Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Light and the Dark in Sweden

You hear a lot about lightness and darkness in Sweden.

The Dark Side
Swedes grumble about the 18 hours or so of darkness in the heart of winter. I moved to Sweden last November, arriving at the month many Swedes hate the most because Autumn has definitely gone and the December holidays with all their candles and celebrations have not yet arrived.

But you know what? I actually liked the darkness last winter. It seems almost heretical to say it. I marveled that I couldn't even see people's faces when I hurried past on the way to the commuter train in Stockholm. I liked the way you could slip through the shadows. I liked the dark even before I moved to Sweden so I figured that I was strange and also that I was new to the Swedish darkness. I figured the novelty would wear off and I would feel depressed like many Swedes come wintertime.

Only time will tell.

“Early morning Lucia procession in Gustav Vasa church in Stockholm. Lucia is an ancient mythical figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters.” Photo by: Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se


The Light Side
Now, as we just passed Midsummer, the days are as long as they can be. The sun sets around 10:30pm (but it's still light for quite awhile) and rises at 3:30AM. And you know what? I think it's kind of a pain! It's hard to get a room to be reasonably dark (this said by a person without an unlimited budget nor or even much control over the window coverings in my shared apartment). It kind of wears on a person. You feel like you should be doing something because it's light out.

I thought this, too, was heretical thinking in Sweden. I thought you were supposed to LOVE the 18 or 19 ours of light because you were sort of "banking" it for the dark months. But yesterday, two card-carrying swedes where I work said they felt the same way. They both thought that August was a good time to take some vacation because it is still light but the sun goes down at 9pm or so and rises later. This, they thought, was a happy medium between the two extremes of having nearly no light at all or too much light.

Maybe I'm not such a heretic, after all.

“Midsummer is one of Sweden’s most beloved holidays and ever since pagan times Swedes have celebrated the longest day of the year, around the time of the summer solstice.” Photo by Lena Granefelt/imagebank.sweden.se
Speed
A final note about the dark and the light. I was surprised at how quickly things change in Sweden. What I mean is that the transition between the short days to the short nights seems very fast to me--as though it took a week or so. Boom! Suddenly it was light nearly the whole night.

I expect the switch back might be as quick in the Fall.

...Wonder if I'll complain about it. :)


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Signs of Confusion, Part 4

So, here it is...my last post in this series on odd signs (or controls) that I fail to understand in my new life in Sweden. I mentioned the strange controls on my oven earlier. Well, I am also confused by the microwave controls.

I can appreciate, by the way, that they skip having to use written words and in that way people who don't understand the language can still use the device but for me, it would be better to use words. Words, I could look up. But what am I supposed to do with picto-grams or whatever these are?



There are lots of things you can't do on a ladder...


...especially if the ladder is in Sweden, apparently....


 It's a good thing we managed to raise that tent for the Studenten party last week even though we used this ladder. I, myself, climbed this ladder many times and I probably was in violation of most of these "no-no's." Wait, though, I never had one foot on a chimney so that's good...

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Studenten Party

I wrote a previous post about getting ready for my friend's son's Studenten. Gabriel is 19 and just graduated from gymnasium. Nineteen is the average age for finishing the Swedish equivalent of American high school. Except that gymnasium is more specialized in Sweden and students go to a school that specializes in an area the student wants to study, such as computer science or art or English.

We had some crazy weather last week including the coldest June 2nd in 84 years of Swedish weather. But the gods were good and there was no rain last Tuesday, despite the fact that there was a "70% chance" according to Weather Underground.

Gabriel's class came out of graduation which only the students attend at 1:30pm. The families stood outside the building, most waving signs with large pictures of the graduate as a little kid. I know that part of the reason for the signs (which are seen at every school's graduation) is so that the graduate can find his/her family in the crowd but also maybe there is a "awww, cute!" part and a "let's embarrass them" part as well.



Another tradition is that the graduate wears all sorts of revelry around their neck, sort of like Mardi Gras. You can buy all sorts of "necklaces" in many stores at this time of year. The "necklaces" are small stuffed animals, plastic medals, figurines, balloons, candies, and more. Many graduates also ended up with small bouquets hanging from ribbons around their neck.

We expected approximately 80 guests and were not disappointed. My friends live next to the woods and unfortunately Tuesday was the first day I have seen the infamous Swedish mosquitoes this year. They suddenly appeared in droves--I suppose because there were all those victims. Anyway, the use of mosquito spray helped tremendously.

The food was wonderful and all made by hand--no caterers involved. We did have two women washing dishes for several hours which was invaluable because there were very few paper plates, plastic ware, etc. Swedes don't seem to use much of those, at least not at the parties I have been to. I worked my buns off running up and down the stairs, clearing places, restocking. It was really fun and I was glad to be able to do something for my friends after they let me stay so long with them when I first arrived in Sweden seven months ago.

The tables all set to go inside the tent (which was in case of rain). Beautiful!

The party was a huge success. Most people left by midnight but there was a small group that stayed and danced till around 3AM. I was able to see the sun come up at approximately 3:30AM. I am definitely going to have to blog about how light it is all the time at this time of year!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Getting Ready for "Studenten"

"Studenten" is the word used in Sweden for the activities around graduation from high school. There are lots of parties and traditions.

One of the biggest traditions seems to be alcohol-soaked graduates riding through the streets on the back of a truck. Think of migrant workers going to the fields, standing in the back if an open top truck with sides. Only these are privileged kids, whooping and hollering.

I saw my first truckloads of kids last Thursday and Friday in Stockholm. It's suddenly very cold and rainy in Stockholm. The rain isn't so awful but it's really cold! As the trucks rolled past, I was glad not to be freezing my parts off in one of them.

Students in Stockholm, 2010. The sign says "Today blind drunk, tomorrow jobless." Photo by Holger Ellgaard (CC BY 3.0)

My friend, Helen's middle son will celebrate his studenten on Tuesday. Helen and her husband have built a new deck for the party (but also because they have always wanted a deck. This weekend I helped work on the deck and  on raising the tent they will have over it. As I mentioned, it's been unseasonably cold the last few days. The Local reported that "Stockholm broke an 84-year-old cold record on Saturday, [June 2] as the capital's temperature only reached 6 degrees Celsius, the lowest June maximum daily temperature the city has seen since 1928." I was standing in the rain and I thought my fingers were going to fall off, my hands were so cold.

On Sunday, it rained for three minutes every five minutes but at least it was much warmer. Here's a picture of the not-quite-finished deck and the tent which is also not fully up in this photo (for example, one wall of the tent is covering the railing).


On Tuesday, I will watch Helen's son and his whooping classmates come streaming out of the graduation ceremony (which only the students attend, no family--very different than in the US!), then they will do the whole truck party thing, then host the party at is home. Stay tuned for my report on all that...