It's the little things that do it

Sometimes, differences between places or people are huge and obvious. One difference between Swedes and Americans, for instance, is that many Americans are both huge and obvious. What separates the spruce woods of Sweden from the jungles of northern Australia isn't that hard to figure out either, especially if your air conditioner breaks down. But sometimes, you have to spot the little incongruencies between places to appreciate just why something feels a bit strange.

For instance, take skiing in Colorado. I went down to Steamboat Springs a few weeks ago with Sage, an undergrad in the lab. Don't let the "undergrad" thing fool you: he has a good five years and two kids on me. As we drove down, I noticed one of those little things. The "farmland" that we passed between two mountain ranges was... dry as bone. Any spot that flat in Sweden has most assuredly been farmed for the last 500 years or so, and is probably located in Skåne anyway. But up above 7000 feet, which is higher than any point in Sweden including the top of Kebnekaise, flatness just guarantees a lot of wind. Sage guessed that they might be able to grow alfalfa there, but he sounded doubtful -- mostly they grow cows.

Aside from agricultural concerns, the Colorado mountains are absolutely beautiful. The dramatic terrain, comfortably familiar pine forests and endless views of snow-capped peaks deliver a whole bunch of "Woah..." moments as you stop during between ski runs. Wyoming can be a bit bleak during winter, because it's mostly flat and brown, and my last post demonstrated what Sweden looks like this time of year, so going up to the mountains was a breather for the soul. After just one visit, I'm seriously considering moving there. I wish I could show you some pictures, but in my haste to get out of the house (at 6 AM!) I forgot to bring the camera. Check out Flickr's Colorado pictures for a glimpse of what it might look like.

Now, the little detail that makes all the difference between Steamboat and a place like Sälen is spelled "P-O-W-D-E-R". Not only do these mountains get obscence amounts of snow -- 22 feet fell between Christmas and Jan 14 -- but by some bizarre twist of fate and meterology it tends to come down as a very fine powder. Even though we came in several days after the last heavy precipitation, we could still frolic in knee-deep "pow" and wipe out (while giggling, I might add) into huge piles of the soft white stuff. If you went off into the forest you could find lots of medium-difficulty tree runs: exciting enough to be interesting, with lots of untouched terrain, but enough space between the trees that you didn't actually crack your skull open every five feet. Even the blue runs were moderately amusing due to the sheer amount of snow. We only stopped when our legs were giving out and the sun was going down. It was easily the best day I've had skiing in the last five years, if not ten, and I'm definitely going back... but not too soon. The cost of a day pass is nothing short of highway robbery, and if you're renting skis your wallet will be bleeding green at an alarming rate. This time, though, it was way worth it.

Sticking with the theme of skiing, Joe (of transvestite Halloween fame) lured me out into the cross country tracks this weekend. I'd planned on climbing, but since the wall was only open during The Big Game (Superbowl XLII) that wasn't happening. Going up to Happy Jack and logging a few miles would at least get me out into nature, so I jumped on the chance. In the last few years I've only stood on skinny cross country skis twice, so I was somewhat hesitant to strap them on. But again, the little things come into play. My normal mode of cross country skiing involves bamboo poles, four feet of fresh snow and a pair of skis that are effectively very long snow shoes. The Swedish Army came up with an excellent design sometime in the early 1900's, but I'm not sure that Vita Blixten (lit. "White Lightning") really lives up to its name. For one, I've never actually been able to glide while wearing them, and the fact that you lubricate them using tar and a blowtorch gives you an idea of how well they perform. In comparison, Joe's skis really were "little things". However, my initial skepticism quickly melted when I discovered that you can go reasonably fast without risking a heart attack if your skis weigh less than 2 kgs a piece. In fact, I had a really good time up there, and somehow Joe talked me into actually doing a race next weekend. Fortunately, I have access to a secret weapon -- spandex! I'll no doubt be absolutely invincible:



Finally, a series of little events recently alerted me to the fact that the brainwashing is taking hold. "Brainwashed?", you ask. "Certainly", I reply. If you're in a math-heavy part of the sciences (like engineering), a brutal regime of calculus, algebra and statistics will ensure that you never look at any value statement without going "Where are the numbers to back that up, and are they significant?". For those of you not in the know, I have a Masters in Bioengineering -- in other words the decay began long ago. Grad school, then, is designed to further enhance the indoctrination to the point where you not only ask for statistically significant results, but also start to question the motives, methods and general sanity of whoever did the experiments. They call this "critical thinking", and it is one of the key ideas behind the curriculum in much upper-level education in the US (and probably elsewhere as well). Working on lab stuff 12 hours a day doesn't exactly help your attachment to The Real World either, and before you know it you'll be busting your gut laughing at stuff like ballads about thermocyclers. And even as I cracked the joke in lab meeting about the Kitlg gene causing pleiotropic effects like increased pants length, I knew I was going overboard. If you even know what a "thermocycler" or a "pleiotropic effect" is, you might be in danger yourself. But as luck would have it, some things still keep my mind from floating off into space -- cooking and good friends, for instance. Below you can see an attempt at the former, and two of the latter. Joe certainly does look better with his clothes on, and I'm sure Johnny wouldn't be caught dead without them:

Life in shades of grey

There are many things that you tend to forget when you've been away from a place long enough -- particularly those that you took for granted while you were there. They're not always good things, and this can make for a tricky homecoming.

For instance, I'd repressed the memory of winter in Sweden being an almost entirely monochromatic affair. The snow on the ground is a brilliant white, the sky is always grey and overcast, and the almost infinite expanse of spruce forest fades from dark green into black. It's a peculiar kind of beauty, and one that often seems more depressing than not:

The other thing that strikes you like a bowling ball to the back of the skull is the darkness. I'm currently up in Umeå, which is on the same latitude as Nome, Alaska -- not that very far from the Arctic Circle. At best, days are about five hours long this time of year, and the semi-permanent cloud cover ensures that you won't see the sun in any case. I remember spending weeks waiting for the damn thing to pop out for a few hours when I was living up here. But this wasn't a serious problem: as darkness gradually enveloped the land through the Fall, you kind of got used to it. This time, though, it hit me right in the face. I can honestly say that a day hasn't gone by in Laramie when I haven't seen the sun at least for a brief moment, and a typical day offers up to ten hours of blinding glare. The net effect of the transition is best likened to a descent into Hades, and I have a sneaking feeling that Seasonal Affective Disorder is in the woodwork (the acronym is quite appropriate). Suddenly, I recall some of the reasons why I left Sweden in the first place.

But all is not doom and gloom. I had very Merry and relaxing Christmas, a pleasant New Year's Eve and right now I'm visting with family up north. I've spent my days gorging on filmjölk, lingonberry jam, left-overs from the huge and traditional Christmas Eve dinner (many, many parts of pig) and all the other Swedish goodies that cannot be bought for money, love or the blood of my firstborn over in the US. Some of my old friends I've caught up with, some I'll see soon, and some I won't be seeing until next year (bummer!). Even with the hop over the Atlantic behind me, my buddies from not-so-way-back have spread out enough over Sweden/Europe that I'd need a private jet to see all of them. But hey, once that Nobel Prize lands in my pocket...

There are a few other cultural things that are easier to spot when you don't live in the middle of them. One is the way everybody looks around here. I'm not talking about the beautiful Swedish women (they're kind of a given); it's more of a fashion thing. Swedes are, by and large, quite well-dressed and stylish. I've heard comments from exchange students about feeling slightly intimidated by all these chic people, and I certainly remember thinking that Americans dress like slobs when I first came over. The latter is true, of course, and it only serves to highlight the difference. But once you get past the surprised stage and look beneath the surface, you'll soon find that everyone sports the same style. I'm guessing most people shop at some combination of H&M, Dressman, Lindex and so forth, and while the clothes are certainly well made and expensive, they do tend toward a certain uniformity. If you're even slightly aware of what the High Lords of Fashion dictacte this year, you can spot a Swede a mile away. The tight jeans/leggings, the faux-eighties sneakers and the short-ish tunic gives them away every time:


Another vast difference between Sweden and the US is the sad fact that Swedes are, on average, a dour fucking bunch of people. I mean, say what you will about Americans (and there's certainly a lot to say!), but at least they talk to you. It's often superficial and glib, but it is conversation. Around here, though, people pretty much shut up. The nine-hour bus ride I took to get here included probably half an hour of talking, tops, and that was between husband and wife playing cards! The rest us did what Swedes always do in these situations: spread out as much as humanly possible and avoided eye contact at all costs. This does make sleeping a lot easier, but come on, would one little word hurt? But the habit is deeply rooted. Just consider the Swedish word for "small talk": "kallprat". Literally, "cold talk". Ergo, not something you would engage in unless forced to.

The same goes for interactions in e.g. retail or beaurocracy. "Service", a well-developed concept in some countries, is not in evidence beneath the Swedish sky. No "How are you?", "Can I help you?" or even a "Thank you!" when you hand the cash over. This probably boils down to the absence of tips around here: the minimum wage is astronomically higher than in a hard-core capitalist economy, and hence there's no particular incentive to provide special service to anyone. It is a commendable state of affairs for society in general -- waitresses suffer way less here than elsewhere -- but not that great for the customer. And yes, I do know that any warmth and attention you get from a half-decent waiter in the US is as fake as a North Face jacket from Bangkok, but I don't care. I'll take fake politeness over real indifference any day of the week, especially for 30-second interactions that have little or no relation to the rest of my social life.

With that rant, I think I've said enough. I'm even getting myself depressed at this point, so I'll go enjoy some of the things that Sweden and no other place offers: tasty lösgodis, great coffee and the company of my dear grandparents. It's pity Christmas comes only once a year...

The long and winding road

While I don't especially care for the Beatles' final album (they pretty much lost it sometime shortly after Sergeant Pepper, I figure), the song title does seem appropriate. I'm penning -- well, keyboarding -- this at Denver International Airport, where I've been for about five hours now. "What, is he stuck in a blizzard? Or did Lotta just have an unwholesome influence on his sense of timing back in London?", you ask. No, no, nothing that bad. While the snow has been coming down for an hour or two, it looks like DIA can handle it. A good thing, too, with half of the US population travelling today. No, I'm simply a victim of the complete absence of public transport in the West. Laramie sports exactly two ways of leaving town: driving or flying. Flying from Laramie to Denver is a fast, stupid and expensive option, and I don't own a car, so this means I'm at the mercy of the circumstances when it comes to going to the airport. The good news were that I was able to catch a lift with my last advisor Alex and his lovely wife Amy. The bad news were that they left town at 7.30 AM this morning. The very bad news are that my flight doesn't leave until 5.30 PM tonight. So I began my already extended journey -- 13 hours of flights plus waiting time -- by... doing nothing for about eight hours. Granted, it's been better than expected: I haven't really gotten very bored, had some good coffee, seen some funny people, and I found free Internet. Props to DIA: most airports don't provide free WiFi, and some only install those bogus kiosks where you pay $500 an hour to surf at modem speeds. All in all, not bad so far.

It's probably superflous to mention it, but I've now finished my first semester (of up to 12) at UWyo. It went fairly well, although the amount of work involved was surprisingly high. I'm fine with spending long hours in the lab -- after all, I'm slaving away for my own greater glory -- but this whole schtick with taking several classes at once and trying to get some science done has been mildly frustrating. As you Swedes know, university back home involves taking one class at a time, and then an exam every 5/10/20 weeks that determines your grade. This suited me extremely well, since I have all the multitasking powers of the average male (can only just walk and chew gum at the same time) and a penchant for concentrating 'til my eyes pop out. Juggling several different classes at once (with associated homework) kind of caught me by surprise and smacked me one upside the head. However, recalling Clint Eastwood's immortal words in "Heartbreak Ridge", I improvised, I adapted, and I overcame. Can't wait for these classes to be over, though, so I can concentrate on what's actually important.

Now, my next line here was going to be something derogatory about Americans and their horrendous Christmas decorations. Every passing year seems to up the stakes and increase the number of lightbulbs employed. I'd even formulated a plan to go out and take some pictures of the worst offenders around Laramie, and gleefully demonstrate the folly of having e.g. a purple glow-in-the-dark Christmas tree. Unfortunately for me, the residents of Laramie turned out to be quite restrained in their choice of cheerful lighting. The ugliest thing I've seen all month was a raindeer that used some blue lighting to indicate a harness or something, and I kind of liked that one. The best I can do is to give you a hint of how bad it could have been.

In closing, I'll comment on something that does feel truly bizarre over here. Just the fact that there is a "Department of Homeland Security" is a sure indicator that something has gone wrong (Departments of Correct Thinking and Random Torture, respectively, are sure to follow) in Western Wonderland. And the constant speaker announcements here at the airport don't help. "The Deparment of Homeland Security Theat Condition Level has been raised to Orange. Please be vigilant of any suspicious behavior and report unattended luggage immediately to the authorities [...]" If this was followed by "Anyone caught thinking seditious thoughts will be tasered and immediately transported to Guantanamo for several years of electrocution and waterboarding. Have nice day!", I wouldn't be surprised in the least. In some respects, Sweden definitely has an edge of the US. Shit, even Osama likes us...

The season of waiting

"Advent", I'm told, originally meant "the season of waiting". From a religious standpoint, it denotes the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. It's a major secular celebration in Sweden, probably due to a desperate need for some light in the darkness. The beginning of winter has a tendency to be extremely sunless in Sweden: whether due to the overcast skies or the four hour days, or some combination of the two, it's equally dreaded by all. Trips to e.g. southern Spain are usually employed to stave of depression, but for those left at home, the adventsljusstake will have to do before Yuletide rescues them from the gloom:


To my very great surprise, I will actually end up celebrating an almost full-blown Advent this year. Not only did my church send me an adventskalender in the mail (although in all honesty, it's a little booklet of prayers, not a proper calendar), they also thoughtfully arranged to have a special Advent service this Sunday morning, complete with lighting the first candle! Granted, they've turned the traditionally box-shaped candle holder into a wreath, which is filled with spruce branches instead of moss, but they're on the right track. And when the organist played the first couple of notes of the old Swedish hymn "Bered en väg för herran", I couldn't suppress a peal of delighted laughter. The words were all wrong in the English hymnal, of course, but it did send me right back to third grade music lessons, and I gave it my tone-deaf all.

I'll also have the oppurtunity to celebrate Lucia in a few weeks. Another quaint Swedish custom - this saint's day is only celebrated in Scandinavia and few other places - that has little to do with religion these days. One of the few other full-blooded Swedes in town (there were three at least count) is hosting a Lucia get-together at her house. She did warn me about all the other attendees being thirty-something moms and their kids, but I'll be damned if that keeps me from glögg (genuine product of IKEA!) and lussekatter.

From an American perspective, the holiday season has officially started. Tasteless Christmas decorations are going up everywhere, endless jingle-bells are heard in the stores, and many people have already finished their Christmas shopping. To top it off, winter finally gave it a good go:


Apparently King Frost, whose bark has so far been worse than his bite, decided that even all this talk of global warming isn't going to delay things any more. Temperatures promptly descended to 0 Fahrenheit or so, and it's been snowing off and on lately. It doesn't seem to amount to more than a few inches at a time, but these things do add up eventually. Or blow up, rather: the wind scours the ground of snow in some places, and piles it in foot-deep drifts elsewhere. Makes for tricky biking, I can tell you that much. Sometimes it's like being up on kalfjället (above the Swedish treeline) - the wind has unhindered access to you, and while the snow isn't coming from the sky, it sure is howling horizontally straight into your face. I can see now that I'm going to be in great cardio shape by the time Spring rolls around. But every so often the wind stops, and campus turns out to be quite lovely in winter:






Of course, for Americans the holidays are kicked off by Thanksgiving, not some odd candle-lighting ceremonies. As far as I can tell, it's the American equivalent of Swedish Christmas: no real religious connection, enough food to kill a grown man, a time to see your relatives, and general conviviality in the winter darkness. This year I had the good luck and supreme pleasure of being invited to the Wards for Thanksgiving dinner. I'll be doing a rotation in Naomi's (the woman with the Tim-Tams, remember?) lab after Christmas, and she graciously invited some current and future students (me and the Russian girls) that didn't really have anyone to celebrate with. And woah Nelly, was it a nice evening! The beer was both good and plentiful, the company interesting and funny, and the food... Oh dear. As it turns out, Naomi's husband Bryce was a professional cook some years ago. This left him with an impressive (and scary!) collection of knives, a penchant for large kitchens and what can only be described as a genius for cooking. I make a point of preparing good food myself, but I couldn't have pulled that meal off under gunpoint. Just the fact that the turkey stuffing was based on four sticks of butter, ten cloves of garlic, one bottle of Merlot and a bunch of green chili peppers speaks volumes. I don't think I've eaten quite so well (or quite so much!) in months and months. I gladly work for food, and that meal alone would've paid for my services for several weeks. As I biked home in the blistering cold, pleasantly drunk, I decided that I could easily get used to this whole Thanksgiving thing. And indeed, good times were had by all:


As for the climbing season, it's pretty much over. Most of my partners labor under the misconception that you can't climb when it's freezing and snowy outside - laughably wrong, of course - and combined with yet another annoying injury (three blown-out ligaments and counting), it has me thinking about taking up snowboarding. Indeed, the last good day of the year I wasn't even going upwards:


In closing, and getting back to the theme of waiting, the semester is drawing to an end. My final exam in biochemistry is on December 14th, and if I'm not mistaken this upcoming week is the last one of classes. I'll keep fighting the good fight in the lab up through the 20th, but after that it's "Home, sweet home". I'm taking the slow plane back to Sweden (18 hours of traveling - yuck!) and some well-deserved rest. I plan to spend lots of time alternating between bed, couch, dinner table, sauna and pub. Each has its place during a visit to the Old Country, but with it being Christmas and all, I intend to favor the less stressful activities (eating and sleeping) over the more laborious ones (seeing old friends always includes getting stinking drunk). Almost there - the sound of the carols seem to drift just beyond the edge of hearing: "Nu tändas tusen juleljus/på jordens mörka rund/och tusen, tusen stråla ock/på himlens djupblå grund"...

News from the Old Country

Lately, it seems I can't turn around without running into something reminding me of my geographical past. If it's not ads in the paper saying "Call 1-800-RSVP-SWEDISH", it's people from Scandinavia or cookies from Oz. I'm beginning to think that God is trying to tell me something - possibly that I should start feeling homesick. Or He's reminding me that I still haven't bought that plane ticket to get back here after New Year's... In any case, it's enough to inspire some writing about where I've been, rather than where I am or where I'm going.

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?