The Wrap Up - Part Three

Things I didn't like about Sweden.

Toilets!

Toilets cost money to use, even in shops. The cost varied but was usually about $1.50. Paying more for a toilet didn't guarantee cleanliness. I don't as such have a problme with paying for a loo, but if I pay I expect it to be good! A bigger problem that having to pay though, is that they just don't seem to have enough! Finding them was pretty good in Stockholm (in the touristy area) but really hard in Gothenburg. They put the handbasin in the cubicle with the toilet, so the cubicles themselves are large, so not many fit in.

Worst part - men get a free urinal, but no such luxury for the women!

Late Opening Hours

Stuff opened really late - the general opening hour was 10am - which tended to be the time they started opening up, not that they were ready for trade at 10am. Some places didn't bother opening until 11am. If you know me, you know that I am not a morning person, so for me to say that things opened up too late indicates just how late it seemed!

Salted Licorice & Lollies that taste worse than you can possibly imagine

The Swedes love all kinds of lollies. Unfortunately this includes salted licorice. Yuck! You get salt chocolate and even salted licorice ice cream. The food in general isn't salty, so maybe lollies is where the Swedes get their Sodium requirements.

Public Service Announcement.

If in Sweden (or nearby) and you see these lollies - STAY AWAY!

The taste of these defies description.

My theory is that the ghost shape is a warning - eating these could be deathly to your tastebuds! 

These are the kind of things you spit out and drink three glasses of water to try and get rid of the taste (it doesn't work). You will be cringing in remembrance hours after eating.

Hopefully you get the point and don't try one.

The Wrap Up - Part Two

More Questions answered!

Q: Is there IKEA stuff everywhere?

A: Yes! Lots of the cafes, bars and restaurants I went to used IKEA stuff. Commonly spotted - IKEA glasses, cutlery, chair pads and most of all - blankets (provided by each place that had outdoor seating so you could wrap up in the cold). It was strange being in the arctic circle and looking at the candle holder on the table and realising that I had the same design at home. I didn't make it into the local IKEA shop - although I did see an IKEA bus - if I hadn't been on my bike at the time I might have jumped on!

Q: Was it dark at all at night?

A: It may have been dark for a few hours in the middle of the night - but the sun didn't go below the horizon until about 10.30pm ish - and it was certainly back up and shining brightly at 4am. (Of course, when we were in the arctic circle it didn't get dark at all as we were there at the time of year of the famous 'midnight sun' - but we slept through it and didn't get up to check how it looked).

And if your next question would be "how hard was it to sleep?" - my answer would be "with difficulty and in a sleeping mask". The curtains were quite good blockouts and we shut them carefully each night, but I really struggle with light at night time - I occasionally use a sleeping mask even when the sun isn't up around the clock! I think Michael coped a lot better with the light - but then his problem with sleep is noise, which doesn't bother me so much.

The Wrap Up - Part One

Your Questions Answered!

Q: Are all Swedes blonde, blue-eyed, tall, thin & attractive?

A: No. It's like expecting all Australians to look like either "typical bronzed Aussie" or similar stereotyping. I would estimate that about 70% of Swedes are brunettes, and in general they didn't look tall to me. I did see some who would almost fit the stereotype, but even they were not jaw droppingly gorgeous like some would have you believe all Scandinavians are. I am told that all the people who do look like the stereotype are employed at the front of house for the top end hotels and restaurants - but I didn't go to these places. Outside of tourist places I would always be addressed in Swedish, so I wasn't obviously foreign - so physically I could  pass as a Swede (?). I am not blonde, blue-eyed, particularly tall or thin and while Dr M thinks I am the most beautiful woman in the world, I have not yet received any offers to start off my modeling career. In other words, I am an ordinary looking person as are the majority of Swedes.

Q: Wasn't it cold?

A: Nope. Some days were even too warm for comfort with Dr M ditching his bike ride to work in favour of the the cooler option of public transport. To be accurate, it was a bit unseasonable warm and rain free while I was there, but even a few degrees cooler and you wouldn't have been cold. It generally wasn't hot in the evening, but I needed sunscreen until about 7.30pm as the sun still had a lot of bite in it until that point, and with the sun not going below the horizon until about 10pm. It was cool after the sun went down if the wind was blowing - but a light jacket was sufficient for warmth. I had to buy an extra pair of lightweight pants as I thought that I would live in jeans while there and it was far to hot for them (I wore my jeans about three times - in England and the second day in the Arctic Circle and I think out to dinner one night). I was a bit cold the day we went down the mine in the Arctic Circle - the air was 8 degrees underground and about 5 ish degrees about that above ground - but rainy with a breeze, and I didn't help matters by slipping on the grass and ending up with wet pants which then made me very cold.

Q: Isn't Sweden really expensive?
A: Some things were, some things weren't. The Aussie dollar is pretty strong right now so the exchange rate was in our favour. I thought lunches were really good value. Dinner was a little less so (but dinners out tended to be at more expensive type places). Stuff in supermarkets was reasonable. Entry to museums/attractions  was dirt cheap. I don't think that anything material was cheap, but then I don't think anything was cheap in quality. I thought that both Denmark and London were more expensive - I thought London was heaps more expensive (and without the quality).

Swedish Furniture Design

This is a post I started while still in Sweden.... It didn't get finished as I decided I had to do a few more things before I left and then when I had 5 minutes we ran out of internet credit.

One thing I was looking forward to seeing in Sweden was the designs. I had hoped to pick up a few items of clothes with bright colours and bold designs, but it turns out that they prefer muted colours for their clothes (nothing in red in the shops - at all!). It would appear that they save all that design effort for furnishings!

The Swedish are known for being a bit out there with designs. It's for a reason people! Have a looky at these chairs. The ones on the left are probably not for everyday use (they are probably too expensive to sit on) but the ones on the right look like they might be considered as an everyday chair. You could see wacky chairs in most furniture shop display windows, so I assume  the average Swede likes a wacky chair.

Better than the chairs though, are the light fittings! Everywhere you go there are fabulous, out there light fittings. And not just in shops where you might wonder who would buy them - installed for use all over the place. There might be a law against having boring light fittings in public places.

It's all about the Cider

One thing I love about Sweden is the paron (pear) cider. I knew that I would like it as I really like the (non-alcoholic) pear cider from Ikea. It's very different from the range of ciders readily available at home. You get lots of different brands with different flavours (left wih elderflower, above with berries, strawberry & lime, starfruit & raspberry & starfruit) - a lot of these are summer limited edition, I don't think you can get more than the standard in the cold, dark days of winter. In general they are very refreshing on a hot day (although the strawberry & lime was a bit sweet). You can't tell what is made here though - food lableing laws don't seem to require country of origin. The one to the left is one of my favourites, and I had assumed it was Swedish as all the info on the back is in Swedish with no other country mentioned - but it is actually English (I didn't see it anywhere in England though - I think it is made for export to Sweden in the swedish cider style as it is nothing like the other English ciders I have had). 

You can also get the ones up the top in a range of alcoholic contents - you can buy drinks with up to 2.5% alcohol in the supermarket, above that you have to go to the government owned bottle shops (system bolaget). The drinks up the top range from 4.5 % to 7.5% - but Dr M found some of the same flavours in the supermarket in cans with the lower alcohol reading. This means you have to be careful what you take from the fridge!

In the Arctic Circle

We have just returned from a weekend up north, within the arctic circle. We boarded an overnight train on Friday afternoon, and were a little sorry that we weren't able to justify the additional expense for a private compartment as the dour Norwegians who were also seated in our compartment were not the ideal traveling companions (lots of trips to the bistro carriage to purchase beers & cheese 'n' onion chips which were then consumed in the carriage followed by mellifluous burping + they wanted to wait until midnight to turn the seats into beds - when Dr M had been up since 6am for work! + snoring which Dr M found impossible to sleep through). 

However the trip was still fun and the scenery that we could see out the windows (usually when the Norwegians were at the bar as they had the window seats) was very pretty and made me feel as though we were seeing a bit more of the real Sweden.

We disembarked at the Northernmost city of Sweden, Kiruna. It is a strange town, which depends on the local iron ore mine, and while it has tourist activities, they are not very many and of those some are shut on weekends! There are also no buses on weekends, so we ended up hiring a car as it was cheaper than catching a taxi to and from a single thing we were interested in. Dr M did an excellent job at his first time driving on the otherside of the road. I was excellent support.

Even though there is not much do do, you can cope as  the activities are quite unique and enjoyable! We started off with a visit a Sami traditional centre (Sami is the correct name for those you might know as Lapps from Lapland). We looked at traditional houses, crafts, learnt about the culture, attempted to feed the reindeer (but were rejected) and tried our hands at lassoing reindeer antlers (no longer connected to the reindeer). 

We then went to the site of the famous 'Icehotel' which is built each winter. We  learnt about how they construct the hotel and were able to inspect the harvested ice blocks (beautiful clear blocks weighing about 2T each cut from the river each March) waiting to be built into the hotel once it is cold enough, currently sitting in stacks in a large refrigerated warehouse. This was followed by a visit to the Icebar which contains more of the ice blocks, and some of the remaining furniture and sculptures from last years hotel.

It's quite amazing - it would be great to see the hotel built. It has been going now for 20 years and each year they push the boundaries a bit more to see what they can achieve.

That night we ate reindeer, elk, native fish and finished off with the swedish delicacy - cloudberries!

The next day we visited the Kiruna Church - a very famous church in Sweden. It had interesting gold statues outside on the roof, fabulous lights inside and a good looking set of organ pipes.

We then joined with a tour group to go down the local mine - the biggest single iron ore mine in the world! It is an unusual mine in that it produces magnetite - unlike Australian iron ore which is hematite. The mine is so profitable that they are about to start relocating the entire town so that they can continue mining the seam without worrying about the town falling to bits due to subsidence. It was a very interesting tour. At the end of the day we flew back to Stockholm for my last (part) week in Sweden.

(and for those wondering about the temperatures - I was probably warmer than you for most of the time. Saturday was about 20 degrees - I wandered around in bare legs and a t-shirt - I was a bit cold dressed like this looking at the ice blocks in the warehouse, but that was all. Sunday was colder and quite wet - but was easily about 10 degrees - the mine was cold at only 8 degrees. My thermals, beanie and extra jumpers will be coming home unworn.)