The Swedish chef lives

The Swedish chef lives
One of the things I learned to enjoy from my daughter was the Muppet Show, and in particular, the Swedish chef. Ang even had a computer program that would translate regular English phrases into Swedish “chefese.” So we were very disappointed when the show went away, but I’m happy to say that the Swedish chef lives, and can thankfully be heard daily on various radio shows throughout this grand and beautiful country. When I heard him on the radio, I realized that Zoot from the show moved to Copenhagen and lives in Christiania.

Our stay in Stockholm was highlighted by our hosts Ulf, Ulla, the kids, and the dog, as Ulla refers to the family. They have very busy lives but graciously made a place for us in their home and showed us a Stockholm which nobody else gets to see. Cruising the waterways from their boat they took us on a three hour tour of the ins and outs of the various channels, seeing things up close from the water point of view. Stockholm is a visually stunning city with so much variety in its different areas.

Carol and I spent the majority of a day in Skansen, a recreation of life in old Sweden. The amazing thing is that while this seems to be the rage in many places of the world, the Swedes created their living museum in 1891, bringing entire farmstead complexes, churches, meeting halls etc, from all over Sweden.
Best of all, for me, was that they didn’t just give some abstract description of a farmer’s life in general, but rather, because the displays represent the early 1800’s they were able to research the history of the farmer, teacher, minister, etc and describe “His/her” life from people who still lived and knew the stories of the people who occupied the home. This farmer had two children, one of whom became….. This teacher’s wife made………… The owner of this store………… sort of thing. It really made it personal. Probably the best representation I’ve ever seen.

We learned that the Mongolian student we sponsor has a niece who is married and lives just an hour from Stockholm Hajaa was a tour guide in Mongolia and when a group of Swedish tourists stepped off the Trans Siberian Railroad train, little did she know that her future husband would be in the group. Anyway, Daniel and Hajaa are two absolute love birds who have been married for four years and are now expecting their first child. Great kids and we enjoyed an afternoon with them.

Ulf recommended that since we were going to be in Vasteras, we should head north in the interior of the country rather than the coast and great advice it was, too.
The heartland of Sweden runs right up the middle of the country and is filled with small villages, which, while seemingly have little to offer, contain wonderful examples of old Swedish life. We stopped by accident in a small town called Sater which just happened to be the 7th oldest village in Sweden dating from the early 1600’s as a continuously inhabited community. The hotel was built in the mid 1600’s and was surrounded by houses of the same era which are still inhabited.
I was fascinated by the construction. All wood, of course, but not just rough-cut log cabins, but hand-hewn timbers where each corner is an intricate combination of miters, bevels, and other compound angles which make it all fit together in a solid, tightly sealed manner. One corner timber had 14 different angles to make it fit to the timber above and below it. This was all done by hand, of course, and I can’t even make a square cut using my laser-guided saw.
All the homes are painted the same deep red color, a result of the copper mines in the area where the tailings were used to create an inexpensive paint that everybody used. This color has become synonymous with the area, and almost all wooden houses, and 95 percent of them are wooden, are painted this color. Later plaster homes were built and many of them are yellow, but this deep red is the predominant color throughout the north of Sweden.

Landscape design in highway engineering
It would seem that the roads were all developed by someone who had water features in mind. For literally hundreds of miles, the roads cut through the thick woods like a black or red ribbon weaving it way from one source of water to another. Streams, rivers, lakes, large and small continually dot the landscape.
You might think there would be a certain monotony to the hours upon hours of the “Sameness,” but not so. Each situation is so different, yet continually beautiful. Some rivers flow placidly along seemingly not moving, while others rage in torrents. Some lakes are postage stamp in size while others are 50-60 miles long. One is so large it even has its own Loch Ness Monster stories. Of course if I drank as much beer as the locals do, I’d see monsters too.
My favorite scenes were:
A lake with a small island about 100 yards of shore with a golf flag stick in it and a tee box on the shore. Talk about your water hazard.
A lake on one side of the road, smooth and calm, while on the other side of the road a cascading wall of water plunged from on high raising a spray which wet the windshield.
And the best of all was a beautiful large lake miles in length. Maybe ¼ of a mile from the shore was a small island maybe 20 feet in diameter. It had a very small house on it with a flower garden all in bloom and a small row boat pulled up along shore. Someone’s retreat for sure.
These small garden plots are a staple of life here. We met a man in Stockholm who has one. The house is only an 8x10 foot rectangle, and he and his wife live in it from May to September, even though his flat is only about 100 yards away. I didn’t ask him about bathroom facilities. I didn’t even want to go there, literally and figuratively.
The road system is excellent, and Swedes love to drive fast. I can be cruising down a two lane road and suddenly realize I’m doing 80 without stressing about curves or poor conditions. You have to consciously keep the speed down. Hard to do when someone goes by you doing 90+

It’s all about presentation
Along the drive, and particularly the smaller roads, the ones that drove my mother crazy in Ireland, people have gone out of their way to make your view of their house/land pleasant to the eye. For example, in the old days the milk truck would come and pick up the large metal milk cans from small dairies at a platform built the same height as the bed of the truck. Those days are long gone, but the people have maintained the platforms, have left the milk cans there and decorated them with paint, flowers pots and crafty looking goodies. Each one draws the eye and makes the miles go by even more quickly. This is prime wild flower time in the north and long stands of lupines, fireweed, red clover and white daisies and lots we don’t know the names of fill the sides of the road. Driving has never been so pleasant.

American Graffiti revisited
A sub culture here in Sweden is American cars. Mostly from the “classic” era, but in reality all generations of cars. Caddy’s, Chevy’s, muscle cars, and you name it. It’s HUGE here.
In fact, in Vasteras the largest American car show in the world is coming this weekend. Over 10,000 cars will be on display. Check it out:
http://www.bigmeet.com/
We’ve seen people cruising like it was Modesto, Ca ala 1962. Haven’t seen the blond in the white thunderbird, though. Convertibles are preferred for cruising, but I have seen all the cars from my high school graduation in ’58.

The psychology of light and more light.
The sun went down last night at 11:45 p.m and rose at 1:22 this morning. That makes dawn and dusk moot phrases, ‘cause it ain’t gonna get dark, dude.
This really screws up the body. Okay, it really screws up mine.
When my military son had to go on maneuver he would tell me that he had to leave at 0’ dark 30. Well Carol has her own way of describing this. It’s called 0’light 30. When I wake up at 3;30 and see that it’s light, my mind says get up. My body says its only had four hours sleep and something has got to give. ‘
I went out to the lobby of a hotel the other morning to write since I couldn’t sleep, and soon another guy comes wandering out wearing nothing but his underwear. Pretty soon, another guy came out, thankfully more appropriately dressed, wandered around, and then left. A few minutes later a taxi arrived the first guy, now fully dressed rolls out his suitcase, gets in the taxi, and goes, who knows where.
Carol has her own black out curtains, a black mask left over from one of our 20-hour plane rides. Okay it wasn’t that long, but it seemed that long. It’s all too claustrophobic for me. I’d get out of bed and start bouncing off furniture if I wore one. Everybody laughs and says you get used to it after a few years. Maybe my old boss will get used to prison after a few years, too, but it still isn’t going to be fun.
And as Newton said (if it wasn’t Newton, somebody said it): “For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. So if it never gets dark here in the summer , does that mean that it never gets light in the winter?
And we’re not even in the land of the midnight sun yet. Oh joy, it’s gonna get better.

Swedes are good squirrels
All along the roads they are getting ready for what they know are the dark days (literally) ahead. Farmers are harvesting the first hay crop and baling them into little white plastic rolls which look like mushrooms dotting the fields. HUGE stacks of firewood are piled up in one yard, while the neighbor is one step ahead, his are stacked neatly and seemingly shrink-wrapped in plastic rolls to keep the moisture out. The ice-breakers are in port here ready for the inevitable.
Being Californians (I’m always going to be a Californian) when the sun hit 85 the other day, I’m looking for shade and cool. Not the Swedes. They’re soaking up every ray of sun they can, like they’re some sort of lithium rechargeable battery to help make it through the winter.

Well, I could go on, and sometimes do, but we’re really enjoying ourselves. Today, it’s Lulea in Sweden, the northern most major city and tomorrow to Finland, that land with one of the highest suicide rates in the world (along with New Zealand and Iceland, quite a combination) and where they have a national obsession with the Tango. Now what’s that all about?

Stay safe, we love you,
Carol and Jim