Boxes of… what?

Before we left the States, we put together half a dozen boxes of stuff to ship to ourselves once we got settled in over here. Of course, it took us a little longer than expected to find an apartment, and we didn't want to have to drag another 110 kg of stuff from hotel to hotel, so for a few months our shipment wasn't a shipment so much as a pile of stuff in the middle of Jennifer's parents' dining room (sorry about that!).

Well, when we moved to Flogsta I started trying to get the shipment mobile, and by mid-April it was on the way. It came by freighter, so it was mid-May before it got to Göteborg. Then the delays started. It sat in the harbor for a few days while the receiving company wondered what was in the boxes and who they belonged to (fortunately I called to check on it, and was able to e-mail them an inventory). Once that was taken care of, they had to get it through customs, which should take another day, they said. Except that we wanted to claim the household goods exemption so that we didn't have to pay 25% of the total value in taxes, so there was two more days of e-mails and phone calls, resulting in a form to print, sign, and mail to them. By the beginning of this week, it was through customs, and ready for shipment to Uppsala, Wednesday it actually got put on a truck, and yesterday it arrived!

So today, for the first time in four months, we actually had new clothes to choose from (after doing 6 loads of laundry yesterday afternoon—stinky boat!). Sharp knives, a pressure cooker, English measuring cups (1 dl just is not half a cup, and assuming that it is leads to messed up brownies), a non-stick skillet, mixing bowls… nearly a whole kitchen, and don't think I haven't had to physically restrain myself from buying some of that stuff in the interim. We had assumed that we'd get this by the time Swedish lessons started (hah!), so our grammar books were in it. The external hard drive is certainly welcome, as is the computer stand—those MacBooks sure do heat up fast.

Most anticipated item: Summer clothes and shoes—tramping around in jeans and boots was starting to be faintly ridiculous.
Thought we packed, but didn't: Tableware. Jennifer's harmonica. Jeans without holes in them.
Probably could have lived without: A cocktail shaker—can't afford vodka, unless we do like everyone else does here: buy it in Finland.
What were we thinking? An iPod car charger—odds of that being useful are about a gazillion to one.
What would we pack if we were doing it now? Hanging file folders (can't find them anywhere); H.M.S. Surprise (the local library has most of the Patrick O'Brian books in English, but not the best one).
Could have been useful in February: Down comforter, down jacket, extra scarves, etc. It was supposed to be cold here, right?
Welcome reminders of home: Mule shoe from the Grand Canyon. Little iron Japanese bell. Ukulele. Scrabble Board (and dictionary, of course).

Back to Kanalplan

On Sunday we returned to Kanalplan in southern Stockholm to watch our local women's side, Bälinge, play against Hammarby. This was an absolutely critical game: Bälinge and Hammarby are without any doubt the two worst teams in the league this year, so the loser of this match is going to have a hard time not coming in dead last. This is made all the more significant because in the Swedish women's league, as in most European football leagues, the worst two teams each season get relegated to the next division down, and replaced with the best two teams from that division. There's a better than even chance that both Hammarby and Bälinge will be saying farewell to the Damallsvenskan at the end of this season, but if either team wants to have a chance to avoid relegation, they need to start with a win over the other.

In case you're eagerly awaiting Jennifer's game summary, I won't spoil the suspense. I will say that it was a perfect day for a soccer game, slightly cool if you were in the shade with a breeze, but blue skies the whole way. Our trip there and back was uneventful this time, as befits what is essentially a commuter train ride for most people, although it was definitely more crowded than it had been two week's earlier. I guess the summer season is truly upon us. Anyway, given our travails the last time, we budgeted way too much time for the trip this go round, but that gave us time to wander the stadium a bit, meet the team cat, and then have a sandwich in the stands before the crowd showed up—the crowd of 462, less than half the previous game's attendance.

It was quite a contrast to the last game we went to, which we neglected to mention here. On 14 May, Bälinge hosted the 363 kg gorilla of the Damallsvenskan: Umeå IK. Umeå is a great team, which has dominated the Swedish league for years, and is consistently oe of the best women's club teams in the world. In addition to a host of Swedish stars of note, a few years back they hired Marta, the young Brazilian who is simply the best player in the women's game today. Now, Swede's aren't big on celebrity in general, and far from seeking autographs they seem to pretend not to notice when they run into a famous person. Marta is something of an exception though. Despite it being an away game for Umeå, their fans outnumbered the locals by a pretty fair margin, and most of those fans seemed to be pigtailed girls who all wanted an autograph. When Marta came off the field after 60 minutes, the stadium actually had to warn people to wait until after the game before mobbing her for autographs.

Anyway, nothing like that at Kanalplan this weekend. Still, we had a pleasant afternoon of it. Oh, and I got a picture of the unexpected cliff from last time:

Eurovision Fiasco

That's what the papers said Monday morning, and I have to agree, although the papers and I differ on what exactly made the evening such a disaster. Eurovision, as you may recall, is an annual Europe-wide song competition in which each country sends a single act, chosen in national contests earlier in the year (the Swedish Eurovision qualification competition is called Melodifestivallen). Swedes seem to feel they have a particular tradition to uphold at Eurovision, partly because they are well known as being a singy people, but mostly because they won in 1973 with a little group called ABBA (Waterloo?!? Blecchh!).

So, from the perspective of the Swedish media, the fiasco this past Saturday night was that Sweden's contestant, Charlotte Perrelli, placed a pathetic 18th out of 25*. Personally, I think the fact that she placed higher than 25th is mostly a sad commentary on the dross that the rest of Europe managed to scrape together. I can only hope that 18th is low enough to stop her insipid song from being played incessantly on the radio here.

But all this is beside the point, which is simply that the final on Saturday was mind-numbingly bizarre. All the entries are up on youtube, so I won't go into too much detail, but instead I urge you to check out a few inexplicable gems. I'd start with Latvia's pirate entry, "Wolves of the Sea," sung by an ensemble including a woman who was just jaw-droppingly off key for the whole performance, and replete with such groaners as:

We're robbing you blind, I hope you don't mind.

Another highlight was the traditional Croatian duo of Kraljevi Ulice and 75 cents. Why an 85 year old Croatian man in a white suit should feel the need to steal a name from a gangsta rapper, I'm sure I do not know. The Croatians had nothing on Spain's Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, whose song I frankly do not believe I can do justice to. Bosnia and Herzegovina had a more straightforward entry involving housework and 4 brides in veils busily knitting.

Those were all intentionally funny to some greater or lesser extent, but the strangest of them all seemed to be deadly serious. Azerbaijan put forward a platinum blond angel boy screeching in a disturbingly high key while a leather boy sprawled behind him on a throne, swilling a goblet of something.

Oh, and the winner? The Russians, despite a lackluster song. Jennifer's coworkers (along with the press, and apparently the whole country) blame this on the fact that regardless of the quality of the songs, people seem to just vote for their nearest neighbors. This doesn't seem very likely to me, but a look at the voting does seem to bear it out. Still, I'm going to chalk up Russia's success to the fact that, for no musical reason at all, the song was accompanied by Evgeni Plushenko figure skating on rollerblades.

*Yes, there are in fact more than 25 countries in Europe. Most are eliminated before the televised final. This is perhaps best viewed as a public service, so that the entire population of Europe is not forced to endure the agony of watching entries like the ones put forth this year by Ireland or Estonia. If you don't believe me, go to youtube and search for Ireland Eurovision 2008, if you dare.

Hemliga Rum 2008

Saturday was Hemliga Rum 2008 in Sweden. For one day Statens Fastighetsverk, or SFV, opened 27 properties around the country to the public. SFV manages all of the publicly held properties in Sweden (about one seventh of Sweden's total land mass, actually), including palaces, museums, state forests, and all the Swedish Embassies. While SFV is at pains to point out that these properties are "owned by the Swedes collectively," that doesn't mean that they are all normally open for public viewing. But twice now, once in 2004 and then this past Saturday, SFV has taken a day and opened a bunch of stuff you can't normally get in to.

The 27 properties [see map] are spread throughout the country (including one in that wild, eastern Swedish province known as "Finland"), but Hemliga Rum only lasts for one day, so there's no getting to everything. Actually, its worse than that: the buildings were only open from 11:00 to 16:00, just five hours. There were about a dozen sites in Storstockholm, so I set off bright and early Saturday morning to see what I could see. By the time I was on the train, it was clear that heading to Stockholm on a sunny and pleasant Saturday morning was far from an original idea for an Uppsalabo, as the train was packed. Just as I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't get a seat, a woman sitting in a fold down, sideways facing seat (crammed between the back of a regular row and a bulkhead) got up, said something unintelligble to me, shrugged, and walked off. Not knowing quite what to make of that, I took the seat. There were at least a dozen people in my car alone who spent the whole trip sitting on the floor.

I got to my first stop at 10:45, and it was a pretty typical example of how the day would go. There was a line of people waiting to get in which stretched down the street. The line was being worked by people in period costume, handing out informational leaflets about the site in particular and the day in general, along with caramels for the adults and balloons for the children. All of the information was in Swedish, and there were no guided tours, so I was able to glean only a limited amount of knowledge about each location.

I managed to see five locations, everything that was available in the downtown area, and somehow I contrived to view them in order of decreasing awesomeness. First up, Centralposthuset, completed in 1903 and retired in 2001, and now being renovated into a government office complex (it's destined to be one the most secure buildings in the country by next year). The gentlemen were dressed as postal clerks, and the ladies as, well, turn of the century ladies I suppose. The building takes up a square city block, and is built around three large wells, a large one in the back that extends to the ground floor (now used as the main entrance) and two smaller ones that stop at the second floor (converted into dining areas now). Highlights include the original Nouveau entry hall and the 7th floor tower room.

Next up was the old military tunnels under Skeppsholmen. Skeppsholm Island housed military forces of various stripes from the 16th century right up until the late 1960s, and some time in the first half of the 20th century (between WWI and WWII, I think) there were a series of bunkers drilled out of the native rock of the island. It's not clear to me what exactly the portions I toured were used for, although the display of WWII era naval mines and the tunnels labeled "Torpedo" do hint at some sort of naval munitions connection. There was also an administrative section, but that's still off limits, apparently.

Just above the tunnels was the next stop, Skeppsholmen Church, which isn't used as a church anymore—not surprising when you consider that no one actually lives on Skeppsholmen. Anyway, the church is a large octagonal affair, surprisingly light and airy. Most of the inside has been cleared out so that the building can be used as some sort of assembly hall, but the lectern remained, complete with its decoration of unidentifiable fish creatures, which is always a plus.

Despite the very long lines for the Post Office and the bunkers (the church had no waiting at all), by now it was only 2 PM. So I sat in a park and ate the lunch that I had packed (train tickets are cheap and admission was free, but buying a cheap lunch in Stockholm would have made this an expensive day indeed). Somewhat refreshed, I moved on to the next two items on my list. Both of these were located on the next island to the west, Gamla Stan, which is overrun with tourists pretty much 24/7 once the weather breaks. Nothing for it, though, so I gritted my teeth and waded in. The lines were a bit longer here, more on the three block long scale, but not as long as I'd feared, despite the masses of tourists. Now that I think about it, I don't believe I heard anyone speaking English in any of the SFV buildings I went to that day. The whole event seems to have been aimed more at Swedes than at visitors. Whatever the reason for the line length, in half an hour I was inside Tessin Palace, a lovely little place built across the way from the Royal Palace by the architect of the latter. It currently serves as the residence of the Governor of Stockholm County, and the palace itself wasn't open, but the wonderful Italianate garden at its center was, complete with a bloke in a Renaissance frock painting landscapes and a couple of ladies sawing away on lutes.

Well, that wasn't bad, but after a few minutes I felt I'd seen what there was to see, so it was on to Oxenstierna Palace. This is really more of a house, the first wing of an intended palace commissioned by Axel Oxenstierna, a man who looms large over Swedish history. He never got around to living there, so it went on to house a number of Ministries of the Swedish Government over the years. Nowadays its pretty much a big empty building with a lot of tiny rooms in it and a nice view of the back end of the Royal Palace. Oh, and on this particular day, a large number of attractive young Swedish ladies in what were presumably supposed to be 17th century dresses.

By the time I was done with that, the day was nearly over. If I'd known exactly how to get to one of the other sites I might have just managed it before closing, but they all involved commuter trains, bus routes I don't know, and neighborhoods I've never been to, so after a bit of half-hearted staring at a T-Ban map, I decided to throw in the towel. Incidentally, the train ride home was nearly as crowded as the morning had been, but apparently I'm not as smooth with the automated SJ ticket machines as I thought, because I accidentally bought myself a non-refundable first class ticket for the ride home. Alas, I had no choice but to recline in quiet, isolated luxury during a ride made abnormally long by the three times we came to a dead stop. Even with all that, I managed to get home well before 6, and be showered and dined before the telecast of the Eurovision finals began at 9. But that, gentle reader, is a horrifying story for another post.

Happy 301st, Linnaeus!

May 23 marked the 301st anniversary of the birth of Carl Linnaeus. He studied at Uppsala University and was also a professor here. He is the Swedish biologist who invented the field of biological-based taxonomy, as it is practiced today. The reverence for him here is somewhat astonishing. Last year, for his 300th birthday, there were all kinds of exhibits and excursions and art installations and websites dedicated to him.1

Meanwhile, though, it was Linneaus' birthday and so there were things to do in celebration of this fact. When I arrived at Stora Torget yesterday morning, it was to find that a small fountain had been installed, and sod and purple pansies had been laid down so as to appear as if it were water flowing from the fountain. It was really very well done, quite pretty, and they had even built little wooden bridges and stone footpaths across it, and had put in some nice comfortable boulders to sit on. People seemed to like it: children ran back and forth across the bridges, and a couple of fashionable young women were seen giggling as they carefully teetered their way across one of the stone paths in high heels (they could easily have walked around it, but they clearly preferred the challenge). The fountain itself had several informational panels about my department, and I was gratified to see my advisor and my soccer team mentioned on the same panel.2

When I got to work, the following email was waiting for me explaining the whole thing. I cannot improve on the original so I quote it here:

The seven world leading research projects, according to the evaluation Quality and Renewal from 2007, are today presented on a "Well of Knowledge" centrally placed in Uppsala.

The Well of Knowledge is an octagonal fountain placed on Svartbäcksgatan's entrance to Stora Torget. From the well a river made up of 10 000 blue pansies flows down to the River Fyris.

The flower arrangement is built to the honor of Linnaeus on his birthday the 23d of May. It will be on display until Sunday 25th May.

Today and tomorrow 10 of our researchers will be placed along Drottninggatan 12.00-16.00. There will be a scientific Linnaeus Saloon in Ekocafeet 17.30. Two researchers participate in the Flower Power Show beginning at 19.00.

So yes, that's the Well of Knowledge, the fountain with the biological blurbs. I therefore dub the grass and flowers "The Brook of Enlightenment."

It was also post-doc G.'s birthday, so we had afternoon fika outside, with a cake that G. had made out of butter and chocolate and maybe a tablespoon or two of flour. Thus fortified, we all headed into town to visit post-doc K., who was one of the 10 researchers mentioned above on Drottninggatan. She was presenting a poster of her research on a corner in front of a bar. Other activities associated with the day included flower shows, walks in city parks with nature guides, lectures on biodiversity, and so forth.

K. had originally been chosen to present a poster because her work involves a infectious agent that causes its hosts to switch sexes. Back in February, when these events were being planned, our department had been approached by Uppsala Pride, the local gay and lesbian advocacy group, who wished to combine forces with us for the weekend. This weekend was also their pride celebration, and they saw some relevancy in her work to their cause. Unfortunately their funding fell through, and the planned combined Gay Pride and Happy Birthday Linnaeus parade never came to pass. A major, major disappointment indeed!

1 You may sense a certain lack of enthusiasm for Linneaus in my tone here; the reason is that I have been professionally trained to despise some of his ideas. His classification system is premised on the belief that all living things are immutable and were created simultaneously by a supreme being. This rigid system (which is after all more than two centuries old now) rests uneasily with the biological reality that living thing change, adapt... evolve. I will happily provide details and examples of why the system of Linnaean classification is bad and should no longer be used. I expect an absolute deluge of such requests from you, dear readers! (Can you tell that I've hit upon a pet peeve here?)

2 Here's the connection: The batteries that make your body's cells go are little internal organs called mitochondria, and mitochondria are thought to be descended from a certain type of bacteria that my adviser (and I, now) study. Therefore, any time you watch a soccer game, you are watching mitochondria hard at work. And your own mitochondria are working, perhaps somewhat less vigorously, as you sit in comfort in the stadium or on your couch and watch the game.

(mis)Adventures in Bus Riding

So the bus service in Sweden is wonderful—let's just get that straight from the outset. Really, honestly, it is. The busses are clean, the drivers are competent, and, for the most part, the whole outfit is quite reliable. In the past few weeks, however, there have been a few, shall we say, incidents, in which the bus service has been less than perfect.*

The first and funniest happened when we were coming back from Bubbelgalop on sista april, this day that is marked by a general loosening of discipline. Our bus from downtown back to Flogsta was quite sparsely populated, and the driver was chatting animatedly with a friend. Long story short, he turned right at a place where he should have gone straight. Now we were on the E65 on–ramp, with no way to get off. "???" said the driver's friend. "!!!," said the driver, and they both laughed. Wheee! "We're goin' to Stockholm!" I exclaimed to Joe excitedly (he pointed out that we were actually headed to Enköping, a very small town nearby). We weren't upset—after all it was a holiday, and we weren't in a hurry. There is another off-ramp close to our complex, and the driver took this, no problem. But then he turned the wrong way (for the stop we wanted), and so he had to find a wide spot in the road where he could make a 10- or 15-point turn and head back to our stop. Poor guy seemed a little embarrassed by all this.

Then, the Wednesday before last, my bus out to language lessons didn't stop at the stop I requested. My mouth opened to protest... and then I realized that I didn't have any idea what to say. "Hey!!" sounds an awful lot like "Hej!" So I sat, mum, getting madder and madder because now I was going to be late to class. There is no hopping out and getting another bus back, because this one loops, and it's the only bus out this way. So I rode it all the way out to Ikea, where we sat for a good ten minutes further. I got out on the way back, was 20 minutes late to class, and made sure to ask the teacher what is a polite but firm way of getting someone's attention, like, oh, say, a bus driver who has not stopped. "In that case you say "Hallå!" and you had better wave your arms around a bit too," she said.

I told my tale of woe at fika the next day, and asked whether I had done the right thing, by not causing a scene with the bus driver. "Oh yes," they assured me. "It's okay to get angry but you must never show it." Graduate student P. said this has happened to her a few times, that the bus didn't stop, and she just sat quietly and got off at the next stop. "Actually," she said thoughtfully, "I think that the button at my seat wasn't working once, and I didn't even get up to find one that worked because I didn't want anyone to notice me."

On the next Monday night, going out to language class, the bus didn't stop at my stop again, but this time I was ready for him. "Hallå!" I said in a loud voice, and waved at him in his mirror, and smiled to show I was not angry. He stopped immediately, even though he could not get close to the curb, and let me out.

Now here's the funny part: Someone else got off too.

So now I have discovered my mission in life. Someone has to stand up for all these oppressed people, these people who are so shy that they would walk a kilometer rather than have anyone notice them. Someone has to rise up and speak for these poor wretched Swedes who can not speak for themselves... and that someone is me!

What happened to me on the bus is part of a far larger movement which will reach into every staden and kommun of Sweden. It is the effort of Swedes to secure for themselves the full blessings of Swedish life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Swedes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of shyness and modesty. And we shall overcome.
—with a little help from President Johnson

If not me who, if not now when?

*I do not count out difficulties last weekend in Stockholm in this: it was entirely our fault that we got on a bus going the wrong way in the first place (although how we were supposed to know that service coming the other way was delayed for nearly hour?). "Like sitting at a bus shelter for 45 minutes in front of Skatteverket on a beautiful Saturday afternoon" has become my new favorite metaphor for despondency, and a realization the futility of life.