That's So Sweden

For those that remember Raven Simone, the oh-so-cute Olivia from the Cosby Show, she grew up and had a kids' TV show titled, "That's So Raven". I have no idea what that show was about, but the name has stuck with me.

For this post, I thought I would spend a little time discussing what we Americans typically think about when we think of Sweden. For those of you who thought "hot blondes" immediately, you will have to wait. We're going to kick off this post with something a bit less exciting.

Ikea: Sweden is the center of the cheap furniture universe, and Malmö is the home of the world-wide flagship store. It is right next to my office, and I make many a trip here. It's like any other Ikea, but perhaps maybe slightly bigger, and they test products here before they decide on releasing it to the world-wide market.

H&M: Sweden is also the center of the cheap clothing universe. I sense a theme. H&M's are like Gap and Starbucks around here - there are a ton of them around, with a store never too far away around the corner.

Swedish fish: In Denmark, danish pastries are called "sweetbreads from Vienna". However, in Sweden, Swedish fish are apparently still called Swedish fish. On a related note, I am currently planning a trip to Vienna, and will definitely find out what they call their breakfast pastries.

Swedish pancakes: Pancakes are one of my favorite foods (hence, my earlier blog about Paola taking me out for pancakes in Copenhagen), and I LOVE Swedish pancakes. Thinner, like a crepe, and a bit spongy as opposed to fluffy. My first attempt making them at home from this box kit failed miserably, so I may have to just have to buy them from restaurants.

Swedish Meatballs: Yes, meatballs are common. But not as common as Ikea would make it seem. You can buy them at the grocery store in 1 kilogram packages, for only about $5. Very tasty.

Volvos: They are everywhere. Just like police forces in the US like to use Ford vehicles, Swedish police like to use Volvos. They are not a Swedish company anymore (used to be owned by Ford, and now some Chinese company), but definitely Swedish origins. And it seems like everyone drives a Volvo station wagon just like you see here. Unlike Denmark, Sweden doesn't have a huge car tax, so cars are big and plentiful. Saab, the other car company of Swedish origins, is not around so much anymore, and Swedes tend to think of the successful aerospace/jet engine Saab company, and have written off the car company just like the rest of the world.

Björn Borg: Probably the most famous Swedish athlete ever. One of John MacEnroe's fiercest and most polar opposite rivals. In fact, Johnny Mac is on the poster with Björn, but obscured. These days, Björn Borg sells colorful underwear. Unlike Michael Jordan, who simply pushes Hanes, Björn Borg actually has his own underwear brand. It's quite popular, and I'll have to consider buying myself some as a souvenir when I leave Sweden, though I cannot imagine myself ever wearing underwear as loud as you see here.

Blondes: Yes, there are blondes around. But unlike popular belief, this country is not full of blondes everywhere you turn. In fact, there are quite many brunettes, and it took me quite some time to find some blonde subjects to snap a picture of. These girls' fashion style is pretty typical of many a Swedish lady. Kind of too 80's for my taste, but who am I to complain.

Unfortunately, I regrettably have to report that the Swedish Bikini Team has yet to be found. It appears as if the team is a made-up fantasy of early 90's beer commercials. Interesting factoid related to bikinis: in Malmö, women have the right to swim at public pools topless. It is an equality thing (very important in Sweden), since men get to swim topless. According to Wikipedia, the city councilman justified the rule by claiming, after all, 'some men have larger breasts than women'. And no, I have not gone to a pool yet - I actually hate swimming!

Summer Camp for Foodies

A couple weekends ago, I returned to Copenhagen for the first time since moving to Sweden, to spend the day at one of those fancy food-snob events. I am actually far from one of those food-snobs that say that unless you are eating locally-produced organic food, you are eating crap. However, the event, MAD Foodcamp, was the brainchild of René Redzepi - the chef at the Copenhagen restaurant, Noma, which has been named the best restaurant in the world two years running. His success put the new Scandinavian-style cooking, based on local, seasonal foodstuffs, at the forefront of the food world.
"Mad" (pronounced "male") means "food" in Danish, so to the multilingual Danes, the event was the redundant "Food Foodcamp". Chefs from around the world attended, such as Momofuku's David Chang, to join heads with each other and local farmers. Turns out that these folks were part of a separate VIP section (cost $300 ticket as opposed to the $30 regular people ticket), so I did not have any famous chef sitings.
There were a lot of producers around talking about organic food production, local produce, and serving organic local products. However, most of what was going on was all in Danish, so basically I just wandered around looking at vegetables.
A local dairy farmer was present to discuss milk production, but of course it was in Danish. So, I just looked at the good-looking cows. Danish cows are apparently a lot healthier than American cows.

One thing I was able to do was eat. I sampled dishes here and there, and this was one of the more interesting ones: asparagus beer. Alarmingly so, it really did taste like asparagus, though not too strongly. I did not have enough to determine if asparagus beer also makes your pee smell, but I did buy a bottle to take home.

A picture for Brian, the biggest fan of bread that I know.

On my way back, I happened by the Church of Our Savior, whose famous tower spire rises above Christianshavn. This part of town was the site of MAD Foodcamp, as well as Christiania (hippie enclave that seceded from Denmark, and THE place to buy and smoke pot). I never had the chance to climb the tower when I was living in Copenhagen, so I was happy to take advantage of the opportunity and good weather.

The view from the tower. Absolutely wonderful. Taken from the base of the spiral section. Being back in Copenhagen felt like a homecoming, and for the first time since I moved to Sweden, I felt very comfortable in my surroundings.
The tower spire. The tower is very high. It is very windy. And there are not many safety measures. Did I mention I am incredibly scared of heights? I forced myself to climb to the very top of the spiral spire, but the experience made me lose much of my desire to climb a wind turbine (~100 meters tall).

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.