SWEDEN – LAND OF IKEA AND ABBA

You know what I love about Denmark? The words for ‘poison’ and ‘marriage’ are the same. I’ve been here for about two months now and I’m starting to get the hang of the whole not understanding what on earth is going on around me. A big part of that is that I am beginning to understand the language. I can’t speak it, other than basic little things like ‘thanks’ and ‘excuse me’, but then again, Danish children start speaking later than other children because their own language is so darn hard. I can however read a little bit. Well, that’s an overstatement. Occasionally I can get the gist of something, like the information at the train station or directions on food packets. I can even sometimes figure out different food packets are. Yay me! Basically, all the Danish I know comes from watching TV with subtitles. You can actually learn quite a lot that way. I can recognize lots of words and I know a little about sentence structure. Sadly, most of the programs in English are sitcoms and other crap things like that so the words I know are ‘Jeg elsker dig’ (I love you) and ‘Det er utroligt’ (That is incredible). Obviously, very useful things.

I have an interesting translations-error story. I think I mentioned the Danish culture course I’m taking and the excursions. We had a city walk last week and we were told to be aware of the fact that the clocks were going back. So I put my clock back before I went to bed on Saturday, very excited by my extra hour of sleep. I slept in. I rushed to get ready and phoned my friend Lisa to say that I was going to be late and that I would phone around 10.30 to find out where they were. What she said was, ‘Um, it’s 10.45.’ I said, ‘No, daylight savings’. She said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘When the clocks go back.’ She said, ‘That’s not for another couple of weeks.’ We had been sent an email the day before to tell us there was a time change for the trip to Frederiksberg, not for the city walk. No native English speakers turned up on time. The non-English speakers, however, understood the translation of ‘time change’, never having heard the phrase ‘daylight savings’.

We had holidays last week and, much as I love Copenhagen, I needed to go somewhere else. I moved about so much before I got here that the first few weeks of not moving were fantastic but then I started to get bored. So I hopped on a bus and headed to Gothenburg in Sweden. Copenhagen is on the island of Zealand, which is only 12kms from Sweden, and the two countries are linked by a bridge (the Scandinavians love their bridges. They’re everywhere). So anyway, my bus took me straight from Copenhagen to Gothenburg, which is the second largest city in Sweden. I liked going by bus because it let me see a bit of the country. Sweden was actually quite different from Denmark, which surprised me, but it was kind of similar at the same time. When you drive through Denmark there are only fields, flat and un-extraordinary. Sweden seemed to be covered in forests. All along the road were miles and miles of autumn. You know when it’s not quite misty but it’s definitely not clear and the light is shining behind all the low cloud? Well, it was like that behind all the reds and browns and yellows of the leaves and it was just the picture perfect autumn scene. You could just feel that there were elks and moose in the forest.

Gothenburg is a very pretty city. The centre is similar to Copenhagen in that it’s built around a series of canals, with plenty of beautiful architecture. It seems that most of Scandinavia (at least Sweden and Denmark) were hit with some pretty major fires during the 17th and 18th centuries, and most of the cities was wiped out and had to be rebuilt a couple of times. The cities look pretty old but in fact, in the whole scheme of things, they’re actually quite young. But there is some outstanding architecture. I could wander around for days just looking at buildings.
Sweden, in contrast to Denmark, is more industrial. Or maybe it’s just that it looks more industrial. Copenhagen has no high-rise buildings, very few ‘office’ buildings and even the modern buildings have been designed to keep up the fame of Danish design. There are actually some really phenomenal examples of modern Danish architecture, like the Copenhagen Opera House and the Black Diamond, which is the new royal Danish library (also, the second best place in Denmark to get hooked up). Gothenburg Opera House is apparently the most modern opera house in the world. So modern that it took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t still under construction. It was, in fact, supposed to look like that.

I spent most of my time in Gothenburg just wandering around and looking. I looked for all the beautiful, young, blond people who are supposed to live in Sweden but I couldn’t see any. It’s funny the little things that are different between countries. For example, I needed to draw some money out of the ATM and try as I might I just couldn’t. I tried four different machines but I could not get my card in. Finally, the last machine had a picture on it. I’m beginning to love diagrams. It turns out that in Sweden you put your card in upside down. Who’d have known? Anyway, as I was saying, I spent most of my time just wandering around and looking. The tourist information had given me a self-guided walking tour which I did on Sunday morning. It took me around the city centre and gave me some information on places of interest. Just as I got to the cathedral the Sunday morning service was starting, so
I decided I just go on in and experience mass in Swedish. They had an amazing choir, who sang in English, so I got something out of it at least. And I found the beautiful young blond people. They were in church! At least half of the church was under 30 (and a good 60% were blond)! I spent the afternoon wandering around Slottskogen, which my translation skill tells me means ‘king’s palace’. I’m not sure why. It’s a huge park in the centre of the city, with a little zoo and the natural history museum and an observatory. I walked up a big hill (which is the first I’ve seen since I hit Denmark). I was just following a sign that I had no idea what it meant but it led me to an observation platform that looked out over the whole city. The actual centre was blocked by trees but there was one of the
ubiquitous bridges and apartment blocks, which seem to be the main dwelling places of the Nordic people. I guess they figure that if you pack people in the body heat will keep you warm.

So that was my little weekend in Gothenburg. The other point worth mentioning is that I got to ride around in trams. That was exciting. I’ve never done that before. I liked Sweden. I’d like to see some more of it. Thankfully, it’s really close.

The other thing I love about Copenhagen is the royal guard. You can do it as a summer job! In Britain, the soldiers who have earned the highest ranks get to guard the queen. In Denmark, teenage boys do it for the summer. And the huts they stand in have little hearts cut into the side. It’s very cute.