Canada vs. Sweden part I

It's been a long time since my latest blog and that is mostly due to the apathy of a disorganized mind, as well as the confusion and shock after my best friend lost her mother.

But, I felt inspired to write something. I often get asked the question if I like it here in Sweden. When I say I don't, especially if it's a Swede asking, I often get a surprised reaction. There are several reasons why I personally am not happy in Sweden, but as with everything else there are advantages and disadvantages to living here.

Advantages to Sweden:

1. Clean air
At least that is true here in the North of Sweden. Lots of open spaces. The access to free cross-country skiing tracks in the winter.

2. Calmness and quiet
That depends on where you go of course, and although I'm not a countryside person and would not want to live there full time, it's nice to be able to go to my parent's summer cottage whenever I want to. It's also nice to have access to cross-country skiing tracks in the winter.

3. My roots, my family
My family is here, small as though it is getting. This is where I grew up and my roots will always be here in this small town.

Disadvantages to Sweden:

1. The prevalent outburst of wide-spread cynicism that has apparently gripped this country
This is perhaps the most difficult part to living in Sweden. If you look up a Swedish newspaper online and read an article, make sure to read the reader comments. They're often horribly jaded and cynical and downright rude. For example, there was this one article about a girl who was almost raped but was saved by her dog. There was a picture of her along with the story. She was overweight. One of the comments was "Man the torpedoes!" This was not the only crude comment. Swedes are very cynical. They are also arrogant. You will never encounter snootiness like in Sweden. I lived in Stockholm for 4 months. Yikes! There is nothing so snooty as an upper-crust Swedish woman living in the posher areas of Stockholm. Even the stewardesses at SAS will beat any Beverly Hills socialite on the snoot scale. The Beverly Hills socialites may be snooty but in their case it's more due to mental instability than anything else. There is just something about that perky, smug arrogance that the Swedes have in spades, it really takes the cake.

2. Conformity
You need to be doing what everyone is doing. You should talk the same, have the same pastime activities, dress the same etc. Which means you should use the same popular phrases such as "Fredagsmys" (roughly translated it means Friday evening coziness. You should downhill ski. You should go out for coffee on Sundays. You should dress in the latest fashion, tie your scarf the right way and wear the correct shoes. You should buy a jeep because that's the latest trend. You should go to the hip restaurant because that's what everyone else does. The list of all the "shoulds" could go on and on, but why waste the energy. Lets just say that conformity is very important in Sweden.

3. Lack of service
When you go to restaurants in North America, the customer is the boss. When you go to restaurants in Sweden, you should count yourself lucky that you're even being seated at all. Here, staff is often flippant and rude, as if one should feel grateful for being allowed to even frequent their establishment. If you ask for a doggy bag, you will get an amused, and slightly annoyed, smile

4. Lack of law and order
I'm a liberal, and don't believe in capital punishment and "big brother knows best". However, there has to be some form of governance. If you commit a horrible crime, such as rape, a couple of years in jail or an institution just doesn't suffice. As an example, a few years ago there was a man who administered his infant daughter with poison, only enough to make her suffer but no kill her. He then stood over her crib and videotaped her agony. He did this repeatedly until he was caught. His verdict, 4 years in jail. Is this sufficient? I think not.

5. Everything is so friggin expensive!
A lousy McDonald's meal will run you 10 bucks. I rest my case.

6. Progress is so slow
Before any change is made, there has to be debates and discussions on the subject for a few years, and then when something is actually happening it takes so long for the development to be completed you almost forgot what it was about in the first place. And apart from that, people are so resistant to change. There has been a suggestion to place more wind power mills in the mountains, but of course the locals have a problem with it. Wind power mills would destroy the natural view of the mountains. The horror! The fact that it's environmentally friendly is irrelevant, we're talking about a view here!

7. The drinking culture
It's a Saturday night and you're out at a local club, and you're not hammered. What's wrong with this picture!? Why aren't you hammered beyond belief? You can't possibly be having a good time! Prior to going out on the town, you all need to gather at someone's place for a "pre-party". A pre-party is just a fancier word for getting stinking drunk. The only reason that there is a pre-party at all is because drinks are too expensive in clubs. Instead people gather at someone's home in the wee hours of the night, booze in tow, and drink themselves into a blubbering stupor, before finally staggering downtown to stand in a line to get into a club where they will spend an hour before the club closes for the evening. Why even bother going out at all? The drinking culture here is: don't drink during the weekdays but make up for it by drinking all the more during the weekend. If you drink on a Tuesday, you're a lush, but if you drink until you pass out or puke on a Saturday you're really having an awesome time. Healthy eh!

8. People stare!
They really do! Not really in a place like Stockholm but in smaller towns, especially up north, they really gawk. Even if you're in your car and you pass a pedestrian on the street, that person will shamelessly peer straight into your car and try to locate your face. It's damned annoying.

9. Swedes are boring and think they're superior

I once threw a party consisting of varied nationalities. Everyone appeared to be having a good time, joking and talking. There were 2 Swedish girls among the guests. Who do you think were the only ones sitting off to the side looking sulky and stuck-up? That's right, the Swedes. A friend of mine had these 2 Swedes staying with her at the time and she was desperate and distraught because the girls just didn't appear to have any fun. No matter where she took them and what they did, they always appear bored and in a bad mood. That's because Swedes are boring and blasé. There are exceptions of course, as there are to most things, but in general, Swedes are very withdrawn and uptight and unable to be spontaneous. When I first arrived in Canada, I was the same for the first few weeks, thinking that being Swedish was someting exotic, something that would impress. However, I soon realized that that superiod attitude wasn't going to impress anyone. Swedes may think they know everything and come from one of the most developed countries in the world, but a lot of people out there don't even know where the hell Sweden is, and are not going to be impressed by you just because you're Swedish.

To be continued

My period gives me super strength

I always thought it was the other way around, that when my old friend comes a-calling I should move as little as possible. Shouldn't I be, as ladies were in the Victorian era, overcome with the vapors and swoon against a couch? No, not so. Well, if I have really bad cramps I do prefer to take a painkiller and lay down until it seizes, but if I feel relatively okay I actually feel better than I do during my non-period days. I just came from working out and I can tell you, I have so much more strength than I normally do it's amazing. I could jog on the treadmill at a much higher speed than usual and what's more I could consistently keep that speed without getting tired. When it came time for some strength training I was also more energetic than normal. No cramps whatsoever. I have heard that the best time to work out is during your period because for some reason it's more effective during that time, but I didn't know that you also have more strength. Why is this? It's not like this during PMS when I'm cranky and more fatigued. You would think that I would be at my peak then when I have all that angst to take out.
The before stage is by far the worst part of the whole cycle. I hate it when my stomach and boobs start hurting and swelling and my mood is volatile at best and I look like a beached whale.
No, the best part of the month is actually during the period. I feel like I could lift a car.
There's an added bonus too. Since men find feminine hygiene products more threatening than a riled-up rattlesnake, I have something to tease my partner with for 5 days. Doesn't matter how little blood is on it, it gives them the hebe-jeebes every time. Naturally I can't speak for all men, but I know that mine finds them incredibly offensive and cringes at the sight of them. I think that men should experience having their period just once, maybe then they wouldn't be so adverse to buying sanitary pads at the grocery store. I know that there are plenty of men out there who don't find this a big deal at all but mine isn't one of them. He'll do it alright, but he usually gripes a little bit about it, "I don't know what you want!" and will sometimes call me from the store to ask something like "You want those ultra thin ones with wings or the thicker ones???"
I have to give him credit for the effort, although I do think he might be more at ease if I asked him to buy me wart remover or hemorrhoid cream.

I'm craving the deep blue sea

I know there something almost shameful about sun and sand vacations these days, at least in certain circles. These days it's trendier to visit places like India or Africa. It's almost regarded as intellectually retarded to want to spend your holiday on a beach. It's more noble to visit some place full of history, and walk up and down narrow streets in search of historical landmarks. And although there's a lot to be said for this type of vacation, I'm not ashamed to admit that my favourite type of vacation has always been and always will be on the beach. Literally on the beach. Last year I went to Greece for a week and stayed in a hotel that was located 50 meters from the ocean, and I loved every minute of it. Well, the only snag was that there was always such strong currents that you weren't allowed to swim most days.
I've backpacked through Europe and have done my share of walking around cities on narrow, dirty streets, and as interesting as may be, it's not really what I consider relaxation and time to contemplate. It's not my thing. My thing is living right on the beach where I can smell, see and hear the ocean all the time. For me there's something magical about the ocean. I'm not bored spending the whole day at the beach as long as I have a book, a parasol and something cold to drink. When we got hungry on the beach in Greece, we could easily walk to one of the marvelous restaurants close by and get a couple of stuffed pitas and some cold beer. It doesn't get much better than that in my opinion. Sitting under a parasol right in front of the water with a pita stuffed with grilled chicken, juicy Greek tomatoes and tzatziki sauce and a cold beer, and just watching the waves come crashing in. As long as every day isn't the same I'm good. As long as there are other things to vary the beach with, such as exploring the scenery or taking a boat ride somewhere.
I'm feeling nostalgic about last year's trip right now because it's summer and what I really want is to be by the sea, and preferably where the is sun too. I'd even settle for going to Turkey as long as it meant some beach time.

Why I am hooked on the Sims

I first discovered this game in 2004 when I played the Xbox version of it, and I soon became obsessed. I would come home from work in the afternoon, pour myself a glass of Fresca and sit down on the couch and enter the world of the Sims. I created many towns and I think my choice of names varied along the lines of Freakwille, Loonyville, Murderville and the default, and more sane, Pleasantview.
So, what was it that got me so hooked? Apart from addictive personality that is.
Well, here's why:

I have been writing about large households since I was 8, the Sims gave me the opportunity to fulfill what has always been in my head. It was a chance to come as close as I could possibly come to re-creating my fantasies. There has always been something so fascinating about a large house filled with different characters, all with their own quirks and oddities and taken straight from reality or from my own imagination.

The game allows you to live vicariously through your Sims. I often create a Linda character and then have her pursue a career in journalism. As long as you continue to improve on your skills and work hard, you advance on the job pretty quickly. You can go from being a Papergirl to being a Freelance Writer in just a week. How often does this happen in real life? It's awesome, and that's only the beginning. If you persist you can even become Editor-In-Chief. How great is this! Yes, granted, it would be better if it was actually real, but Sims 3 is a great way to kick back in the evening and escape reality.

You can get the man of your dreams if you just persist. On the Sims there are no such things as people turning you down because they think you're fat or ugly. Well, not on the Sims 3 at least. In the Sims 2, you got to choose different preferences in a partner. If your Sim prefers voluptuous blonds who are good at cooking, he/she will automatically have more chemistry with such a person. I keep waiting for that add-on to be available for Sims 3 because I thought this was a fun thing. Bottom line though, you can create the person that you have a crush on in real life and make romance blossom between you two. You could go to bed with Brad Pitt if you wanted, not that this is something I particularly desire, but you catch my drift.

You can wreak any havoc you want and screw with the Sim's lives. I have one very good friend who would make this her singular goal if she played this game. For me, I'm generally good to the Sims I like and mean to the ones I don't. I like creating Sims that are easy and who like to sleep around. This is in fact one of the life goals you can choose. Heartbreaker - Your Sim wants to be the girlfriend/boyfriend of at least 20 Sims. This gives you cart blanche to let your Sim woo like mad and quite frankly, be a real slut. What does it say about me that I love this? I feel like a pervert when I'm sitting there watching them get it on. Or "woohoo", as it's called in the Sims.
Not only can you turn your Sim into a slut/manwhore, but you can also create drama with jealousy scenes and even wild fist fights. You can have your Sims slap each other around, spit on each other, yell, throw water, and eventually really fight.
Occasionally, I like creating silly stereotypes and making them act just like I would expect them to.

One of the biggest draws for me: There are ghosts! When a Sims die, he comes back in the form of a ghost who forever wander the grounds where he died. They come out at midnight, accompanied by a spooky tune. I have yet to see any other ghosts than those that have died of old age in the Sims 3. Apparently, the way a Sim die determines the colour of the ghost. If they die of old age their ghosts are gray, if they die of fire they become red. There are ways to kill your Sim. You can starve them to death, drown them, at least in the Sims 2, and lock them in a room with a stove and refrigerator and take away all their food skills. Eventually the Sim will start a fire while trying to cook, and will perish in the flames. Lately I've become too soft though. I don't like killing Sims anymore, unless I really dislike that certain Sim.

You can also design houses and decorate them. If you use Motherlode you can increase your household funds until you're a millionaire and then you can buy whatever you wish. Imagine being able to go into a furniture store and fully furnish a new house for free. You can furnish to your heart's desire.

If you're feeling crabby, take your frustrations out on a disliked Sim. If it's a mean Sim who just rubs you the wrong way, punish him/her by making them pee their pants or something. That devastates a Sim. They find it incredibly humiliating. You can play God. You can do whatever you want to your Sims and get away with it. You're in total control, and really, how rarely do we human beings ever get to be in total control of our own lives?

So, although this game is a total nuisance since it takes up time that could be spent on more productive things. Just because I have been singing this game's praises doesn't mean that I don't realize that it's a waste of time and that it will lead to nothing. But, sometimes we don't have to take life so seriously, do we?

So, although the Sims is a nuisance since it takes up valuable time that could be spent on more productive things, I am hooked.

Food topic

It's about time that I devote a few lines to one of the finer things in life - food.

It's midsummer, and with midsummer comes the traditional food feast. Since we are not spending it with my parents this year, and since we are all bringing our own food to where we will be going, I decided to forgo the typical herring and potato thing, it does very little for me anyway. Instead I bought a tuna steak, which I will marinate in soya sauce, fresh ginger and some lime juice, and which will be lightly grilled and deliciously pink in the middle. With that I'm making a potato salad, consisting of fresh potatoes, spring onions, dill and rucola, tossed in an olive oil, white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing. Very easy to make and very cheap, and since I spent a bloody fortune on the tuna that's a good thing.

I'm also planning to make something that Nigella Lawson made once. It's a watermelon and feta cheese salad. It's really simple, consisting of cut up watermelon, feta cheese in chunks and thinly sliced red onion with lime juice. The lime juice is supposed to take away from the bitter taste of the onion. I hope it's good. It certainly sounds it and I thought it's the perfect salad for a summer day.

For dessert I'm making a chocolate roll-up cake filled with butter and vanilla cream and chopped up Daim bars. I've made it before and it's really simple to make and usually very appreciated. I know I like it.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but I suppose that's ok. I'm used to it. If I can manage Vancouver winters, I can manage anything.

Madness galore

Here is how deeply some people feel about the royal family:

Since today is the day of the wedding between the crown princess of Sweden and her beau, some members of the hoi polloi are dressing up in gala gowns, as though they are actually attending the wedding itself, and are drinking pink champagne while watching the wedding on T.V in their homes.
Yikes!

Some hardcore royalists have received permission from the police to salute at the exact time when the bride and groom while be exiting the church as a married couple. How they are planning to salute I'm not clear on. Perhaps a gun, a canon, who knows.
Jeez!

Having my literary roots firmly rooted in the absurdism genre, I can see the humour in it all. Before I wasn't able to, but suddenly now I can. This reminds me of the good old days when I was writing about a mad house, which I described in an earlier post. In some chapters, the inhabitants of the Funny Farm would be watching their neighbours from the kitchen window as the neighbours were having a barbecue. The people of the Funny Farm never had any food and couldn't go outside because they would be lynched. Therefore they lived vicariously by watching their neighbours eat barbecued meat, while they themselves would be chewing on dried meat.
Although this is a very sad situation, there is something in it which appeals to the absurdist in me. I suppose the same goes for people's reactions to the royal wedding. In a way, it's comical, almost endearing.

I'm not boring, I'm really not. I will and will always be against monarchy because of the premise upon which it is based. I have a strong sense of injustice, and a society where people are divided into social spheres and where some are regarded as finer merely because they were fortunate enough to be born into money, or because their ancestors accomplished some great feat once upon a time, is a warped one.
It's not about being boring or unromantic, or strange for that matter, it's about injustice.

One of the most annoying celebrities would have to be...

Naomi Campbell. I'm not one of those people who is overly impressed or fascinated with supermodels. I think Lauren Hutton and Helena Christensen are gorgeous, but it's just appearance, not as thought they've done something spectacular for mankind.
It puzzles me why someone like Naomi Campbell can attack people physically by beating them with her telephone and get away with it. Why is this woman not put away somewhere? Just today she was in the news for having beaten her taxi driver with her cell phone. Before it was her housemaid, again with her telephone. Does she have an issue with phones or is she just generally disturbed? An even more vital question is why no one has knocked her on her ass yet. If she came at me with a cellphone and started beating me with it, I'd quickly show her that I don't give a flaming fig about how famous she is. I'm so not impressed with celebrities, and I would never take a beating from one of them, especially not some bony model who clearly has some emotional problem and who is on a power trip because she thinks she's some great diva. Well, welcome to the real world. A lot of us have our problems. Doesn't mean we go around beating people's heads in with our phones.
Also, in order to be regarded as a diva in my eyes, you will have to accomplish something more than posing for pictures and showing off fashion. I know being a model is probably a lot more trying than we think, but come on, there are so many other people out there who work a lot harder and who don't physically and verbally attack people just because they're frustrated. Think of the people who work in the health care sector, people who work around the clock with very strenuous job tasks, such as lifting immobile people to and from their bed, dealing with dying people etc. Even Walmart workers have it tough. Imagine all the crap they deal with day after day. My point is that there are a lot of people out there who have more reason to erupt rather than the likes of Naomi Campbell.
I almost wish she'd attack me, I would get the delight of defending myself.
It's a petty topic I know, since the Naomi Campbells of this world matter very little, but I have zero tolerance for people who are famous without having really done anything to deserve it and who treat other people badly just because they think they can. I admire their beauty, but that's it. End of story. They haven't accomplished some great feat, they just happened to be born with good facial structure. I know that this sounds like envy talking, but I can honestly say that it's not. When I was 14 I went through a stage where I dreamed of becoming a model, but as soon as I got older I started aspiring for more. I don't think a model's life is all that easy. Being a model isn't the gravy job people think it is. I think they have to endure quite a lot on their road to fame. All the same, I'd rather be famous for using my brain.
Speaking of which, I came across the dumbest T.V show I have ever encountered the other day. Paris Hilton's best friend show. It was laughable!