According to my horrorscope:
“You are a very optimistic person, with a good disposition and a lot of enthusiasm. You like movement and this will lead you to participate in sports, to travel, or to maintain a very intense social life. You love freedom and hate daily routine. You love outdoor activities, contact with nature, and adventurous situations. You are very restless and curious, which will engender unexpected and risky situations. Thanks to your ingenuity and optimism you will always come out ahead, either by receiving unexpected help or by simply ignoring the problems around you.
You like to share your life and you are very generous with your resources. You desire knowledge and you will study, investigate, and exchange ideas with others. You find yourself very attracted to faraway lands and different cultures, and are always willing to travel and learn. You have a facility for communicating and learning languages, and your natural attractiveness will allow you to make friends easily. You will always have a childlike, naive and spontaneous attitude.”
Strangely enough, it describes me to a T. Maybe there is some truth to this stuff.
The very kind gentleman I was staying with explained what the Swedes do doing the winter. I thought, that I and everyone else on Earth already knew of Swedish winter pastimes. Dead wrong we were.
What do the Swedes “do” in the winter season to pass time? Invent things. Yes, build stuff. What do they build? Who knows… an upgraded cheese slicer? spiffier bikes?
As he explained some of the little widgets and such he and his friends built to pass time, I couldn’t help but smile. Seriously, smile. He was explaining everything in a cute, innocent manner though all I could think of, “You build things? Sure you are not hiding the truth? You sure that not after building something, you get tanked at the bar and…?”
Or maybe, “building things” is an analogy to what the rest of us believe the Swedes do during the winter.
Maybe I should stay there during the winter and see what these Swedes are really up to…
I went to Sweden for the first time on September 1st and stayed for a mere 40 hours (why so short? that’s another story). I feel love in though: the people, the country, the city, the progressive ideals, and the T-banan (a functioning metro system) made me feel “home.” Well, everything except feminism gone insane part.
But I did make some interesting observations while in Stockholm:
- Clocks are everywhere
- They are punctual…hence the clocks
- Men push baby strollers on the streets
- Women have umbrellas for the rain, men don’t
- It is fashionable to tuck pants/jeans into boots (for women). I would presume with the downpours it makes sense to keep the bottom of the pants dry and therefore tuck them in.
- Everyone on the T-bana is on the cell phone. And they like to speak loudly (compared to the French at least)
- It is fashionable to wear tight leggings and short/half jackets
- No one jaywalks unless they are a tourist
- Both women and men love scarves
- Couples do not make out in public. For that matter, I didn’t see many hold hands.
- When the rain comes down hard, somehow magically, everyone disappears
- They use radiator heating and it works!
- There are no bathtubs…what a bummer for wanting a warm, romantic bubble bath
- Tabacs are present at every street corner (as in France). Grocery stores? Impossible to find
- The gutters on buildings function properly, for the most part
- The weather does change every five minutes (as in Iceland). “It’s not the weather that is bad, it is the clothes you are wearing”
- The metro is spotless
- Trains arrive every couple minutes. And yes, the Swedes will freak out if it is late by one minute
- In the winter, they “build things” instead of…
- People may look reserved but are very friendly. A stranger saw me struggling to open a water bottle, he came up, opened it, and thanked me.
- The Swedes thank you for anything they do
- Not all Swedes have blond hair
- For that matter, not all Swedes have blue eyes
- Every other Swede is an engineer of some sort. Worst case, a programmer.
- And yes, the men are beautiful, but so are the women. Damn that competition.
To think by this time next week I will be in the US living the mundane life is depressing. I cannot fathom leaving Iceland and returning to the US.
But first, my adventures of the last 24 hours.
I spent Thursday night at Langi Mangi for the Pop Quiz contest. Langi Mangi is the local internet cafe/bar, basically one of the only happening places in the city. So there I was, the tourist, the only Indian (or Asian/other person), hanging out with the locals, drinking beer and answering ridiculous questions about the Nordic countries. Unfortunately RF and I got there late and only heard the last two questions (of which we corrected answered and understood one). RF eventually left and I stayed with the locals and discussed politics, facebook, puppets, and possibly other ridiculous things. Of course, these people were so tall I was sitting in the land of the giants. And not just tall, but gorgeous; the Icelanders are beautiful people.
On Friday the class went to the local fish restaurant (same place as the one on Tuesday) and we ate and drank and ate some more. Of course, it helped that our administration was smashed as well by the end and was laughing so hard I thought he would fall into the ocean. I also visited my friend (along with LO) at the tourist office and we partook of Brennivin. Truly a wonderful time to be completely smashed and walking around town.
In the end, I passed out on the children’s bean bag. There is proof somewhere on Facebook of that…
