My 29th birthday and the end of my first full week in Sweden. Causes me to pause and reflect upon how many places I have now called ‘home’, though only one of those really feels like home. So many of the feelings I am experiencing now are familiar, but have been tucked far back into my memory. I had almost forgotten the way I felt when I first arrived in Utah. Yes, the same country, but so very different from home. As Kevin says when he leaves Utah, ‘time to return to America’.
Who could have guessed when I moved to Utah that eventually I would miss it so much? Who would have thought I could have been so naturalized to the culture and way of life? And so here I am, in an entirely new situation once again. Excited for the new and truly experiencing a foreign culture now. And to think that after some time spent adjusting and adapting, there will be things I long for from here as well.
The way I long for the drumming at the Flamboyan, the coquis singing at night, the sound and smell of the air when the sky opens with rain, the roar of the river as it suddenly rises, the big open porch and the heat. Puerto Rico, too, felt foreign at first, though my experiences in Costa Rica made the environment at least feel familiar. But the people, the traffic, the fear of crime, the constant noise, the ant bites, the smell of rotting flesh and fruits…. There were things that I did not like. Just as I disliked the extremely conservative mentality of most people in Utah. The inability to go out and have a drink and hear live music. The fear of getting hit by a car while crossing the street.
So what is hard so far in Sweden? Mostly just letting go of Utah: the sunshine, the snow, the boyfriend and friends. The familiarity of home contrasted with my shear stupidity here. I want to know Swedish now. It has been so long since I have gone somewhere that I do not speak the language… I had forgotten what it feels like to be clueless and helpless.
It is fun and funny. I laugh at myself a lot. But I do ok at recognizing what some words in Swedish might mean in English. Many words are quite similar, though the pronunciation is so different that I cannot recognize the words I know. Time to open up my brain and learn a new way of speaking. I want to be able to navigate on my own… menus at restaurants, information on websites, street signs, official documents, my phone, pop up windows on my computer, the silly computer keyboard…
What’s weird about Sweden?
• The alphabet and resulting keyboard. Because of the three extra letters in their alphabet, ä, å, and ö, all of the punctuation is rearranged on the keyboard.
• The bathroom door at school. You push the handle up to lock it. This causes a red color to show outside and signals that the bathroom is occupied.
• The trash cans are hanging wire bins on the wall.
• The soap dispenser in the public bathroom is a plastic bag with a metal lever that pushes down on the bag.
• Everywhere except the grocery store closes by 6 pm – no night time shopping.
• Back to state liquor stores if you want liquor, wine, or beer > 3.5% alcohol, but these state liquor stores have even more limited hours than the ones in Utah!
• The parking lots have electric cord outlets and heaters that will automatically turn on before you leave so that your car is warm. It also keeps the engine warm so that it will start when it’s really cold outside.
• The cross-country ski trails are packed with people.
• Everyone bikes everywhere, even in the snow. I saw a guy riding his bike with his skis on his back.
• There are wide sidewalks along the streets and going all through town that are meant for pedestrians and bikers. The cars stop on a dime for bikers and pedestrians if they look like they might try to cross the street.
• They sprinkle a lot of coarse gravel onto the streets and sidewalks, but do not necessarily seem to remove a lot of the snow. The roads and walkways are covered with a hard snow pack.
• Everyone has cute little lamps in their windows that they keep turned on. Each lamp is unique, but they are all tiny.
• The showers in the bathrooms of many studio apartments just have a drain on the bathroom floor with a piece of edging an inch tall to prevent water from going everywhere. The entire floor gets wet anyway, so you wipe down the whole bathroom floor after each shower.
All in all, Sweden is not much different, but there are constantly tiny things that strike me as unique. The Swedes I have met have been very friendly, but I suppose my exposure to people in the department is a bit different. No one says much of anything at all in the grocery store or on the street. The Swedes have a tradition that they follow very strictly – EVERYONE takes coffee break at 9:30 am and 2:30 pm. Lunch seems to be quite a social hour as well, so at least 2 hours of every day is spent socializing while at work. It is quite fun!!! Göran (my supervisor) says that it can be a great way to get things done because you get a chance to pick your colleagues' brains. So far, though, we have mostly talked about weather, sports, sea sickness… you name it. It is a great way for me to start meeting people in the department.
The coffee break (‘fika’) is so important that our department has a huge breakroom and kitchen equipped with 2 dishwashers, 4 microwaves, 2 full size refrigerators, several cabinets and drawers with dishes, silverware, etc., and a calendar with teams of profs and students assigned each week to clean up after lunch and fika (3 X’s per day, everyday). They own a coffee machine that makes 10 kinds of coffee – espresso, lattes, decaf, regular… all you do is hit a different button. The break room has sofas in a circle, 7 or 8 tables and chairs, a few tables with benches up against the wall, and a corner with current journal issues on display. Very nice. At lunch, I was lucky to find a spot! So much for reading while I eat lunch!
I have met people from Sweden (of course), Germany, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, China, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and I think that’s all so far. These are all people in my department! I am already learning about the Swedish culture. One month paid vacation a year. After having a baby, the mother gets 3 months paid maternal leave and the father gets 3 months paternal leave. A parent could take less than 3 months, but the unused time cannot be given to the other parent (so no moms taking 6 months leave).
I went to a PhD defense on Friday. Very different. They have an ‘opponent’ read the dissertation and scrutinize the work. The opponent comes from a different university, often from another country. The student also answers to a committee of 3 other professors that also have never met the student before. The entire defense is open to the public. The opponent gives a short presentation placing the dissertation into a larger context, then the student gives a 10 minute presentation summarizing his/her work. Then the opponent asks the student questions. Both are sitting at the front of the room facing each other from across the stage – very dramatic indeed! After the opponent finishes with the student, each committee member asks 2 questions. Then questioning is open to the entire public audience. Then it is over.
I also went to the dissertation party that night. All I can say is that I felt like I was at a wedding. Everyone wearing cocktail dresses and suits and ties, a cocktail hour, then a seated dinner with assigned seats, speeches throughout the dinner, a slide show and skits telling funny stories about the new doctor, and then more drinking and dancing! Very fun! Swedes have a custom of singing throughout the meal. These are called ‘Schnapps songs’. They are all about drinking and being drunk (and women, I am told), and each song ends by taking another shot. We sang 15 songs throughout the dinner. The dinner lasted 5 hours. Most people sip on their shot, so we did not actually have 15 shots of liquor. One song was in English and went something like this:
“What will she do with the drunken sailor
early in the morning
hooray and up she rises
early in the morning
shave his head with a rusty razor
put him into bed with the captain’s daughter….”
You get the idea. It was a very fun party. I got home at 3 am, but the party was still going strong when I left. The dancing was very animated. Never saw so many people my parents’ age dance their hearts out to Nirvana. I can’t even describe it. I guess drinking punch, beer, white wine, red wine, several rounds of schnapps, and dessert liquors like bailey’s, whiskey, cognac, and others… then no one holds back from dancing. I could not believe they throw dissertation parties like that. I was a little bit jealous, even though Stephanie threw me a wonderful party with tons of amazing food!!! Thanks Steph!
