Learning Swedish, Learning Sweden

Last night THS and I went out. It was our mutual friend M's birthday. Although we both really should have studied, it is hard to evade going to meet someone when it's their birthday. Add to that the fact that THS and I met each other through M, and we are really obligated to display our eternal thanks.

Since I recently found out more nerve-racking information about my hard test that I have next week, I was feeling nervous. So right at the beginning of the night I announced it was going to be All Swedish, All The Time.

Oh, it was hellish. Very, very hellish. Because if you just let things take their natural course, next thing you know you're talking about magical realist elements in the novels of the Ashkenazi diaspora, or theories of nurture vs. nature, and woe to her who thinks she can talk about all that in Swedish. I just don't have the vocabulary. But I ended up there, and at other weird places as well, and I guess I just sounded like some sort of idiot savant. It worked best with people who already knew me. Those who I met for the first time just gave me weird looks. The impressive thing was that for the most part they didn't switch into English, respecting my "all Swedish all the time" rule.

After having been here for two months, I'm willing to tentatively begin my comparative study of German values vs. Swedish. This is, of course, highly controversial and polemical, but as I've said before in these pages -- I just calls 'em like I sees 'em.


German values vs. Swedish values

Germans have insitutionalized order, Swedes have institutionalized niceness.
Gernans have social beer all afternoon, Swedes have social coffee all afternoon.
Germany is heterogeneous, Sweden is homogeneous
Germans are concerned with their history, Swedes are concerned with their traditions.
Germans value intellectual rigour, Swedes value humanism.
Germans are pessimistic (even when they are trying to be optimistic), Swedes are self-assured and mildly optimistic (even when they put on an air of cynicism.)
Germans value telling the truth at all costs, Swedes avoid conflict.

At some point it would be interesting to insert Americans into this, but I've got to run and meet THS for dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving

A Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

The Handsome Swede and I decided at the last minute that we would celebrate the holiday, and went to the supermarket around eight at night. We bought a whole chicken, and potatoes for mashing, and a Swedish cheese cake.
The chicken turned out divine -- we baked it in rosemary and olive oil and garlic and black pepper and fresh lemon. It was moist and tender and delicious. The mashed potatoes, however, led to a wee altercation. CERTAIN people wanted them with skins on, others with skins off. But the potatoes were very delicious as well in the end. We made gravy with the run-off from the roast chicken, and so the gravy was rich and rosemary flavored.
The Swedish cheese cake turned out to taste like an almond rice pudding. We ate it with whipped cream and giant blackberries. The entire dinner was scrumptious.

So I think tonight I had my first Thanksgiving dinner since 2001. THS had his first Thanksgiving ever.

On Burning Out

I've noticed that I'm beginning to experience some burn-out with Swedish. One of the most frustrating things about learning a new language, if you're me at least, are these cycles of highs and lows. For a long time you feel like maybe TOMORROW you're going to speak fluently! I liken it to the state of mind of a donkey when he is following a carrot on a stick in front of his nose. Or the eager attitude of a dog who has recently heard the word "treat". You just get all excited, and bound around, or rush ahead at high speed with your head out the window of the car and your tongue out. And then after a while, presumably because you are human and not a donkey or a dog, you realize that it took them a thousand years to develop this language and you're not going to be able to speak it exquisitely tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or EVER.

This is all very terrible. But the problem becomes even worse because actually the ability to speak a language well depends on self-assurance. The cruel irony is that the more optimistic you are, the better you speak, and the more downtrodden (realistic) you are, the worse the sound of the words when they come out of your mouth, and the more shattered your grammar becomes.

Oh cruel world!

The day I came home from Swedish class having been chosen to take the test early, mistaken for a Swede because of my accentlessness, and having just ruled the literature discussion, THS was astounded by my apparent progress in one day.

A few days later, I had ruminated a great deal after having written an essay riddled with obvious errors, and THS couldn't understand why even my accent was so much worse than just a few days before. I told him it was slump time.

Anyway, lucky for me, I've done this before, and I know how it goes. You get all excited and make rapid progress, then you get a taste of reality and stagnate for a while, plateauing out, and you think you aren't learning anything. Then you get your groove back and you're suddenly at a much higher level than you were at the beginning of the plateau, proving that you actually made subconscious progress.

When I was in highschool, I was generally a very good French student. I felt very confident in class, although I couldn't make head or tail of novels without a dictionary. Then my senior year I went on an exchange program to Ivory Coast, and upon arrival had a crisis of confidence that led me to be "the girl who can understand French but cannot speak it" for my ENTIRE stay in that country. I hardly said a word to anyone the entire time, following directions but never speaking unless spoken to. Finally the last night, as my host family was taking me to the airport, I started talking in the car. And talking, and talking, and talking, and talking. My host family was in shock. "Mais Ida, tu parles tres bien le francais! Pourquoi est-ce que tu n'as jamais rien dit!?" They assumed it was a case of treachery. But I really HADN'T been able to speak French until that moment. Lo and behold, when I got back to the US, I was quite fluent, and have been able to read novels without a dictionary ever since.

I really don't understand how these things work exactly. I surmise that there is a lot going on even when you think there's nothing going on, so long as you are immersed in the culture.

Now with Swedish there is a danger this subconscious work won't happen when I have my lows, because THS and I speak English here at home, and I am doing a great deal of writing in English. We'll see how I fare.

For now, however, let it be known that I'm in a language slump.

A Little Trip to Europe

Yesterday it was sunny and bracing, and as it was a Sunday, everyone was out walking. For anyone who has never been to Stockholm, it's built on an archipelago, a series of islands clustered tightly next to one another. THS and I live on the Southern Island (Söder) where there are many hills and rocky ledges. Our Western edge faces the north, and along this Northern edge of the island there is a great cliff. You can walk along the edge of the cliff and look down at the water far below that separates this island from the old town (Gamla Stan), and see the boats and spires and bridges off in the distance. I wanted to catch the sunlight, THS had to study, so I went off walking on my own. I walked along the edge of the cliff along Montelius Vägen, which is sort of a boardwalk. (Please note that I do not have a camera, so none of these images are mine.)















The view from Monteliusvägen is of Gamla Stan, the old town, which from this vantage point looks something like this:

And this:














Then I went down a very steep, old cobblestone road, and made my way over the bridge that you can see in both pictures.
I walked around the old town for a long time, and it was lovely.


































I went into some churches, and some free museums. At some point along the walk, I caught myself thinking reflexively, "How lucky I am that I can make trips to Europe so easily now." Hahaha! I was surprised at myself -- that even after living on this continent for all these years, knowing the reality of life here, I still have my childish conception of Europe as a place where you visit churches, look at old towns, take in 'culture'.
I didn't think I still had these simple-minded associations.

But recently I was reading some advice to a writer who asked how she might reinvigorate herself after having worked herself down to a state of torpor where she had no ideas left. The advice she received was that she should forget literature. For a long while she should simply go to museums and spend hours looking at art. Any art that pleased her. And then she should go to concerts and hear music that moved and inspired her. When she returned to her manuscript she would be replenished. As a young person, there was always something about travel to Europe which had this effect on me -- it filled me with new strength and ideas. Probably these happy memories are part of why I've ended up here. The interesting thing, however, is that the reinvigorating aspect doesn't seem to come from the variation in scenery. There's something about walking in Stockholm that is inspiring and rewarding, even if you live here all the time. In that sense, I am terribly glad that I can "go to Europe" so easily.

Updates

Lots to report!

1. I went to the doctor for the first time in Sweden this morning. Or rather, what I THOUGHT was the doctor. You all may recall that a few weeks ago I received a letter from the government, or, as THS calls it, "Papa," saying that I was due for my yearly gynecological exam. Turns out when you go in for your routine pap smear, you don't see a doctor, nor a nurse, but rather a midwife.

The medical facility was in one of those luxurious, blonde-wood Scandinavian buildings. The office itself, while looking in most ways like a doctor's office, was all about the cozy, as per usual. In the waiting room there was soft, pretty, yellow lighting. Tea candles flickered on the side tables, and a big pitcher of water with lemon stood on a tray. Not far off was a massive children's play area with expensive looking wooden toys. The midwife who checked me out put on a linen apron when she did the exam that looked like something you'd buy at Laura Ashley Home. She was cool but not unfriendly. It was fine. So to sum up, I'd say Martha Stewart might have been anticipated here. But she can catch up -- I envision a new magazine entitled Martha Stewart Hospital Living. Generally I think your experience at the doctor's tells a lot about the culture you're living in. Some day maybe I'll get around to describing my crazy, crazy, German doctors.

2. Earlier this week I was one of only four students in my class of fifty who was cleared to take the national test in December. The way it works is that we have the choice of doing this course in ten weeks, twenty weeks, or thirty weeks. Twenty weeks is the recommended period, but this way, if I pass I'll get to finish it in ten. It was a nice thing, and yes, you're right to assume I'm proud of it, but there was also a pretty negative aspect as well.

At first, it didn't seem as if it was anything special to take the test, just par for the course. My teacher, Helén, whom I adore for the most part but who has already proven herself to be less than diplomatic on other occasions, came right up to me as class was ending. She returned my essay, and then spoke to me very casually about taking the test in December. So far so good. It all seemed perfectly casual and normal, not as if I was being singled out.

However, at the time she spoke to me, I happened to be sitting directly next to my Egyptian friend, Atef, who could hear everything she said whether he wanted to or not. It so happens that Atef and I have been talking about trying to finish the course as quickly as possible from the beginning. He has been here three years, and is eager to learn Swedish quickly and efficiently now that he has some time off work (when he first got here he didn't have time to learn Swedish academically). He's very fluent, and very intelligent. This school where I am now is touted as a "flex" school, where students supposedly can move through at their own pace. So that's why he's here. He really wants to finish up and take the test. So Atef went to her just a moment later and said he'd like to take the test as well. Right in front of me, whom she had only just invited, Helen told him almost flat out that he couldn't take the test. Only those who were invited could take it. It was only then that I realized that it was exclusive -- I think if I had known I would have at the very least distanced myself so that I wouldn't be standing RIGHT THERE as she was so curt with him. It was very embarrassing. And she didn't say: "You're just not there yet," because frankly, I'm sure she isn't even aware of what his Swedish level is. In a class of fifty, how could she be? EVERYONE in the class is pretty fluent, in their way. All that had happened to decide who was to take the test was that our reading journals, which we turn in to the teachers every week, had been evaluated to see at what writing level we were. The few good ones were allowed to take the test.

In any case, I felt really bad for Atef, and I have trouble understanding why they discourage a motivated student from taking a test. It would just mean that he'd study harder and with more interest for a few weeks, even if he did fail in the end. How can that be a bad thing?

3. Back to topic: since finding out that I'm going to take this darn national test, I've been stressing myself out. Apparently it will be in the first week of December. THE FIRST WEEK. I really would like to pass it; I still don't think it's a great thing for me to be in this course forever, as my savings dwindle, much as I'm enjoying it. On the other hand, it is a bit ridiculous. Supposedly the test is the same one that Swedish fifteen-year-olds take before they enter highschool (gymnasium). I will have had all of SIX WEEKS of Swedish study behind me when I take it. I'm good at languages, but I'm not THAT good. I have never even learned the Swedish past tenses (I keep meaning to study that but I always get sidetracked!). I parrot what I hear people say, which works okay for the most common verbs, but it doesn't give me very much latitude in terms of expressing myself. I end up just making up past forms of verbs, which drives THS crazy. What I am good at is studying for a specific test. But there are no sample tests available, so that's out the window. I can't decide whether to resign myself to not passing, or to stay stressed for the next three weeks as I try to do the impossible.

4. Because it's my obsession and all I do with my time, I'll tell you more news about my Swedish studies, but I do apologize because I know it's boring. I'll forgive you if you stop reading here.

-- I still can't manage to speak with my Swedish friends in social settings, and that's sort of uncomfortable and depressing.

-- BUT I have completely switched over to Swedish for daily errands, with capital results. Today at the doctor I spoke Swedish from start to finish, and it was glorious.

-- In class on Tuesday while we were doing small group work and I had to repeatedly explain what words meant (ah, ye olde helper, German!), one of my fellow students asked me by the way if I was a Swede. I assumed she was making a complimentary joke because, well, as I said, I am not THAT good, and secondly, um...shouldn't it strike her as unlikely that a Swedish person would want to take this Swedish language course?? But in the end she turned out to be in earnest. All in all, she doesn't seem to be the brightest light on the Christmas tree/Menorah, but it still made me feel good, bless her soul.

Swedish Food

There has been some interest in the question: what is Swedish food like? I thought I'd address just that.
First of all, Swedish food is both the best of times and the worst of times. Because Sweden is one of those northern countries that built up a culinary tradition before the advent of refrigeration, you can taste the heritage of various preserving techniques that were once used to get food through the long winter. We're talking salt, vinegar, and smoked and pickled fish. A tendency not to incorporate fresh vegetables into recipes. However, that said, the Swedes have two things going for them: a commitment to quality, and a truly incredible, absolutely heavenly, serenely blissful ability to make pastries. They blow the French out of the water when it comes to pastries. This is a little known fact.

Take the princess torte:



My friends, that green "icing" exterior is actually the most delicately chewy, exquisitely almondy marzipan you've ever had in your life. That top layer of whiteness is ever so lightly sweetened whipped cream. The thin purple stripe is a layer of preserves.

This is not something that you find in pastry specialty shops here and there. No, no. This is something available for your eating pleasure in every little cafe and on every little dessert tray on every street corner. It's traditionally a birthday cake, but seems to be eaten all the time.

Or consider the semla. Oh yes, consider the semla.



The first time I saw a semla, I thought it looked sort of gross. Is that how you feel, looking at it now? Are you more of a chocolate person, not a cream puff/doughnut type of person? Well, my muffins, you are on the wrong track. Although the semla looks as if it's going to taste like something from the Crispy Cream Corporation, you bite into it and discover a series of complex, sophisticated tastes. The bun itself is of cardamom wheat, sweet but also nutty and spicy, "which has its top cut off and insides scooped out and then filled with a mix of the scooped out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped of with whipped cream. The cut-off top is then put back as a lid and dusted with icing sugar." (Courtesy Wikipedia).

My friends, you WILL like Swedish pastries. You won't be able to help it.

Winter Comes

On the night of October 31st-November 1st we got our first big snow storm. Even by Stockholm standards, this is an early start to winter. The busses stopped running, and the poor trees, who had only just gotten around to losing their leaves, were weighed down by the snow, and they lost branches.
The Handsome Swede has always promised me that winter in Stockholm is the nicest time of year. Why? Because, he says, of the sensation of coziness.

Swedes use the word "cozy" in English far more frequently than we actually make use of the word in the States, and I'm assuming that as I have more interaction with them in Swedish, the Swedish word will come up pretty often as well. Walk into a restaurant, and immediately a Swede will begin sizing up the coziness factor. Perhaps everyone does this, but Swedes seem to do it more consciously and with more precise deliberation. They know a thing or two about cozy.

So what exactly is cozy? Well, for this discussion of winter's onslaught, let us limit ourselves to a certain sub-genre of coziness. When you are in close proximity to cold, dark, freezing wetness, but you are nevertheless dry, warm, and in the light, the sensations of warmth, comfort and protection are heightened and more perfect.

The Swedes are very good at producing cozy. It's almost a national art.
I am discovering the joys of it as we speak. Here in Stockholm, rooms are very warmly lit with reds and yellows. Good heating with no draughts is a given. And the architectural joys of Stockholm -- its narrow, winding, hilly, cobblestone streets redolent with the scent of the ocean; 17th and 18th century buildings with gables and ornate iron gates and cupolas and vaulted ceilings and fireplaces, and candles in the windows and unexpected, tiny fanlights with yellow light shining through -- remind one somehow of a medieval fairy tale, which is a very cozy thing indeed.
So I'm not unhappy with the coming of winter. The streets are even more beautiful in the snow.

TAKING STOCK

I've been here for a month now, and I can begin to take stock. Learning Swedish, as you've probably gathered, is going well. I like this place as much as I thought I would. The people that I've had reason to interact with have shown me nothing but kindness.

There is a great deal I still miss about Berlin however. What I miss most painfully are my books. I miss them much more than I thought I would. As I go about my writing here, I'm always thinking of some reference I'd like to dig into. An article I read on the internet makes me want to review Grass' Tin Drum, or I want to know what Nietzsche meant when he wrote this or that, and my comprehensive Nietzsche, my Tin Drum, aren't here. Living without a personal library gives a feeling of living in suspension, without having your feet on the ground.

Another thing: I'm a bit confused about how to go about making friends so that I have a peer group here (this is something that I've learned is important only over time -- I really didn't used to understand just how important it is.). However, that will be helped enormously when I have the language, and have a job. Both things that will come with time.

Yet another, and this one is pure bellyaching really: is that there is an enormous difference between Berlin and Stockholm in terms of the price of food, both in restaurants and in supermarkets. The result is that I can't afford to eat fruit and vegetables in the way I used to, and I can't afford to get out of the house as much as I like. I'll confess that in Berlin, where a restaurant meal sets you back five dollars, I ate out four nights a week. I loved the change of scenery that came with eating out, being around people in interesting locales. Here we eat in every night. I'm only just beginning to learn about which frozen vegetable are tasty if you can't afford fresh (who knew that frozen dill tastes just as good in a sauce as fresh dill???), and how to pick out the cheapest types of fruit. So it's all working out, really, but it has demanded some serious adjustment.

Generally I'm very happy with the move, so I don't want to give you the wrong idea. But I felt that I would be remiss if I only gave you the positive side of things. Uprooting yourself and moving to a new place and then growing roots in the new place so that you know how to thrive like an expert is a process that takes years, even if it's a short plane ride that takes you from one place to the other. However, I do believe that the rewards are high. There are different schools of thought on this, but in my short life, my experience has made me believe that you never really get uprooted from a place after leaving it. It will always be in your heart, and so when you put down roots in a new place, in effect you're adding places in the world where you feel happy and comfortable, not trading in.

Everyone is different of course. Especially socially. Some people have deep attachment to the old boys and girls, their oldest, dearest, family and friends, and a move like this would cause them to pine for the dear ones who are no longer near by. I can understand that well. Then there are those who are very talented at making friends, and within six months of a move like this, they have surrounded themselves with a new circle of people, even as they stay in touch with the old. And then there are people like me, introspective and in large part introverted, who, although attached very deeply to people, always feel somewhat removed from others by virtue of their need for solitude, and I think my type weathers moves most easily, because it is not so very jarring to go from spending a good deal of time alone in one country to spending a good deal of time alone in another.

But I'm not a robot or a lone wolf. I do have the need for a social life after my fashion, and the process of getting one is never easy. As per usual, I'll keep you updated.