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    How Swede It Is
    How Swede It Is
    How Swede It Is
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    How Swede It Is

    By Robin Bell

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    About this ebook

    Have you ever wondered what it is like to move to a country where you don't speak the language and where traditions are subtly different from the country you left behind?

    Join Robin Bell as he makes such a move. Robin moved to Sweden after living for thirty years in Australia. From a land of hot summers, cricket and surfing to a land of thirty degrees below zero temperatures, of bandy and ice hockey

    Read about Swedish culinary delights such as raw, fermented Baltic herrings, lingonberry jam in sausage like tubes and Jansson's Temptation

    Learn the history behind the Lucia celebrations and the Swedish Midsummer celebrations. Discover where the real Santa Claus lives and how he cools off in summer. Find out the dangers from Trolls in the Swedish forests and the hazards of Swedish roads - and no, we're not talking about Volvo drivers now...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobin Bell
    Release dateJul 13, 2014
    ISBN9789198191615
    How Swede It Is
    Author

    Robin Bell

    ROBIN BELL, is a retired teacher who now lives on and manages the family dairy farm in South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia purchased by her grandfather in 1910.

    Read more from Robin Bell

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      Book preview

      How Swede It Is - Robin Bell

      How Swede It Is

      How Swede It Is

      A collection of short anecdotes reflecting the thoughts of a newly arrived Australian immigrant to Sweden.

      Robin Bell

      Copyright

      How Swede It Is

      ©Copyright 2014 by Robin Bell

      Published by Robin Bell

      eISBN 978-91-981916-1-5

      This Edition August 2014

      Cover by Robin Bell

      Author photograph by Robin Bell

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof  in any form whatsoever, except in the case of short excerpts for use in reviews of the book.

      Robin Bell Books

      Ölme Hagen

      68194 Kristinehamn

      Sweden

      www.robinbell.se

      Dedication:

      To my Mother

      Introduction

      After living in Australia for thirty years (I migrated there from England in 1972) I moved to Sweden in 2001 to start a new life. I recorded my thoughts and impressions of my new country over the course of a year, particularly those things that struck me as different or strange to understand compared to life in Australia.

      Many of these anecdotes were first published on the Internet through the Useless Knowledge web site (http://www.useless-knowledge.com) and they are reproduced here, albeit in a modified format to suit this book, with the kind permission of the editor. The topics range from investigations of Swedish culinary delights, such as surströmming, through more esoteric subjects such as rabbit jumping and include a look at some of the more typically Swedish festivities such as Midsummer and Lucia.

      After a few years in Sweden, the strangeness of life here has become more commonplace as I become accustomed to the language and customs, but there are still things that cause me to shake my head in confusion. I hope my thoughts will be useful and entertaining to anyone who is thinking of making a similar change of lifestyle and coming to live in Sweden.

      An Aussie in Sweden

      Sure there are big differences between living in Australia and Sweden. Nobody would dispute that. Think of the climate and the language for starters.

      But it’s the little things that get me every time. Like the way front doors open outwards in Sweden, rather than inwards as in Australia. That’s probably why Sweden has such a good health system, to care for the sprained wrists of all the Aussies who push rather than pull to open a door.

      In Australia, I lived on a remote property and posting a letter involved a round trip of around 70 kilometers (45 miles) over unsealed roads to the nearest post office. Once at the post office I could be guaranteed a cup of coffee and a half-hour chat with Pat the postie. Now I go into a post office in Sweden (if I can find one that hasn’t been relocated inside a local supermarket) and the first thing to do is take a numbered ticket. Then wait for my number to come up over one of the counters. It’s the same at the bank. At the labour exchange. In fact, any official or government establishment. All very efficient, I’m sure. But I do miss those chats and cups of coffee with Pat.

      During those 70 kilometers of unsealed roads in Australia I would see warning signs to watch out for kangaroos or wombats. Now I have to be careful of a moose stepping out from the forest. A kangaroo can have a bad effect on a car, for sure, but running into a full size moose has been compared to hitting a small elephant. So I am particularly careful driving in Sweden.

      I grew tired of watching programs on commercial television in Australia, because of the constant intrusions of advertising breaks. The government television stations in Sweden have succeeded in confusing me more. There are two non-commercial stations available here where I live. Midway through a program on SVT2 the screen will suddenly fade out. This program will now continue on SVT1… says the caption. Perhaps a half-hour later, it’s time to change back to SVT2 for the last segment...

      Friends here in Sweden wondered why I was worried when they told me that there could be snakes in the forest. Until I explained that a snake back on the farm in Australia could be a six foot long red-bellied black snake, a brown snake or any one of several other potentially fatal species. Now those are snakes.

      For breakfast in Australia I would maybe have porridge. With milk and maybe a little sugar. Here we eat porridge and ham. Or with lingonberry jam (which comes in a plastic tube, like a sausage).

      So once I’ve got used to these little things, maybe I can remember to drive on the right side of the road, learn the language and acclimatize to the thirty degrees below zero Christmas weather…

      Not All Meatballs And Potatoes!

      I’ve eaten witchetty grubs and snakes in Australia, frogs’ legs and snails in France and smoked eel in England but this one beats all.

      Swedish cuisine is not all meatballs and potatoes by any means. How about raw herring, straight from the northern part of the Baltic Sea, dropped raw into cans of water? The can is sealed and left to ripen for several months, preferably in the sun. The fish is not ready until the can is bulging due to the chemical process that takes place, namely fermenting – or rotting to be precise!

      Known to the locals as surströmming, this delicacy has been variously described as a cult, a feat of endurance, a terror or simply unbelievably offensive. It dates back to the ethnologist Hülphers in the town of Härnösand in 1780 and you can almost believe that you are eating the original fish from that time when you try it.

      Surströmming is usually eaten in August, when the leaves start to fall from the trees. There are many rituals associated with the consumption of surströmming; probably the most important of these is to forewarn your neighbours before you plan to eat it. (It goes without saying that surströmming is eaten outdoors).

      Approach the unopened can carefully – there are horror stories of exploding cans – with a can opener and a thick cloth. Place the can opener on the can, cover quickly with the cloth and take a deep breath – this will be the last untainted one for a few hours so savour the clean autumn air. Strike with the can opener and you will hear the hiss of escaping gas. When all is quiet again you can remove the cloth, open the can and there is the surströmming revealed in all its glory. Swimming in a dark brown, murky, suspicious liquid. The liquid is poured away into

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