /rant.

So what he said, du få flytta hit, can be translated a few ways.

There, it means 'should', but that's not what he said. By saying it that way, his intention is that Sweden should make it easy for me to move there, that someone should take care of all the logistics and paperwork for me, and hand me a residence permit. The mythical "they" should just handle it.

That'd be nice.

Perhaps the correct comeback would have been "and when do I start working for you?"!

The "Yes, I do TOO speak your language" game.

Oooooh, one of my favorite games to play.

For a reason that is unknown to me, many Swedes that I met in Skåne simply didn't believe that I speak Swedish until they actually heard me talk.  I don't know if there's been a rash of Yankees there that couldn't or wouldn't learn the language, or if they've been told so by their educational system.  We filled out a massive amount of paperwork prior to leaving.  In the space provided for "languages other than English spoken" I wrote Svenska.  I wrote several e-mails in Swedish to various people who contacted me before we got there.  Even after all of that, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the following sentence, I could retire.

Men Gud, du pratar otroligt bra Svenska. 

But, God, you speak unbelievably good Swedish.

I heard it so often that I got tired of hearing it, and had to contain my urge to roll my eyes.  I wanted to say, 'yeah, srsly, it wasn't that hard' or blow them off somehow, but that would be both obnoxiously rude and incorrect.  Learning Swedish WAS hard, took me a long time, and has been a struggle to maintain.  But I got tired of being complimented for something that comes kind of naturally to me, like being complimented on riding a bike well.  It just got ridiculous.  I realize that this is petty and a very inconsiderate attitude.....and that doesn't change it a bit.

Because I got fairly tired of explaining how and why and when I learned Swedish, and how I've managed to keep it up over the past 17 years, sometimes I just didn't bother to inform someone new that I did, in fact, understand everything they were saying.  

We visited a very special secondary school, a high school that is a boarding school for students who want to major in agricultural studies in college.  We were given a warm welcome by the school director, and then spent time with the two sub-school directors, one who dealt with animal husbandry and the other who handled the crops.  The school is huge.  As we were touring campus, we were ferried around by 4 horse-drawn carriages, each driven by a student.  Each time we stopped, two additional students would hop off the carriages, and keep the horses still while we were shown around.  

The two students riding along with me had no idea I spoke Swedish.  I have a hearing problem, and mostly I wasn't listening to their conversation because it was windy and I couldn't hear them.  However, when I heard the words, "han är snygg" (he's cute) I listened a little harder. 

Turns out they were talking about one of my colleagues, another Yankee team member.  

It is possible that we are the only Americans some of these people will ever meet, and I hate for them to have the impression that we're all rude, obnoxious, loud boors.  (See my previous post for further info regarding my opinions on that.)  But I also enjoy tweaking the occasional nose!

As I looked around, a question occured to me.  I saw a parking lot, a small one, and I wondered if students were allowed to have cars at school once they had their drivers' license.  So I asked.  In Swedish.

Both girls blushed a lovely rosy red, having been caught like a kid with their hands in the cookie jar.  They answered, in the negative.  They are not allowed to have cars at school, even after they get the license.  But most students wait to get the license until after graduation anyway, because getting a license in Sweden is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming.  (That's a story for another time.)  They're far away from Mom's (or Dad's) car, and don't have the time.

After they answered my question, they started whispering to one another.  The wind had died down a little and I could hear them if I strained.  The conversation they had after they found out I speak Swedish....well, let's just say it makes me laugh thinking about it.

"Ooh, that's embarrassing," said the blonde one.

"I feel a little dumb," said the brunette.  "Did she tell you she spoke Swedish before we got in the carriage?"

"No," said the blonde.  "I wouldn't have talked about that cute guy if she had, or maybe I would have asked if he has a girlfriend.  Is she Swedish, or is she one of them?"

"I don't know," the brunette said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.  "She doesn't sound American.  Do you want to ask?"

"Absolutely not!" The blonde replied.  "We already look like idiots, let's keep quiet."

I didn't interrupt them, but I was having a hard time contining my giggles, and reining in the few motherly urges I have.  No, he does not have a girlfriend, but he's also much too old for you, young lady!!

I've pulled that trick, explaining only after the fact that I speak Swedish (and even once or twice English) to someone, and it never gets old.  Never, never, never.

Processing...

You know how the computer gets too much information or tries to open too many objects and it tells you "PROCESSING" along with the gif of the hourglass?  That's how I'm feeling; I'm attempting to process everything I've seen and experienced over the past five weeks.  I have no idea where to start to begin telling the story of this journey.  

Fortunately, I kept a journal, and was zealous about writing in it nearly daily.  So if I wanted to, I could detail each day for you.  I think I'll resist that urge, though, and keep it to broad impressions and a few specific stories.

I've been to Sweden four times; as an exchange student in 1991/1992, visits to my host family in 1999 and 2003, and this 5 week visit.  When I was an exchange student, I didn't want to return to America.  It felt like a sentence passed by a stern judge; as punishment for being born in the United States, you must return there.  I have a very hard time being objective about Sweden, and I would still like to live there, very much.  So many things they do make sense and work so well; and yet, for the first time ever while visiting, I could see the cracks on the surface of a not-perfect society.  

Every other time I've been to Sweden, I've been supremely reluctant to leave.  This time, as our departure date approached, I had mixed emotions.  I wanted to come home.  I missed my husband.  I got tired of living out of a suitcase.  I was tired of having my daily schedule set by someone else, and tired of being dependant on someone else to drive.  (The team was not permitted to drive in Sweden.)  I also wanted to stay, as usual.   Nothing new there; what was new was that I thought long and hard about just what, exactly, I would do for a living in Sweden. The short answer to that is: I don't know.  My Swedish Mama would love it if I lived there, and I have an existing network of contacts, too.  That certainly doesn't guarantee employment, however.

Quickly, the big changes that I noticed....

1.  There is more English in the Swedish language.  

When I made this observation, Mama said, "Yeah, and in 30 years, the Swedish language will disappear."   I don't agree with that assessment, but she's partly right.  They don't even realize that they're sprinkling everyday conversation with English words...prime example?  I sat in the terminal at Hven Traffiken, a ferry that runs between Landskrona, Sweden, and the island of Hven.  I was early that day, and waited for the rest of the team inside because it was chilly.  I deliberately eavesdrop when I'm in Sweden; my excuse is that I'm improving my language skills, and even if a conversation is deeply private, the chances of me ever meeting (or hell, even seeing) these people again is nil.  Anyway.   I was eavesdropping on the conversation between the clerk at the ticket window, and a woman inquiring about the schedule of the ferry and ticket pricing.  As the clerk detailed the information the woman answered by saying, "Ja.  Ja.  Javisst.  Yes.  Yes.  Ja.  Ja."  You don't need to speak Swedish to spot the impostors in that phrase.  Responding to a yes-no question by saying "yes-yes" in English isn't uncommon, or even noticed by native speakers.  

When I was an exchange student, it was cool for kids to use bits and pieces of English, but that was something that they did intentionally, for attention.  This is not the same thing, but I guess if you're not observing the phenomenon, it would seem like nothing new.  Whenever I pointed out the increase in the use of English, though, my hosts would say that it was hardly surprising, considering the increase of use of computers, the rise of the Internet, and the rising cooperation between Sweden and Denmark, since the Öresund Bridge opened in the early 2000s.  

2.  The popular game of "Blame the Immigrants" is sadly on the rise.

Sweden accepts refugees from many war-torn regions of the globe, and because the Swedish population is mostly the same ethnicity, foreigners stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.  Being "different" is not desirable.   Sweden is a welfare state; refugees get an enormous amount of help from the government in the form of: providing someplace to live, Swedish as a second language classes for free, money for food, utilities, schooling for their children, and free medical care.  Who wouldn't want to come to Sweden from places like Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia?  But then after opening those doors, the Swedes get vastly annoyed by refugees then bringing their entire extended family into the country, and the fact that many refugees don't work and form expatriate societies.  Shocker, right?  Shell-shocked people from warring countries band together in a foreign country.  Huh.  Whoda thunk it?  This game of blaming immigrants for rising crime and flagging property rates irritates the living hell out of me.  All of your society's ills can not be placed at the feet of a small number of foreigners.  If that is indeed the problem, then to me, it seems that there's quite a simple solution: quit allowing people to immigrate.  Wow.  That was tough.  As an American citizen, I can't just decide that I want to move to Sweden.  I need to a) have a job waiting, b) marry a Swede, or c) have a lot of money.  Believe me, during the Bush administration, I thought often about applying for political asylum, but that really isn't even possible.  If however, I'm fleeing war or political persecution, getting a residence permit in Sweden isn't as hard.  Change those laws, and you solve the problem, right?  I know, it is hardly that simple.

3.  Somewhere, in the last 5 years since I've been there, Sweden completely revamped their postal system, and local post offices are a thing of the past.

IMNSHO, this is BRILLIANT.  The postal system operates sorting facilities, and still employs letter carriers.  But if you want stamps, or to mail a package, they've outsourced that to grocery stores, convenience stores, and lottery outlets.  It is still official Swedish Post; but they slashed operating costs by billions.

I sent postcards home, lots of them.  After we'd been there for a few days, I started looking for a post office, because I needed stamps.  The logo is easy to recognize; a blue horn on a yellow field.  I looked EVERYWHERE.  Finally, out of frustration, I asked one of our drivers if she could help me find a post office.  She looked at me like I had three heads, and then burst out laughing.  "When were you here last?" she asked, still giggling.  

"Five years ago," I said, mystified.  

"Oh, yeah, then you wouldn't know," she told me.  "We lost all the post offices a few years ago.  It was huge news.  You didn't hear about it?  Your family in Kungsör didn't tell you?"

"Um, no...we usually talk family news, births, deaths, weddings..." I trailed off, feeling dumb.  

But that's the truth.  I seldom -if ever- discuss the news in the US or in Sweden when I call them.  So the closure of several thousand post offices was not on my radar.  Once I was clued in, the official retailers were easy to spot...same logo, just smaller, and instead of "Sveriges Post" (Sweden's Mail) the signs said "Post erbjudande" (Postal retailer).

4.  The murder rate, and crime in general, is on the rise.

One of our official visits was to a regional police headquarters, and we met both the regional chief of police and the information officer, i.e., press secretary.  I asked them point-blank what they attribute the rising murder rate to, and they both told me murders are on the decline.  There's just more media attention when someone is murdered.  Riiiiiiiight.  There's a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, too.  I don't think they were lying to me; I think they're lying to themselves.  Statistics can be spun any way the wind blows.  I don't know what the deciding factor in that increase is, but I am very sorry to see it.

5.  In the same vein of things that I'm sorry to see, huge retail outlets on the outskirts of towns are also on the rise.

Think Super-Wal-Mart.  These huge "varuhusar" are something new for me in Sweden; my small Swedish hometown had a town center, and a shopping street closed to vehicle traffic.  Most if not all Swedish cities had the same layout.  Sadly, the big retailers are doing the same thing they've done here in the states:  they're killing the mom-and-pop shops, killing the traditional butchers and cheese shops, along with small and unique stores in very small retail space.

Finally....

6.  The Eurovision Song Contest is still a completely ridiculous circus of insane pageantry and silly music.

And I loved every minute of it.

Over the coming weeks, you'll hear lots more about all of this, I'm sure.  For now, though, I'm processing.

Counting down

I'm leaving the country very soon.  To go where, you ask?  Sweden! I shout.

I haven't written about this to date even though I've known about it since January 4th because I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to explain what I'm doing.  Without talking specifically about my job and where I'm going and why.

I'm not sure that I've figured that out; muddling through as usual.  

I have partly my job to thank for this; and partly the fact that I was an exchange student in high school.  Part of my work takes me to community groups to speak about our product.  My overall field could - -partially - - be explained by one word:  Marketing.

There is one large specific civic organization that I particularly enjoy speaking to, because it gives me a chance to mention my exchange year, and how much it changed my life.

Someone in the audience always, without fail, asks where I went, and if I can still speak the language.  I almost always smart off to them på Svenska as a response, after telling them it was Sweden.

Early in January, I spoke for this group.  About an hour after returning to my office, I got a telephone call from one of the members, asking if I wanted a spot on a team going to Sweden in April/May.  Ha, twist my arm, buddy.  Nooooo.  *eye roll*  

After jumping through a few hoops, and some crazy machinations, I got permission from my employer to do this, to be gone for about 5 weeks.  I still can't believe they said it was OK, that all the relevant details just kind of fell into place.  And there were a lot of them.  Insurance, for one.  My employer provides INCREDIBLE health insurance, but my leave of absence is 5 weeks long, most of it unpaid.  If they're not paying me, then I don't have the insurance benefits.  Hurdle #1.  Hurdle #2 was the whole money issue; unpaid for 5 weeks?  Eeek.  Got around both of those with some time, effort & planning.

Hurdle #3 was just work in general.  How to be gone for so long without causing harm to my employer?  I'm still not sure that's going to work perfectly, but s'OK.  The work will still be waiting when I return.

Times like this, I'm glad that I have OCD.  I make lists, obsessively.  The current to-do list tacked to a magnetic board in my office is 5 pages long.  Probably 2-1/2 pages of the list have a check mark, meaning they're done, next to each item.  Every time I think of something else that needs done, I write it down, no matter where I am or what I'm doing.  It gets added to the master list at the earliest opportunity.  Hopefully, nothing slips through the cracks that way.

So what the heck am I doing in Sweden for 5 weeks?  Um.  Lots?  How to explain without all the gory details?

The trip is a vocational exchange.  That means that I will visit businesses similar to the one that I work for here in the US.  We will visit schools, civic and community organizations, government offices, hospitals, almost any place of business or work that you can think of.  The idea is to see how someone in another country does your job, what challenges they face, how they work around it, what government regulations they have, how they solve problems.

There are many reasons that this is so exciting, but the primary one, for me, is this:

At 16, when I was an exchange student, I thought Sweden was perfect.  Their public schools are in fantastic shape.  Ditto their roads, their cradle-to-grave health care system, their government, their public transportation system, hell, their EVERYTHING.  From the perspective of an unemployed high school student, that is.

What I have come to realize with the passage of time is this; I was NOT a taxpayer, I was NOT a voter, I was NOT a gainfully employed member of society.  I didn't pay bills, or have any responsibilities, and I was 3,000 miles away from my very strict parents.  In my mid-30's, I recognize now that the strict rules of my parents' house did me more good than harm, but at 16, I wanted to be able to do whatever I pleased.  I was a grown-up, after all, of course.  (Somewhere in Florida my mother is rolling her eyes!! {Hi Mom!})

So it will be extraordinarily interesting to see things from an adult perspective, and to learn things that I didn't last time around.  How it all works, and does it all work, if you're out there trying to make a living?

I'm also going to get the chance to visit some Swedish traditional craftspeople, among them weavers of traditional patterns.  I'm so excited about that.  Has nothing to do with what I do for a living, but it is still something that fascinates me.

Finally, I hope to have a chance to see the family that I lived with as a teenager; I am still in close touch with them, and they know I'm coming.  Where I am spending the vocational exchange, though, is about 350 miles south of where I lived as an exchange student, so I won't just be able to pop in to see them whenever I have a minute.  The Swedish spoken in my destination spot is different from what I'm used to, as well; the best example I can come up with is that it would be like dropping an upper-crust Bostonian in the midst of Cajun country; yes, they're speaking the same language, but no, they don't understand one another so well.  My inner language geek is ecstatic, the opportunity to study the differences between regional dialects! The part of me that doesn't like being able to understand the answer when I ask where the bathroom is, on the other hand, abjectly terrified.

During the time that I am away, I sincerely doubt that I will have any time at all to update Well Behaved.  Posts usually take me about an hour to write, and I am given to understand that almost every moment of every day is taken up with something.  We've been told to expect 16-18 hour days, and to sleep whenever and wherever we can, because it will be a mighty precious commodity!  I am not taking my laptop, and therefore internet access will probably be restricted to checking e-mail on my Blackberry.  Mobile blogging is a PITA, so I doubt I'll be doing any of that.

Departure is on April 19th.  Between now and then, I have two major events to cover at work, and countless details to take care of for the trip.  I've already decided what to pack (ha, OCD @ work again, I have a list!) but there are all kinds of things I need to actually gather together and put in suitcases.  I may not be able to write much between now and then.  We come back on May 22, when I'm sure I'll have so many stories to tell that I think it is safe to assume that regular posting will resume then.

In the meantime, Söt om dej, och vi sees/hörs snart!

Take care of yourself, and we'll meet again soon.

 

Connectivity

Teh internets are amazing.

This is hardly news, we all know that.  The depth and breadth of information (and misinformation) out there is astonishing.

I had to write an essay recently, partially about my experiences as an exchange student.  As I strolled down memory lane and looked at the paperwork I still have (among many other things, the letter I received telling me I was accepted into the program) I remembered something long forgotten.

It was Superbowl Sunday in 1991, and all of the potential exchange students were required to attend a meeting at an extension office of a local university, to find out which country we were assigned to.

I found my name on the list, and next to it was the word in all caps: SWEDEN.  My stomach flopped.  What the hell?  Sweden wasn't my first choice.  It wasn't my second or third or fourth, either.  My first choice had been Australia, followed by New Zealand and England.  

In high school, I had ever-so-wisely chosen Latin as my language to study, and many countries (Germany among them) required at least two years' study of the language.  I had been to Spain and France, and didn't really have any desire to spend a year in either place, unless I could specifically choose Paris or a large coastal city in Spain.  The powers that be had told us over and over again that we didn't get to choose a city, so Spain & France weren't even on my list.  

I was afraid to go somewhere that I didn't speak the language, hence the choices of Australia, New Zealand and England.  Sweden had been number six or seven on the list of ten I submitted along with my application.  Denmark and Czechoslovakia had been on that list too, as those are countries where some of my great-grandparents had come from, but I had never - even for a second - entertained the thought that I wouldn't get my first or second choice.

On that day in 1991, here's what I knew about Sweden: my great grandmother Hannah Rebekah had come from there in the early 1900s, and so I was of Swedish decent.  Swedes were blue-eyed blondes.  It had the same climate, roughly, as Alaska.  Stockholm was the capital.  The official language was Swedish.

That's it.

I did not know where in Sweden I was going to go; that information came later.  The Rotarians told us that Sunday that we would probably get a letter from our host-family long before the official paperwork from the Rotary Foundation turned up, and that was true for most of us.

I had made a friend at those Rotary meetings, a guy who was my age, and also going to Sweden.  He called me a few days after that Sunday meeting, and told me he'd gotten a letter from a family in Umeå, a city in the north of the country.  I had, by that time, obtained a map of Sweden, and when my letter turned up, I spent a long time searching that map for the town that it had come from.  

In those pre-internet days, I couldn't just Google "Västmanland Province" and take a peek at what popped up.  I went to the main branch of our local public library and searched some more.  It wasn't until I spoke with my host family via telephone - - over a crackly international line - - that I found out where, approximately, my new home was.

I'm preparing to head back to Sweden soon, and since I don't have a chance to speak Swedish every day, I am spending some time each day reading the headlines on the main Swedish newspaper websites; Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish Daily Blade), Dagens Nyheter (The Daily News), even Google's Swedish News.   

Besides those sources, I can also listen to Swedish radio, twenty-four hours a day, courtesy of the internet, by just going to www.sr.se.  That's the state-run "official" radio, and the options there are dizzying.  Since I am going to visit an area that is geographically quite distant from my Swedish "home", I'm listening to a station from that region, because the accent is quite different, and a little difficult to follow.  It would be roughly akin to a Bostonian trying to understand someone from bayou country in Louisiana; they're speaking the same language, but can barely follow one another.

I'm confident that by the time I get there, I'll have no trouble at all understanding the dialect, although I will probably never be able to pass myself off as a native of that region.

If I was doing this twenty years ago, though, I wouldn't have those avenues of newspaper and radio (and heck, probably TV, too, via YouTube, I just haven't investigated it yet) open to me.  It really fascinates me that the world is so incredibly connected; and yet, I couldn't tell you what my next door neighbor does for a living.

Vär har du varit?

Where have you been?

You might not believe me if I told ya. Here, there, everywhere, back and forth across the entire state of Pennsylvania, twice, as I drove to New York City to visit my sister and home again.


Ahhhh, adventures. This one came about in a random, backwards, hurry-up-and-wait fashion, but I'm so glad I did it.

I sent out a blast e-mail about two weeks ago to inform the world at large that I HAVE A NEW JOB (wooooooot!!!) and my Swedish Mama responded to my 3 paragraph English ramble by saying, "I understand the part that you have a new job, but WTH are you doing? Don't understand the explanation in English."

Of course, I popped an explanation på Svenska right back to her, but she got impatient in the meantime and called me to find out.

We had a lovely chat, and as we were wrapping it up, I said, "Oh, wait, before you go, I saw on Little Swedish Sister's Facebook page that she's coming to New York. When? Where in New York, does she mean New York City?"

Here's the part that irks me ever-so-slightly. BOTH Swedish sisters were headed to New York City, something that they'd planned several months ago and the first I heard about it was about 8 days before they got here. Hello??? New York is roughly 3,000 miles CLOSER to me than Stockholm is. Plus that pesky ocean isn't in the way. I adore my Swedish sisters, and would love any chance to see them, no matter how briefly, and will make every effort to get to wherever they are when they're on American soil, but I do need to know this information in advance.

Anyway. As we say in Swedish, skit samma.

I texted the girls, asking if they'd like to possibly meet up with me and my New York City sister over the weekend they were here, maybe dinner on a Saturday night? A flurry of Swedish texts back and forth followed with answers in the affirmative, plans were made, and I began searching for plane tickets.

There is a small regional airport here in Oh-hia-ia that has two flights a day to NYC, and often, tickets to New York can be had for about $60 each way. *If* you make those plans in advance, that is. I took myself over to the airline's website, and was both astonished and disgusted to discover that my $60 each way tickets balloon to the outrageous price of $234 each way when you want those tickets now, RIGHT NOW. That's just a weee bit beyond my price range, so I searched all the travel websites, from William Shatner's to much more obscure ones, and the bad news was that I couldn't touch a plane ticket to any of the three NYC regional airports for less than about $300. Ouch.

OK, Amtrack, then. I love trains, riding them, listening to them, and I've done the train to Penn Station. It can be fun. Unfortunately, the train tickets were $200, and would have involved a grand total of at least 18 hours transit time for the there-and-back-again journey. Hmm, not so much keen on that.

Driving it was, then. Even with gas at the ricockulous price of $4 a gallon, I could drive there for less than $300, and far quicker than 9 hours each way.

Now, the true dilemma was not getting to New York, nor was it really *IF* I would see my Swedish sisters once there. 'Course I would. The real problem was walking in to a new job on a Monday morning and announcing that you'd like to have Friday off, thankyouverymuch.

*wince*

Now, there are some words that I live by, and I think that Mark Twain was the sayer of these wise words, "When in doubt, tell the truth." But I really wasn't sure how The New Employer was going to react.

Over the course of several interviews to get the job, I had told them a few things that were honest, but not perhaps the best thing to tell a potential employer. Things like, "my family comes first, regardless of what else is going on." and when asked where my creativity comes from, I responded by explaining that I think time off, away from whatever you do for a living, is vital to being able to keep things rolling. The joke is kind of on them here: they hired me ANYWAY, in spite of that.

So in one of my very first ever conversations with my new boss on my first day of the job, I explained the situation, about how close my real sisters and I are, and how I've stayed in close contact with my Swedish family, even though it has been 17 years since I was an exchange student. (*wince* again...has it been that long?) And how NYC is closer than Stockholm.

I was pleasantly surprised when they said, sure, take Friday off. Have fun. Drive carefully. Oh, and take something with our logo on it to give to them, pens or what have you from the supply closet.

Excuse me? What? Could you run that by me again?

Have I mentioned how much I'm hearting this job?

New York was lovely, albeit fucking hot, hot, hot. Hot enough that whatever clothing you put on, it was sweated completely through before you reached the end of the block once outside. I hate the heat.

I managed to spend most of the day Friday with the Swedish girls, Saturday night we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge together (a MUST do, IMHO) and gabbed, gabbed, gabbed in Swedish. Ate 'en massor' of not-good-for-you food, and had a drink or three. I did some touristy things that I don't normally do in New York, which were fun for the sheer fact that I don't normally do them, hanging mostly with my sister and her friends in her Brooklyn neighborhood when I go there.

Now everyone is back in their respective homes, not without a comedy of errors happening along the way. Even though the weekend was hot, Friday evening was fairly cool, and I gave my Big Swedish Sister a shawl to wear to keep warm. Guess where my shawl is now? Stockholm.

I just might have to run over there to retrieve it, ya know?

Tvartom

adjective, Swedish for 'opposite' or 'the other way around'


I'm still pretty bitterly disappointed over the fact that the company down south didn't hire me on the spot. I know, it isn't the end of the world. Here's the thing; in addition to usually taking the path of least resistance throughout most of my life, I've also nearly never wanted for anything. Whatever I want, I've usually gotten. Note that I'm certainly not denying that I'm spoiled; far from it, I am, and I know it. Note too that I'm not suggesting that I've never had to work hard for anything in my life; I have, I do.

But I'm not sure if I've ever wanted anything as badly as I wanted this.

So that's been a pretty bitter pill to swallow, this fact that sure, I'm awesome, but they didn't want me right away. There is still lots of hope that they'll call, and I still have the chance. Patience, however, has never been my strong suit. Waiting 3-4 weeks to see what the final decision will be a bit like lying on a bed of nails for that entire time. Urgh.

Instead of moping and waiting around, though, I'm leaving the small town I call home and heading to visit my sis in New York, an opposite that I enjoy quite a bit. You can't get much more opposite from here than New York. The pulse of the city surrounding me, spending some time with my sis...it is a pretty nice escape.

Perhaps I ought to have titled the post att springa ivag which, of course, means, 'to run away'! Because that's what I'm doing this weekend. Running away from home, running away from the job I dislike, running away and saying "la la la la la, real life, I can't hear you! I refuse to deal with you. LA LA LA LA LA!" But I do like the way tvartom sounds...prettymuch the way it is spelled, TVART-ommm, a fun sounding word.

I'm not taking the computer to New York. Shocking, I know. My sister wants to go shopping; if you knew her in real life, you'd know that the shocker is that she wants to go to Bloomingdales. Seriously. Plus there's about seventeen bajillion other things to do in NYC other than surf.

I fly out at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it.
I'll be back to reality on Monday. Maybe.