Malmö Festivalen

In the short summer that Sweden has, Malmö is awash in festivals. This past week, the city hosted the Malmö Festivalen, the biggest city festival in Sweden. Swedes from near and far come to Malmö for reasons I do not quite comprehend, and the event even draws people from foreign lands.

The Malmö Festivalen reminds me a lot of American county festivals, though a much drunker version. In a display of community unity, people of all ages, 15-70 all get drunk together. Fortunately, I live just far away from the festival site to be able to walk there in 10 minutes, but not have random people peeing on my doorstep.
The festival starts off with a crayfish party, shown above, where everybody eats crayfish cooked with dill and drinks copious amounts of alcohol, mostly schnapps and beer. These men had great drunk dancing skills, and everybody wears those stupid party hats.

Similar to American county festivals, eating is a main focus. And not just any eating, but often the eating of fried foods - specifically, fried dough. There were a multitude of doughnut vendors, and the mini-donut cart always had a line 30-deep, no matter what time of day.

Here is a "langos", or fried dough topped with a variety of foodstuffs. I tried a common variety, with creme fraiche base, shrimp, red onion, and caviar. Yes, sounds gross. Kind of looks gross. But, tasted kind of good. I wasn't hungry for many hours after eating this.
Similar to American festivals, Swedes like to line up for free stuff, even if they are handing out crap. This line, spanning well beyond the frame of this picture, was to receive a free carton of milk from Arla, one of the dairies in Scandinavia. Milk is really cheap here, even cheaper than the US, so they were probably lining up for about a $1 value.
For some reason, Swedes are obsessed with American culture. You see lots of people wear baseball caps of American sports teams, there are fake Texas restaurants with fake cowboys (above), and country music and country music dancing is very popular. I spent some time watching a very good Swedish country music band and was quite impressed by the good country dancing. They are quite good at lindy-hop swing dancing, too (kind of a hipster thing). The most entertaining thing I saw during the entire festival was an incredible break-dancing battle competition held in a boxing ring.

Music, though, is a huge focus at the festival. Concerts of all sizes everywhere, all the time, all week. There are the small shows, like the above, but the festival really draws in some big acts to the three main stages, and many side stages.
I had a chance to catch many of the big shows, often here in the Big Square. NOFX and Iron & Wine even came from the US. But the biggest and most popular shows belonged to Veronica Maggio, a super-hot pop star at the moment, especially among the teenage girl sect, and The Ark, who apparently was on the Eurovision competition awhile back. Here, they are singing about recycling deposits (or that's what I interpret from the abridged version they show on TV commercials from the recycling board).

SoCal Sojourn

I realize that I am running about 1 month late on posts. However, here's my attempt to start to catch up, and I have a few more post ideas already planned down the pipeline.

At the end of July, I made my way back to the United States. It seems that I am scheduled to go back every 6 months, and in this case, it was to attend the wedding of my very good friend from San Francisco, Melissa. To travel all the way from Sweden to attend a wedding is quite far, yes. But it is amazing what barriers you will overcome once you have promised someone your attendance. At times, it seemed crazy trying to arrange the trip - I could not book ahead because I did not know where in the world I would be living at the time of the wedding. However, it all worked out, and I am grateful I was able to make it.

The wedding was in Santa Barbara, California - a place I had never been to before. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to actually see Santa Barbara. My trip consisted of hotel, the zoo (where the wedding was), hotel, and then back to LA.

Here is the bride, my friend Melissa. I didn't turn into a Filipino-American hipster with super-cool fitted suits since I moved to Sweden, but I like candid photos and I think this one turned out well. That super-cool hipster is my friend Rob.
A first for my wedding experiences (which admittedly are not too many) was a giraffe feeding for the guests. We all got a leaf of lettuce and got to feed them while trying to avoid their 2-foot long tongues.

The other part of my trip consisted mostly of being in the Los Angeles area. After being away from California, or even the US, I forgotten how much of a food mecca LA is. All items on my extensive "not found in Europe" food list was taken care of, and quite happily. Another major focus was shopping. To me, everything in the US is on sale, so I acquired an iPad, home goods, and even took care of my dry cleaning. I even had a chance to catch up with the Pashman's. One of the most pleasant things about the trip, was actually being able to understand everything that was going on around me, and to be able to communicate with people. Ah, the US - you have to leave it in order to love it more.

My entire family happened to be in LA at my brother's home at the time, so we also took a side trip to San Diego. Here are some highlights:

My friend from Yale, Keith, who works for Lego, hooked us up with some free tickets to Legoland outside of San Diego. I escaped Denmark only to return to a Danish amusement park in California. While at the wedding, I could have also gone to nearby Solvang, a Danish settlement. This is my brother's family, and you can tell who is the most excited to go to Legoland.
Legoland is mostly full of rides for the 2-8 year old sect, but they also had some cool Lego sculptures. Here, I am joined by my sister and my niece.
This is why I love California. You don't see this in Scandinavia. Nothing close.
This panda bear, at the San Diego Zoo, was naughty and was given a timeout by the zookeeper.

Lastly, on my way back home to Sweden I had a extra-long layover at JFK, and was able to make it into the city to see some friends. No pictures, but I was very grateful to see my friend Eric (who doesn't read this blog) and to finally meet Ryan and Leah's baby, Elle. She is a monster of a baby (size-wise), inheriting good genes from her parents, and I expect her to be the next Lisa Leslie.

Copenhagen Wrap-Up

Almost a full month after I actually moved away from Copenhagen, I'm posting my final blog about life in Denmark. Since moving to Sweden, I've had many difficulties getting set up - a combination of bureaucratic barriers/insane non-sensible rules, an unresponsive and cheap landlord, and the entire HR department gone of vacation for the month. Lack of internet at home has been a huge issue, but with my newly-acquired mobile internet stick, the posts shall resume.

In my final days in Copenhagen, I did what every normal person would do when they move away from a city - do all the touristy things that they never bothered to do because they were too cool to do them before as residents of the city. This included my last cultural event, visiting the Carlsberg Brewery, taking a canal tour, and visiting Tivoli (the beloved historical amusement park).

Skt Hans Aften
Sankt Hans Aften, or Saint Hans Evening, occurs on the longest day of the year, which I believe is the summer solstice. On this evening, Danes will gather in parks to be merry and party in the best possible fashion - the time honored tradition of burning witches. I have no idea of why they do this, but supposedly the witch will go off to the mountains of Germany after being burned. Of course these days they only burn an effigy of a witch, but I wonder if 500 years ago they burned real people.







Carlsberg Brewery
Prior to moving to Denmark, I had actually never heard of Carlsberg, or it's sister brand, Tuborg. Apparently, it's one of the biggest brands in the world, and it turns out to be quite tasty for a mass market beer. For about $10, you get a self-guided tour of a touristy museum-ish area, and two beers. Given that a Carlsberg will typically cost ~$7-$10 in a bar, it's not so bad of a deal.

The brewery had all these really cool old-time trucks around that they used to use for distribution.

Old Carlsberg beer bottles. The museum held the largest private collection of unopened beer bottles in the world. Some Danish guy started collecting beer as a hobby, and through the years collected enough to fill an entire floor of the museum.
Ludvig, son of Herkules and Nova. Similar to Budweiser, Carlsberg also has horse-drawn wagons to be used in promotional marketing events. Instead of clydesdale horse, Carlsberg uses little horses that I think were originally from Iceland.

One of the gates of the brewery grounds. Note the use of the swastika, which actually used to be the official logo of Carlsberg beer. It was funny to see that all over the museum they had to put up notes explaining the swastikas, and how Carlsberg stopped using the symbol after the Nazi party adopted the symbol as their own.

Canal Tour of Copenhagen
This is one thing I wished I had done earlier. The canals were not so much of a big deal, but it was interesting to hear about the history behind many of the buildings around that I just took for granted.

Departing from Nyhavn, the "new harbor" that was new a long, long time ago. I wanted to wait until nice weather came before partaking in a canal tour, and as you can see this day was very nice.
Sites from the tour. Here, we are actually in an inlet, and heading over to the canals of Christianshavn and it's spiral-topped church.
Danish design

This shot was actually taken outside of the boat, but turned out much better. During the nice days, Copenhageners like to sit along the canal edge and just hang out.

Tivoli

Tivoli is an amusement park that dates back to the olden-days. If you ask a Dane, Tivoli is the most amazing place, an amusement park full of charm, beauty, and coziness. If you ask a foreigner, Tivoli is kind of a joke, an expensive waste of money. I found out the latter was quite true. For any Iowans reading this, think of Tivoli as a smaller, enclosed Adventureland located in the middle of a big city.

June Megapost

It's been quite some time since my last post - over a month, in fact. Since Aalborg, I had been to the fjords of Norway, the untouched-by-communists part of Krakow, back to Stockholm to rub shoulders with the power elite, and back (hopefully for the last time) to Aarhus to host a delegation from Thailand. Then, a move to Malmö, Sweden. Apologies to my two or three loyal readers, but I simply have not had the time! So, to make up for the almost-month-of radio silence, here is a post recapping basically the entire month of June.

The Majestic Fjords Norway

One of my dreams for much of my life has been to visit the fjords of Norway. They seemed so exotic, so magnificent, so Scandinavianly-cool. Part of my desire was borne out of the fact that Scandinavia seemed to be some mystical land of tall, beautiful blonde women with incredible taste in modern design that I would never get to see. Well, that situation has obviously changed. Another reason was simply that "fjords" sounded so cool. What the heck is a fjord? - who cares! It's big, it's pretty, it's in Norway. Well, much to my disappointment, fjord = gorge. I've seen gorges before. They were even in Portland, and I hated Portland. Don't get me wrong, the fjords were quite impressive...just not quite what I thought it would be. Kudos to the Norway Tourist Board with a good job of branding. I traveled with my parents, who were visiting me while I was still living in Copenhagen, and the trip even spanned the occasion of my 32nd birthday - quite an improvement over my 30th, in which I was unemployed and sleeping on a leaky air mattress in a sublet apartment in New Haven.

Departing Copenhagen on the ferry to Oslo. Basically a small cruise boat where all you do is eat and shop (usually alcohol, since Norway is not an EU country with EU taxes)
Fjord cruise out of Flåm, in one of the biggest fjords in Norway
The Bergen Harbor, where we stayed
This is what Bergen looked like at about midnight. It never got dark.

Old Krakow

Continuing on my quest to visit my previously unexplored areas of Europe, namely Eastern Europe, the next week I traveled to Krakow, Poland - yet another country I've always been curious to visit. Again, I didn't really know much about the city, but I knew I love Polish food, and that Pope John Paul was from there. Good enough for me! Everything about Krakow was cheap. My flight, $115 round trip. My hotel, located right by the Old Town Square, $75/night. Food, unbelievably cheap. In an effort to try to spend my Polish Zlotys, I had dinner smack dab in the middle of touristy Old Town at a Georgian restaurant (Georgian food!!! I don't even know where that country is!), and went to a bar where I met a friendly bartender who I shared shots of Polish vodka with. Two entrees, a Georgian lemonade (kind of like a San Pelligrino), a 1/2 liter beer, and 6 shots of vodka later, I had spent the equivalent of $34 USD. Feeling a bit sick from gorging myself, I decided to just spend my leftover cash on my hotel bill. Another factor making this an incredibly cheap trip was the fact that I did not have to take any vacation days. Unfortunately, that was because I had to work, much of what I saw of Krakow was at night. I didn't get to see much beyond Old Town and Wawel Castle Hill, but it gives me the opportunity to visit again. Finishing off the Poland section of the post, I leave you with an interesting fact. All those countries we Americans used to call Eastern Europe, like Poland and Hungary? Well, turns out they've developed enough to become Central Europe. Eastern Europe today has now become countries like Serbia (a possible EU newcomer) and Bulgaria. They're basically just about the same longitude east, but I guess Central just means "not as poor as Eastern".

The Old Town Square. This is actually only half of it - it is about the size of two football fields, the largest square in all of Europe
Wawel Castle Hill. A pretty large area hard to capture by camera; this is just the church
Streetcars are everywhere in Krakow. It reminds me a lot of pictures of New Orleans

Return to Stockholm

Cutting my original vacation plans to Krakow short, I flew up to Stockholm (on my first trip ever on Ryan Airlines - not so bad) to attend the Eurelectric annual conference. Basically, it's the meeting for all the most powerful people in electricity generation in Europe - typically the dirty kind, too. Conferences are not the most exciting events, so I will share two stories.

I had always thought that my friend Roberto (who I visited in the Netherlands a month ago) had the most unique networking experiences, meeting CEOs on the Macchu Pichu trail and the such. In my case, I can say that it pays to be in shape. Taking a brisk walk through Stockholm after a conference day, as my knees hurt too much from running the day before, I ran into the chairman of the conference. He was on a run, unfamiliar with the city, and there I was - someone who knew his way around! My walk quickly turned into a jog, and I ran 9 kilometers with him for some nice 1:1 networking. To be honest, he ran way too slow for my taste, but I was there on business not fitness. If I get a job in London in the future, don't be surprised its because of this guy.

A view we likely saw during our run, as we passed by City Hall

I am occasionally reminded about how fortuntate I am on the experiences I receive. On this trip to Stockholm, I was reminded once again when I attended the conference's gala dinner at Stockholm City Hall - the same location that the Nobel Prize Dinner is held. Simply amazing venue. The vaulted ceilings were pefect for the mens' choir they hired to entertain us. Other entertainment included an ABBA tribute band. They successfully got the CEOs of Europe's energy companies on the dance floor - I could not believe it!

Stockholm City Hall - amazing!!!

Yusing Talk Thai

Rounding out the month was one of my final big responsibilities in my rotation in Group Government Relations - the receiving and presentation to a delegation of 34 people from Thailand, traveling under the Federation of Thai Industries. This was exactly the kind of schmoozing that I had always imagined to occur in government relations, but it turned out to be a stress-filled event that required a "go with the flow" attitude to take over for my normal planful self.

1. I had no time to prepare for the presentation, due to other work demands. In fact, it was not even done until about 8PM the night prior.
2. I arrived at the office about 1 hour prior to their scheduled arrival. I get a call, telling me they are going to arrive 30 minutes early. Of course, I am the only person around.
3. I enter the meeting room to discover that they did not set up enough chairs. There I was in my suit, moving tables and chairs around, trying to figure out how to fit in 4 more people.
4. To start the presentation, of course there are technical difficulties and the presentation monitor is broken. I had to give my entire presentation without any visual aids - a difficult thing to do with so many graphs in the presentation.
5. I narrowly averted an embarrassing situation with the ceremonial gifts. With so many people, I was told to only bring gifts to for the two Federation of Thai Industries representatives. Upon presentation, only the head guy came up so I only handed out one model turbine...but next, the head of the Thai electrical grid monopoly came up to present me with a gift. Thank goodness I had that turbine leftover!

That was the month of June for me! One more post to come, about my final days in Copenhagen, but that will be for another day.