Let's start with literal news from Sweden. I don't generally follow Swedish news or politics when I'm abroad: as someone said, "Local news is for locals". Instead I try to keep up with the times around me, although this means reading about issues like water conservation or Boulderites wanting to save some species of mouse that no-one ever heard of (or would miss if it went). However, dad recently alerted me to a "political scandal" unfolding back home. Now, if we were talking about an American scandal, it might involve a shady arms deal with some banana republic or visits to houses of ill repute. The French equivalent would probably concern three young women, a top politician and his very irate wife... even if it could be argued that something along those lines wouldn't even make the news in France. In China, a high Party official would likely have swindled away millions of yuan or been responsible for building a factory that collapsed on top of the poor guys working in it. In short, it'd be something juicy and actually scandalous. But not in Sweden: it's a very quiet corner of the world. We don't go to war, we don't impact the world economy much, and our number one export is pop music. The leading moral sentiments are "Don't rock the boat" and paying taxes is "cool". Great place to raise kids, though. So when the shit hits the fan back home, it usually turns out to be neither excrement nor traveling at velocity. The outrage this time concerned the fact that several members of the cabinet had, at some point in their lives, neglected to pay the taxes associated with e.g. people cleaning their house or baby sitting. Yeeeees...? Ask yourself the following: if you ever babysat, did you demand a receipt? If you ever hired a bit of "hemhjälp", did you pay them in cash and forget about it? Jesus, people in the media, get some perspective! There are more important things to worry about, like, say, what color socks you'd like to wear tomorrow. But hey, that's part of the charm of living there: things like this is major news, because nothing really bad ever happens.
Anyway, political rants aside, the number of Scandinavians I meet per week went up 100% just recently. I finally located the mythical Norwegian student that I'd heard rumors of all semester. She turned out to be a bone fide norrbagge, complete with blonde hair and wacky-yet-wonderful modes of speech:
Of course, it's a bit hard to tell about the Norwegians sounding funny just from that picture, but just trust me on this one. They sound just as weird to us as the average Swede sounds to... anybody, I guess. It's just us and the Chinese who have that kind of sing-song language, and you're not likely to confuse the two anytime soon.
As it turned out, Ingrid is a master flutist and plays with the UW Symphony orchestra. I caught their last performance for the semester, and as always, it was pretty impressive. While the Fine Arts building is hardly Royal Albert Hall, it ain't bad:
Speaking of things I miss about places I've lived, one of my great regrets about leaving Australia is not being able to buy Tim-Tams anymore. Every culture has contributed something to the cuisine of the world: the Germans have given us great sausage, the Italians showed the world how to cook pasta and the French, well, they've pretty much supplied the rest. Downunder, they invented the Tim-Tam:
I don't know if it's obvious from the picture, but Tim-Tams are far and away the best cookies ever made. It is literally not possible to stop eating them once you start, and it's a mixed blessing that the packages are so small. On one hand, you always want more - on the other hand, you feel pretty sick after eating about a dozen. It's hard to describe how great the chocolaty, buttery goodness that is the Tim-Tam really is. Sadly the rest of the world doesn't know about them, and in most places you couldn't buy one for any amount of money. So imagine my joy when, at Friday Fika last week, professor Ward had brought two whole packages of the stuff! I couldn't believe my good fortune, and immediately executed the Tim-Tam Slam -- the best possible combination of foodstuff and beverage in the known galaxy. I haven't been so pleasantly surprised in months. She also brought some Vegemite; I stayed well away from that. Aussies make great cookies and decent beer, but trying to sell soy-flavored yeast extract as food for humans is pushing it a bit. I did get to hear the song, though, and that's way better than eating the stuff.
Finally, I ran into something at random: Swedish Fish. Now, you'd think that it'd be sill or surströmming, but it turns out that it's candy. I'm sure you'll recognize it - you can buy it at any supermarket or candy store back home. It's a bit of favorite of mine, actually, but I never imagined that us Swedes were responsible for inventing them. IKEA, sure, I'll take credit for that, but gelatinous candy? Well, why not? It's a damn sight better than most of the stuff they make here. I didn't quite believe it at first, but after checking carefully I found the little notice saying "Made under license from Leaf Sverige AB" (incidentally a major purveyor of snus). Take a close look at the package - can you spot the American addition to the advertising?
