Misadventures in Stockholm

Saturday, I went to Stockholm with a friend.
In the Uppsala train station, where there are no signs nor explanations of which train to board, there was a very normal looking woman. If you ignored the two dolls in her arms and the doll-sized coffin strapped to her back.
Walking three minutes from the train station, we found city hall, which is a gorgeous red brick building right on the water. I was in love!
We walked around the palace and gamla stan (old town) and it was very charming. A native of Stockholm had suggested a place to eat in gamla stan and we awkwardly ate lunch with two breastfeeding women in the room.
While walking through the doorway to leave, a man shoved me out of his way. I soon felt no anger towards him, as I realized his bike with all his belongings was being stolen. Olivia and I watched as he chased down and tackled the guy, throwing him to the ground and cursing him as the man slunk off into an alleyway.
Walking around and shopping, we were swamped in a crowd so thick you couldn't see the street!
Finally, we made our way back to the train station, and went to a McDonalds to find a free bathroom. I stood outside while Olivia powdered her nose because the lock had broken. An old man walked up and I explained to him that someone was inside, and he began to punch a code into a small keypad next to the door. Once again I told him someone was inside and he pulled the door open anyway. I threw my hand against the door but unfortunately Olivia had been slightly exposed. All of McDonalds was privy to her scream.

Pizza-Paj

Pizza is pretty popular in sweden- at the ever popular kebab stands (not kebabs like chunks of meat and veggies on skewers but a plate of lettuce/cucumber/tomato/thinly sliced meat/weird sauce) found frozen in grocery store aisles, and there are a few pizza places around uppsala, and even in flogsta. But the toppings may be slightly different. Banana, for instance, is pretty popular. Seafood on top is pretty popular. there is no 'peperoni.' there are kebab pizzas, which has the thinly sliced meat and the cucumber and the tomatoes on top. Why did this come up? I bought a 'Bolognese' pizza without parsing the ingredients: ham, tomatoes, ground meat, cheese, and onion. interesting.
secondly- Paj. (Pie). It's offered at every cafe as a main course: pie is really kishe. It will also have anything in it, including salmon. Fish (or the appetizing fish-paste) can go on just about anything here.
Food confuses me, and in all honesty--- i miss pokey sticks.

Sweet Tooth

Candy is EVERYWHERE here. Not just candy bars or prepackaged stuff, but the entire rows of bins of candy with their respective shovels- in the grocery stores, in tobacco stores, in newspaper stands, in convenience stores, and there are even a plethera of stores entirely devoted to candy!
Beyond that, ice cream is terribly popular. There's ice cream in most fast food places- and I don't mean the little soft serve machine we are used to seeing in McDonalds, I mean entire baskin-robbin style set ups with many very wonderful flavors (including champagne truffle). There are a ton of different ice cream brands and flavors in the super markets, as well. I tried Violet flavored ice cream. It, unsurprisingly, tasted like flowers.
Desserts take on an entirely different meaning here, as well. Any cafe you step into will have a wide variety of hand-made desserts from that morning.
Yum.

Holy...

When entering a foreign country for an extended period of time, it's not necessary to learn the language. However, looking at a few basic pronunciation lessons might be advised.
Domkyrkan is the name of the magnificent cathedral within Uppsala.
KY in swedish is pronounced like our 'sh.'
i hadn't realized that.
to pronounce kyrkan with the strong K sound and not the SH sound makes a new word: slang for cock.
so instead of saying holy church to my professors, history department head, and the nice old lady who runs a cafe I frequent, I have been saying 'holy cock.'

Holy cock, indeed.

Stay Away From Marie-Ana

One thing I have found that Swedes are more conservative about than Americans: Marijuana.

I was given a very long very incoherent lecture by a drunk corridor mate about how getting drunk is very acceptable but Marie-Ana (J's are pronounced as y's or a's) is not. I am to stay away from Marie-Ana because it is Illegal here.
It's 'illegal' in the States, he explained to me, but in Sweden it's REALLY illegal.
Marijuana is actually viewed with the same stigma that cocaine or heroin has in the States. I don't know if anyone else remember's DARE in elementary school, but I remember hearing about evil tobacco companies and how one beer will make you pregnant.
Here, students talked to me about how marijuana is addictive and causes permanent brain damage after one use.
When I explained how we see Marijuana as fairly harmless in the States, and talked about how easy it is to get marijuana, the Swedes on my floor were Terrified!
Finally, I found ONE thing that the States is more lenient about!
Victory.

A Cure For All Ills

In the Apoteket (Pharmacy), a friend of mine found herself rather shocked when next to the pads and tampons she found... Vibrators!
That's right, the pharmacy sells dildos and vibrators.
Whereas in America, a few southern states either recently had or still have laws making the sale of vibrators illegal or very restricted.
Well done, Sweden.
Though in Texas it is legal to carry a handgun on your person, it is illegal to have a vibrator. Tell me, how have more people died? Vibrator accidents? They thought the safety was on?
Right.
We'd rather kill each other than be sexually satisfied.
There's something wrong here.

Partying.

It's exactly the same here.
Except more expensive.
I've become almost hermit-like at night because here Everyone can drink and Everyone wants to drink.
Alcohol, listen. I know you are friends with a lot of my friends, and that's fine. But you need to back off a little. You aren't dating them, they should be able to hang out with me and not have you tag along. Okay?
Okay.

Owls.

So for the last three weeks, around 12:30 I have begun to hear this odd 'ooooo' noise.
Remembering that Flogsta is set in the middle of a wooded area, I figured it was an owl outside. I would open my window, stick my head out into the frigid night air and listen for this god forsaken owl. I could never place where it was!
This fucking owl would come out every night at about 12:30 and sometimes make noise for 2 hours straight, sometimes start and then stop, sometimes only last about half an hour.
It was a few nights a go that I realized there is no owl.
It is the muffled sound of sex through my walls.
To some extent, I'd rather it was a fucking owl.
Because now that I realize it's human, these people sound more like owls and cows than anything else. And are loud. And the pace is simply terrifying.
Honestly, I'm amazed they live through their adventures.
Animals.

American.

As much as Sweden is showing me the flaws and hypocracies of America, it's also showed me that, in fact, whether or not it be simply because I'm used to it, I am an American and a fan of my American lifestyle.
I don't have any legitimate reasons to back it up. In fact, if I tried to give reasons, it would work Against logic to say I want to return to my American life.
All I know is that yesterday I went into a Burger King in Uppsala, desperate for a lot of food for a little amount of money.
And as ashamed as I should have been, it only made me want to be home.
In conclusion.
America.
Fuck yea.

America: the Most Conservative of all Nations

Last night I was watching Family Guy and the Simpsons in my corridor with a few corridor mates. When these shows ended, they decided to watch Hostel, since it was on.
I had never seen the movie before, but I am terrible at watching other people be in pain- it bothers me to no end, and I usually become sick to my stomach out of sympathy.
If You have never seen Hostel before, the first half is a porno, and the second half is a slasher film.
I only stayed for the first half because as much as gratuitous sex really doesn't appeal to me, I was more interested in the conversation than the television.
Turns out that public programming is not censored! Full on sex. On basic public television. It was terrifying.
I started to show my discomfort and my corridor mates laughed: even the most leftist of Americans is considered moderate here. As a whole, America is the most conservative country in the world: here, our democrats are considered conservative. Yep.
Think about it: socialism is already in place with universal health care and a fantastic welfare system.
These things will NEVER occur in America simply because they are too foreign of ideas.
Gay? No problem. Different race? Doesn't matter. Muslim? no one cares.
In fact, you're even free to be racist here. It's uncommon, but you won't be ostracized from society- it's your right to think whatever you want.
We are instilled with a terrible sense of competition and elitism, whereas here there is more stress on equality and security.
There is a law called "Everyone's Right." You are free to set up a tent and camp out for one night on any privately owned property. Of course, there are accepted social standards to follow when expressing this right, but the fact is that in America if one was to try this, your tent would be shredded from shotgun pellets, and your body would never be found.
Thank you, Hostel, for allowing me to have this political revelation.

A Different Kind of Test

Sweden has the most confusing doors in the world.
In the states, the constant is Pull to get in, push to get out: this allows for a quick exit in case of fire and prevents wind from blowing doors open.
In Sweden, there is no constant. Sometimes there are buttons, sometimes a code, sometimes a key card, sometimes a lever involved in unlocking a door. Once unlocked, however, there is no way to tell which way you are supposed to move to open said door: within the same buildings, doors will switch from pull to push to get in and out.
Conclusions reached by three embarrassed American females: Sweden has sublter ways of judging one's worth.
In the states, being accepted into a college is more difficult than in Sweden. Swedish university charges no tuition, and students are given a stipend to study with. However, if you cannot enter a building by decoding the puzzle of the entryways, you are obviously not worth the professors time, and you are thus kept away from attending class.
It is not only us Americans who have issues: I have watched as Australians, Brits, French, Germans, and Italians struggle with the concept of ever-changing, illogical doorways.
I thought I had developed a method to combat such confusion: to study the nature of the door before approaching it. However, measures have been taken to make them impossible to decipher from a distance. We've all encountered double-doors that have a metal pole between either the left or right door, and usually this pole is stationary. Here, it appears there is a pole that is partially in front of either the left or right door, making one assume you must push it open. BUT NO! There is no pole, its simply a useless strip of metal on the outside of the door, and you must pull this open.
I almost missed orientation because I could not enter the history building.
Plan 0 is floor one, and so forth.
Buildings are numbered and given letters: when you look at maps, they only give either the letter or number, and matching the two is impossible unless you walk back and forth between two maps to match letters and numbers as they are needed.
When given the location of a class, it is written 6:0034. Building 6 (which is actually K), plan 0, room 34.
Sometimes I miss having buildings with names.
And doors that make sense.
I have failed the Swedish test.

The Swedish Female Paradox

Bike is the most common form of transportation in Uppsala. In the fall and winter, it rains or snows almost nonstop. The temperatures are cold and the days are short: on the shortest day of the year, the sun rises just about 7 degrees above the horizon.
And no matter where you are or what you are doing, every female around you is dressed to the hilt, layered with makeup, and looking modelesque.
One of the most confusing sights I've ever seen is a Swedish girl in a denim pencil skirt riding a bike through town in a tank top with a thin sweater over top of it. It was raining and 50 F. To top it all off, she was wearing pumps.
Females here are not expected to look their best by men, but by their female peers. In a country where equality between the sexes is more advanced that we could imagine in the States, women no longer compete against men, but put a horrendous amount of pressure on each other.
We women can be viciously competitive, but it pains me to see women creating such high standards for themselves in such categories as fashion and body image in a land where they could be furthering the idea of self-acceptance.

A Few Minor Differences

No matter how lost and confused and utterly distressed you look in Sweden, Swedes will not approach you. Once you ask them for help, most Swedes tend to be overly helpful and very kind, but until you break them from their own little world, they are very aloof.
Also, Swedes may seem rude at first, but they are just more relaxed than we are. Though I learned the term for 'excuse me' first, I've never used it without receiving a strange look, and I have NEVER heard a Swede say it themselves. They simply brush past, and assume you know they meant no disrespect.
Professors are laid back. I refer to the department of history head, Georgy Novaky, as Professor in emails and he signs them "/G." Class begins a quarter past the hour, though schedules say to show up on time. Also, because school is FREE and tuition costs NOTHING and each student gets a STIPEND from the government, professors are only paid based on how many students attend the class and only if they show improvement. Thus, the subjects seen as less prestigious, such as humanities and the arts, are given less funding. So, a class worth 7.5 ECTS (about 3 credit hours) will meet for five hours every day in a science course, but only 5 times a month for history.
So far, Sweden has proved itself to be a land of Catch-22. You cannot register for a course until you have internet access, but you are not granted internet access from your dorm room until you are officially registered for a course.
Sweden is known for its efficiency, but stores never open before 10 AM, and usually close by 5. University buildings are closed from 12-4 for Fika. (Fika is the Swedish version of high tea, where you get coffee and either sandwiches or desserts and talk with friends.)
Though you are allowed to buy alcohol from grocery stores (only supply alcohol of 4.5% or less) or bars at the age of 18, you are unable to buy from the System Bolaget (the government-owned liquor store) until 20. There, the alcohol is taxed to high hell. A single beer, the cheapest available, is $5. Yet, alcohol is still as big a part of school life here as it is in America.
Everyone in Uppsala carries on their daily life in the shadow of an all-imposing Cathedral. The Domkyrkan exists on a piece of land that has been used for religious ceremonies since before the Vikings. Now, it is a massive and beautiful gothic revival church, with the bodies of kings and archbishops inside. Sweden is composed of a population that is approximately 90% atheistic, yet stores do not open on Sunday and you cannot buy liquor on Sunday for it is the Sabbath.
More to come on confusion in Scandinavia...