Picnic & Kayak & Stockholm Marathon & Sushi

Saturday was a busy day. J and I walked 2.5 miles to Brunnsviken kanotklubb to meet M and J and their kids for a picnic and kayak rental. That we did and it was nice. We spread out blankets on the lawn of the club and watched the kayak crowd hustle and bustle around.


We left to go home and decided to explore Fredhelmsplan. Then we happened upon the Stockholm marathon which has around 17,000 runners. We wandered around and finally got back to our neighborhood where we found a nice little sushi restaurant. We'll be returning there sometime soon.

Multi-Cultural Apartment Grill-Out on National Day

According to Po Tidholm and Agneta Lilja in ther small book Celebrating the Swedish Way, Sweden has celebrated their "National" day on June 6 since 1983. They say: "This is the date on which Gustav Vasa was crowned ling in 1523 and on which a new constitution was adopted in 1809. The original idea came from Artur Hazelius, who founded the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm and held a national day celebration there on June 6 as early as the 1890's." They go on to state: "In 1916, Hazelius's idea was officially adopted and June 6 became Swedish flag day. The name celebrated the fact that Sweden had acquired its own flag following the dissolution of the union with Norway."

So this year, J thought it would be a perfect opportunity to meet the neighbors in the apartment building by inviting them all to a bar-b-cue in the back yard. So we did. It was one of the most fun times since we've been in Sweden. There was a German man who works for the Swedish power company, a Norwegian woman who works for the transportation department, another Norwegian woman who is a writer for a large multi-national company, her Swedish husband who is a writer for a prestigious financial news organization, a Canadian woman on a 2 year assignment much like me who manages projects and has many other interests, and her Swedish friend who is retired but runs his own consulting company. Everyone brought meat to grille and a dish to share. The food was excellent but the conversation was more so. We all had a blast critiquing each other's culture. They all have lived in the United States plus other countries. J and I are plain ol' monolingual people who've only lived in one country (although some would argue that Texas is another country!). Nevertheless, our brief stay in Sweden and our few European vacations give us just enough perspective to identify with and see the humor in all that was said.


We discussed views on customer service in each country, views on nudity and especially the nude beaches in Germany, places to travel to and special tourist destinations, transportation methods, languages and especially Swedish dialects, winter sports, and about food in each culture, especially holiday food.

Near the end of the evening Janis spotted a tiny baby bird that had fallen from it's nest. So we decided to return it. However, the nest was behind a grate in the building about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground. Plus we knew we couldn't touch the baby because the mother would kill it because of the wrong smell. So using a paper plate and the balancing skills of the tall German, we managed to save a bird. Not a bad way, at least symbolically, to end a multi-cultural grill-out.

BBQ at the Apartment

(Folks, I'm going to switch to first person in the post, third person was sounding silly.)

We decided to have a little BBQ at the apartment. We invited two American families also on assignment in Sweden and also one of our dearest Swedish family (although the husband was on business travel). We had 5 adults plus us, plus 7 kids from 18 mos. old to (I'm guessing) 13. J did most of the planning but because we're in an apartment for 2, we had to supplement our plates, cups, utensils, etc. with disposable ones. We aso had to buy some additional bowls, etc. and also the grill.....all without a car. J and I went to the grocery store with our roller suitcases to buy everything. In fact we went three times: she the day before as well. We also went to IKEA to find some miscelleaneous kitchen items (and just to find the place because we may be making some large purchaes when we move to an unfurnished place in October).


This being our first BBQ here with a new grill, we had a few glitches. But the guests were patient, gracious, polite, fun conversationalists, and helped overcome any problems. One glitch was my management of the BBQ. I bought some charcoal but it was a type I'd never seen so the quantity and the timing was wrong. It turns out, they sell two types here: the one I'm used to with the small bricqettes and the kind I bought which are not compressed. So the grilling took an unusually long time and several repairs to the charcoal bed (which included extra lighter fluid and fanning the embers). Thanks to some of the guests for helping lift the grill loaded with meat up so we could revive the dying coals....over and over until we got it right.

In the end and after testing the patience of the hungry guests, the meat and other food was good. The long wait was tempered by good Australian wine and some really great homemade salsa and guacamole. After dinner we also had a sampling of some yummie Swedish candies and ice cream with strawberries. Yum! We will work out extra hard next week...this is not a usual occurance!

In the photo, you can see the brand new grill all by itself in the apartment back yard. The kids played back there and also in a nearby park. I think the kids had a great time too. The older kids were amazingly mature: sweet and patient in helping out with the smaller ones. These are the good things in life.....ah...a nice evening in Sweden with food, wine, friends and making new ones! Well worth all the effort for the wonderful memories of a good Saturday night in Svierge.

Norrviken, Frog Stains, BBQ, and Woodworking

Last weekend, a Swedish colleague and his family invited D & J over for a barbecue at his home in Norrviken. Norrviken is just north of Kista and is a clean small community that developed on a thousand year old trade route next to a shallow swampy lake. In recent years the lake has dried up so that it's now about 3 kilometers in diameter. It's still a great spot for summer swimming and winter skating. Norrviken also borders a large forested park which is a favorite mountain biking area.

The most interesting thing about Norrviken, however, is the annual 2 week period of frogs. They emerge from the swampy areas of the lake and overwhelm the streets and neighborhoods. The city puts up signs to warn motorists of the road hazard (both to protects the motorist from sliding on squished frogs and to protect the frogs from death by Volvo tires, I suppose). The mass migration of frogs reminds me of the Mormon crickets in Utah. D & J once encountered them on a desert road in Utah and the wheel wells were full of blended cricket parts - it couldn't be helped.

The hosting family showed extreme hospitality, like all our other Swedish friends. They had a nice large yard with fruit trees, many flowers and a vegetable garden. The houses in the neighborhood were built in the 60's during some boom years for Sweden. The houses are brick which most Americans would prefer over wood, but in Sweden, wood or stucco is usually preferred. The gutters are made of copper! Imagine that today. The interiors, like most Swedish homes and buildings, have a special warmth and feeling of wood.

The hosts have an interesting life story that includes many foreign sojourns, notably in Ohio and Japan. They also own a 27 meter long freighter boat, which they spent 10 years refurbishing and actually lived on in a Stockholm marina for several years before buying the house. They take a 2 week trip in the boat each year into the interior of Sweden via a series of lakes, canals, and locks. The trip is with a group of other small freighters, all joining as a community.

The barbecue is very popular in Sweden, and is considered an American pastime that Sweden has imported. The host was a little nervous BBQ'ing for the "expert American." However, it was excellent and the American expert is not so expert. They BBQ'ed roast, wieners, and bratwurst. The dinner itself also included fresh cheeses (Sweden has great cheeses) and fresh breads. One of the delicious cheeses also had a sharp aroma. So sharp the Swedes call it balcony cheese because you should leave it on the balcony to keep it from smelling up the house. I tried it and liked it. Just goes to show you that you can't judge a cheese by it's odor... well not totally.

The dessert was glass (the Swedish words for ice cream) covered with fresh strawberries. So far every dinner D & J have had at a Swedish family's home has been excellent and this one maintained that standard. D & J worry that they can't come close to matching the culinary skills of the Swedish hosts, especially since D & J have a temporary kitchen and are less familiar with where to buy certain ingredients (all the ingredients are in Sweden but sometimes the Swedish words are not in our dictionary, especially spices).

The garage in the basement, like D's in the US, had been converted to a woodworking shop. Only this one had several industrial sized tools like an 18 inch joiner, a shaper, 20 inch bandsaw, and planer. He bought these from a Swedish tool maker for cash to get a really sweet deal. He also used German Festool routers, the brand D considers top-ot-the line. In the US, Festool's are about 70% higher than their competitors. But they are so much lighter and have higher precision than the other brands.

The Battle of Hulloch and the Easter Rising

My adventure is spiced with meeting interesting people with interesting stories. An Irish colleague told me an interesting story about Irish history, with a personal irony folded in. We often hear of the human sacrifice in the Irish revolution of 1916, especially during the Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was a failure costing approximately 380 lives but did lead to eventual Irish independence from England. At about the same time, the Germans were gassing members of the Royal Dublin Fulisers in Hulluch, France. This was the first gas attack of the horrific World War I.

My colleague says "As my grandfather was fighting in the trenches with the Royal Dublin Fulisers, I regret that we, the southern Irish, don’t remember their courage and sacrifice. There were 35,000 Irish killed in WW I who are more or less forgotten. The victors write the history books and in this case it was the Irish Republican Army (the original IRA) who fought and eventually won independence. My personal irony is that my other grandfather was in the IRA shooting British at the same time as my maternal grandfather was in the British Army. Should the two of them have been in Dublin in April 1916, I might not be here saying this!!! Thankfully, my other granddad was from Cork (250 km south of Dublin!)."

This sort of imbalance is frequent all over the world.

As I write this, the BBC and CNN Europe airing in Stockholm are dwelling on the tragedy of the Virginia Tech shootings and suicide. They are interviewing the shooter's former teachers, roommates, classmates, etc. trying to understand the psychology of the shooter, a Korean immigrant named Cho. They are evaluating and scrutinizing the gun laws in the US. It seems ironic that 33 people die tragically in the US, a country of 400 million while the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen says 166 people died in a suicide bomber blast in Baghdad, Iraq, a much much smaller country. If they did a psyscho-analysis of the Baghdad suicide killer equivalent to the one afforded Cho, I think we'd all learn a lot: the West and the Islamic world. Instead we over-simplify it as a horror of war or the insanity of fundamentalism or whatever....

Ah, I wax political, sorry.

My Easter Dinner

Let me tell you about a fantastic Swedish family I know. They had me and some other visiting Americans over for Easter, treating us to a traditional Swedish Easter meal, which includes herring and eggs. More on that later. The meal included fresh cheeses, a lasagna-like dish, roasted lamb, a Mediterranean salad with black olives and ricotta cheese, lax (thinly slices smoked salmon), and potatoes. Bo said that a Swede, especially the older ones, will ask "where's the potatoes?" like a I might ask "where's the beef?" Potatoes are a stable agricultural product of Sweden and they are, indeed, excellent.

Four types of herring were available. Herring is one of those foods that takes a bit of courage to take the first bite. ("Twas a brave man that first ate a raw oyster" or maybe very hungry.) I like, but not love, herring in tomato or mustard sauce. The picked ones are stronger and I've heard is an acquired taste.

The dessert was a thin chocolate cake, almost a brownie, sprinkled with powdered sugar with fresh raspberries and ice cream as a topping.


This family is amazing. They all speak at least two languages and play music and have traveled the world. Below you see a photo of their basement sound-proofed music room with the family plying a song for us.



The other American family is also fantastic. They also are world travelers. One parent hales from Australia; the other from Calgary, Canada born of Norwegian immigrants. She speaks some Norwegian and will be learning Swedish, a close relative, very quickly. Both are avid orienteers, a sport originating in Scandinavia and very popular all over the world. Orienteering may become a new hobby for D & J, too.

Both families have relatives spread all over the world and yet manage to maintain close family ties. They visit each other periodically, write or email frequently, and use the old fashioned phone: skills D & J will be honing in the upcoming months.

Easter is one of the most important Swedish holidays. They stress Easter witches more than the Easter bunny, although candy plays a big part. Read all about the Swedish Easter traditions here, which says "In Finland and Sweden, traditions include egg painting and small children dressed as witches collecting candy door-to-door, in exchange for decorated pussy willows. This is a result of the mixing of an old Orthodox tradition (blessing houses with willow branches) and the Scandinavian Easter witch tradition. Brightly coloured feathers and little decorations are also attached to willow or birch branches in a vase. For lunch/dinner on Holy Saturday, families traditionally feast on a smörgåsbord of herring, salmon, potatoes, eggs and other kinds of food."

Friends in a new country make the experience far more rich than simply doing the tourist thing....

One Cat, Two Dogs

One of the biggest dilemmas before moving to Sweden is to decide what to do with the pets. Since Sweden and the United States are on excellent terms, the regulations are as simple as can be found (with the possible exception of Canada and Mexico). The rules as I know them are:
Dogs and cats must be re-vaccinated by a licensed vet and a lot more stuff.

Will we take them? We're still undecided because they are such an integral component of the family. However, having them limits where we can live in Sweden and also presents an "animal sitting" problem if we take any trips in Europe. We have the same problem in Colorado, though.