My new Swedish cell phone

... was very expensive, and is totally useless as far as I'm concerned. It's a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro and I picked it for its keyboard. We were in a hurry. Peter had to get back to the office. He was leaving for Latvia a couple of days later, and that would have left us phoneless. When the young guy at the shop asked me what I wanted on my new phone, well, I wanted the basics - I wanted to call people and do texting and have a real keyboard as opposed to the touch kind.

Here's my issue (and yes, I've downloaded and read the instructions IN ENGLISH to no avail):

- I want to be able to call up my contact numbers when texting. You know, write the message, then find the contact number in the 'address book' and away she goes. Only she doesn't go because it won't recall the number.

- The numbers aren't even stored in the address book - just the names. If I have to memorize all the numbers, what's the point of having the address book function on the phone?

It does a lot of tricks this phone. Syncs to Google and Facebook among other things. I don't care. I just want to be able to text or phone without having to key in the number each time.

Aren't these things supposed to make your life simpler, not more complicated? The ad goes on and on about managing your life with the phone in one hand and a coffee in the other. I'd have spilled the coffee trying to figure out the phone.

Maybe it's because I'm using a prepaid phonecard instead of the monthly contract. Maybe there are restrictions nobody bothered to tell me about (I'm encountering a fair amount of that here - don't ask, don't tell). I didn't think I was technologically inept.

Stay tuned...

Normalement

For those of you not familiar with ‘normalement’, it’s a French term that means “well, it should happen on that day at that time, but it probably won’t”. For example, if you’ve made an appointment to have something repaired or installed, your appointment time could be Tuesday. Normalement. The guy’ll show up unless he finds something better to do. It’s a bit like the way Italian trains run. They’re on schedule, unless they’re on strike. If it’s sunny and a Thursday, they might be on strike. Then again, they might not. This is the source of my prefacing many things with ‘all things being equal’. In my case, it isn’t a refusal to make a commitment, it’s a supersticious disclaimer: I’ll be there unless some in my universe explodes. In other words, you can count on me if nothing unforeseen happens.

Very few things have gone according to my schedule along the path of this Swedish adventure. I naively thought that if I approached everything systematically, then it would go according to plan. Normalement. My schedule never matched the great ‘they’’s and seeing as ‘they’ make the master schedule, well, you get the picture. Has it all worked out in the wash? ya. Has it been a pain in the neck. ya. The pain continues because I’ve discovered that Sweden, like France, has a version of normalement - their administrative processes move at glacial speed.

The ticket to success as a resident rather than a visitor is a Swedish Personal Number. Without it, you can’t do much. It’s your ticket to health care, getting a bank account, getting a phone. It’s supposed to take 2 weeks to arrive in the mail. Normalement. There’s a backlog right now so A,E, &I are still waiting. Peter already has his, so we were able to arrange hook up here at the flat for phone, tv, and internet through him. Apparently, once the tv line is hooked up, you still have to wait (2 months?) for cable. Nothing will work until then. The modem for the internet arrives in the mail sometime after the man’s been there to connect things. He was here on Tuesday. No modem so far but hope springs eternal....

Then there’s parking. It’s all street parking. Once Peter gets his ‘official’ company car (more waiting without an end date), we’ll have a pass and won’t have to feed the meter anymore. Streets are cleaned once a week. On our street, it’s Onsdag (Wednesday) between 8 & 10. So yesterday, I dutifully moved the car before 8, moved it back after 10, and fed the meter enough to last until noon today. Then I got a parking ticket. Apparently it’s a bit of an ex-pat right of passage, getting parking tickets. I think it’s a scam. At 2 in the afternoon, I was parked where I was supposed to be, and I got a ticket? 400Kr later...

All this waiting is killing me. I’m a very patient person when I know how long I have to wait for, but when there aren’t any timelines? Or when nobody sticks to them? It’s making me crazy. Are there bigger problems in the universe than pokey administrative processing? Yes. Someday this will all make for a good story. But at the moment, when life’s been up in the air for going on 9 months, you can appreciate the desire to be settled. As settled as we are, we aren’t. I was told it will take a year to feel settled and ‘at home’. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait that long.

War of the Flies

I'm having fly problems. For a country that is reported to be insect free, those that exist seem to be living with me.

It started with the garbage can, or lack of garbage can, in the kitchen. It's a wastepaper basket. No lid. We looked for a North American, standard issue kitchen garbage can with lid. No luck. Or, I should say, we found some, but they were tiny - about the size of a brown paper bag. And they were in the bathroom section. What good is that? Nothing kitchen-related. For a country as eco-aware as Sweden appears to be, based on the number of organic items one finds (organic fruit & veg, meat, wine, beer, cosmetics), wouldn't garbage be a priority? Mind you, there isn't any municipal recycling that we've found. You can take your bottles and cans into the grocery store to cash them in, but nothing other than box cardboard goes out with the trash.

The flies came. Not many, enough to notice. I covered everything. I created a lid for our wastepaper basket out of another plastic bag. Eventually, I gave up and moved the garbage out of the kitchen to the back balcony. Inconvenient, yes. End of the flies? Sort of.

So as I wander around Göteborg, I notice in a few flower shops, mini Venus Flytraps. Is this, I wonder to myself, the Swedish way to deal with fruit flies? Are they a common nuisance? Does one feed them to one's plants? Will I have to create my own Little Kitchen of Horrors?

Last Thursday, Peter and I take one last 'think outside the box' trip to Bäckebol, home of the outlet stores. We find laundry hampers that are the right size. Lid? Check. Ventilation holes. Uncheck. Then, we see it. At Bauhaus, the Swedish Home Depot. In the bathroom department. A somewhat almost standard issue North American style kitchen garbage can with lid and foot pedal. Sold.

No more flies. No more fruit flies. Now we have 2 standard issue North American type house flies circling the light in the kitchen. They don't land, they just do circles. There used to be 3 of them, but I squished one and it scared the other 2 off for a couple of hours. But they're back.

Maybe I'll try the plant next.

Göteborg Air Show

When I was at Laurier, there was a French exchange student living on my floor. Her name was Marianne and she was from Grenoble. She chronically miscalculated on Canadian winter weather. When she looked out the window and saw one of those beautiful clear winter days when the sun is shining and the sky is a clear, cloudless blue, she thought that meant things had warmed up. We of course know that means exactly the opposite, that it's colder than crispy cold out so wear extra layers.

I'm having much the same problem as Marianne with my clothing choices here in Gborg. When it isn't windy and the sun is out, it is definitely short sleeves weather. When it's cloudy, it's cold. You could take an umbrella everywhere because even though it's sunny right now, there are always rain clouds somewhere in the environs and you may be about to get wet. Last Saturday for Marstrand, I read the weather forecast, decided shorts and a sweater were the order for the day, and nearly froze until the sun came out about 1pm. Yesterday for the air show was no different. I forgot to factor in the wind.

Having never been to an air show before, we brought mats to sit on, cameras, raincoats. I thought we'd be walking on tarmac the whole time, so 3 of the 4 of us wore runners. Guess what? We parked at the horse place next door, hiked through 2 fields and a woods to get to the tarmac. Remember what I said about the daily rain? Fields of mud and puddles. My feet were ok until I looked at them. It was a little like when the Coyote is chasing the Roadrunner, and he goes off a cliff but doesn't fall until he looks down. My feet didn't register as soaked until I looked at them. We hiked through more fields to get from part A to part B, then found the spongey plastic path (sort of a dock to get across the wet field), but once your feet are wet, wetter isn't really an issue, is it?

We saw some really neat airplanes, a good mix of fighter jets, historical planes, and choreographed precision flying. And they flew RIGHT OVER US! I don't think Canada would let you get that close. The height the F-16 flew straight up was incredible. We lost it in the clouds then had to listen to hear which direction it was coming back from. The Swiss precision team had their performance narrated in English which was nice. Odd that of all the languages the Swiss speak, the only one they had in common with the Swedes was English. 2 gliders did a routine to Sting's Fields of Gold, but it wasn't him singing and it was a nicer arrangement. By the time the Italian fighter team (like the Snowbirds) were on, we were walking back to the car, and watched them zoom right past us from the parking lot / field. Wow.

All of this took place at the Aeromuseum, an underground bunker the Swedish used during the cold war. They had most of it closed off, but what we did see was pretty neat. I will go back when my parents come over because I think my dad would enjoy it.

All things considered, it was a great day, but from here on, no more shorts (!!!!!!) only turtlenecks and parkas. If we go next year, I will be sure to wear my rainboots for the puddles and the mud.

Squeezee Food

What is it with Swedes and food in a tube?

Seriously - ham in a tube

bacon in a tube

prawns in a tube

other various fish products in a tube

but no squeezee cheese in a tube. That one at least I've seen before.

Try it on toast!

NOT!

Marstrand

Following Joan’s advice to make formal plans to get out of the city every weekend, last Saturday, we went to Marstrand. Marstrand is an island on the west coast, about 45 km from Göteborg. It is the site of a fortress, Carlsten’s Fästning, and in the early 1900s, was a vacation spot for the wealthy. As it turned out, Saturday was History day, and there were many people dressed up in costume from the turn of the century.

Having read the weather forecast which suggested it would warm- and sunny- up in the afternoon, I suggested shorts and jackets rather than long pants and sleeves. Well, when we got out of the car at Koon to get the ferry to the island, it was decidedly un-warm. And windy! Oh, but the smell of the sea was wonderful!

The trip across on the ferry takes about 2 minutes. Honestly, you could swim it if you had to. It’s a real ferry - the kind that runs on a cable and always goes in a straight line. You have to pay to get to the island. The trip back is free.

Most of the ferry passengers turned right toward the buildings. Never one to follow the crowd unless necessary, I suggested we turn left. This direction led past a smaller fortress, and over to the swimming spot. The island is a giant piece of granite, and one swims in the sea, off the rocks. They have a smaller enclosed space, still fed by the sea, which is apparently for children (I’d swim there - no jellies). There’s also a diving board. I’m quite sure it would be lovely on a sunny day, but I had my red gloves on by that point, quietly shivering in my sweater and shorts. There are walking paths all over this small island, and we followed the one that ringed the edge for quite a while, discovering puddles left over from the previous night’s heavy rain, and small waterfalls leading that water back to the sea. Fortunately, when it did start to rain, we were at a cross path that lead into the interior of the island, so bedecked in our raincoats, we explored the woods. It all looked very Bruce Trail once you lost sight of the sea. We even found a cave - a real cave, complete with firepit and sitting log, big enough to camp in.

Lunch was at Berg’s Konditori, and we found a table beside the water. Nothing fancy - just sandwiches and drink, but very pleasant.

After lunch, we climbed the hill to the fortress. Construction on Carlsten fortress started in 1658 after a peace treaty transferred ownership of the area from Denmark to Sweden, and the Swedish King decided it would be necessary to build something for defence, and it was an active military post until 1882. Our Erik Dahlberg, he after whom our street is named, was the military engineer responsible for much of the early construction. All in all, construction took over 200 years, which made exploring really interesting wandering between the different phases of construction. All of the rooms were built into the walls so you can imagine how thick those walls are! One section is called the ‘peace roofs’ because it was only covered with wooden roofs during peace time. During wartime, the roofs were removed to protect the soldiers from splinters and possible fire. Carlesten was also the site of a prison and various experiments in ‘serving time’, most of which were doing hard labour. There is a secret tunnel which winds within the walls, up lots of stairs, all over the fortress.This was the site of the first revolving lighthouse. The best part was probably the view over the sea from the top of the fortress. The sun had come out and warmed things up significantly. The sun on the sea with the breeze, well, it was pretty fabulous.

Needless to say, we were really tired from walking all day. After a quick drink, we headed home to the flat. I wasn’t in the mood to cook, and Elizabeth voted for pizza, so I headed off on a walk to re-find a place I’d thought looked promising when I was here in April. Great pizza - we’ll go back. No English. Of all the places to have to use Swedish, we had to use it in a pizza parlour?

p.s. Fika is spelled f-i-k-a.

Friday Fika

I'm quite sure I spelled Fika wrong. What it is is the Swedish equivalent of English afternoon tea. Sort of. Coffee and cookies, that kind of thing, I think. Peter's office has Friday Fika each week, but he hasn't participated yet. They tend to sit down to visit at about 2:30, then head for home once they're done. Early start to the weekend?

Today, A&E&I fika'd at a nice Konditorei beside the lower canal. We sat outside because inside spaces tend to be overheated. Andrew had something like a cake version of banana cream pie. I had tea with a lovely cinnamon danish, and Elizabeth, feeling quite virtuous is saving her pastry-points for tomorrow when we have plans to go to the island of Marstrand where, from what I've read, there is a very nice bakery.

Not a very busy day so far. We did a big hike to find the other branch of ISGR so Andrew would know where he goes when he has gym, and we bought agendas for both children. Here, everything is done by week. Skolstart is week 34. 1st week of holiday may be week 42. (Is that the 1st week of November?)

Peter's travel schedule has started which means that I will have to learn to drive. I was hoping to avoid driving, but I don't think there's a way around. What's nice for him (us) is that now we're here, he's gone for 3 days rather than a week, and there isn't the jetlag.

My pursuit of free wifi has landed me at the top of the road, sitting outside on a bench, hoping it doesn't rain. Apparently Gothenburgwireless has hotspots all over the city where you can wifi for free. I'm thinking maybe it's a hook to sign you up for a service e.g. we'll give you so many hours for free to test it out, then you have to start paying. Whatever - live free for today for tomorrow we may have to pay. I can live with that! (or if you're a Popeye fan, I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today).