59 North | Travel, Food, Music, Art, Culture

Expat life and what that has to do with a möhippa

April 29, 2012

in An American in Europe,Cultural differences,Life as an expat,Living abroad,Living in Sweden,Swedish traditions,US vs. Sweden

Playing dress up at the mohippa studio.

We are so groovy. That's the bride on the right, by the way.

Meeting people I would not ordinarily have the chance to meet. That’s one of the best parts of living as an expat. On Friday night, I went to a möhippa – a bachelorette party. While I knew the bride and a handful of the other guests, I had never met most of the women before. But with that common link of being expats in Stockholm, we all connected during the course of the night and I had a blast. Plus, I met some amazing women.

Much like in the US, a möhippa is a big excuse to have fun with friends. We started the night at Mohippestudion, a party room designed for hen parties. While the bride got a makeover, the rest of us drank champagne and chatted. Then we all went into a giant closet where we got to change into outfits, shoes and accessories to pose in for a photographer.

Fueled by champagne and playing dress up, we had so much fun. I went for two groovy 1970s inspired outfits and one Marilyn Monroe dress. Next was dinner and American-style shower games. And we ended the evening at a local dance club. I was exhausted by the time it was all over. But I had a big smile on my face.

The möhippa group.

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It’s cherry blossom time again in Stockholm

April 28, 2012

in An American in Europe,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Stockholm,Stockholm weather

An up-close look at the cherry blossoms. This photo © by Robert Corkery. All others © by Sandra Carpenter.

They’re back! This week, the cherry blossoms have been in full bloom in Stockholm and Kungsträgården is packed with people checking them out. People of all ages and nationalities are there – in addition to Swedish and English, I heard Russian, Japanese, Finnish, Spanish and German. And everyone is taking photos with their cameras and phones – in front of me at one point, I counted 50 people posing with the blossoms. There’s something magical about this time of year. The blossoms are gorgeous, but even more than that I think they’re a sure sign of spring and people are happy to be outside again.

I loved these guys in kiminos.

Striking the Iphone pose.

It's spring at last!

Checking out the results.

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Maintaining my balance while trying not to laugh

April 25, 2012

in An American in Europe,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Swedish cultural behavior

Recently I was in a “body balance” class at the gym. It’s a combination of yoga, pilates and tai chai and it always makes me feel good. It’s one of those classes where the lights are dim and candles are lit. It’s relaxing. And it’s very, very quiet. After our first pose, the tanned, tiny, perfectly coiffed and dressed 50-something next to me took a huge gulp of water. And then she belched. It was a barroom belch, a belch worthy of any frat boy in a beer chugging competition. It echoed off the walls of the quiet room. And it was rather amazing to realize that belch had come out of this rather perfect looking woman.

I laughed. I could not help it. I felt bad, so I coughed to cover it up and act like I had not actually laughed. No one else laughed. No one even turned around. I was sort of impressed that everyone else managed to keep their composures. But then during the first seconds of the next pose, I swear that every single person in the entire class casually looked around to see who the heck had just done that huge belch. And somehow, that reaction felt so very Swedish to me.

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Change comes slowly and I am impatient

April 24, 2012

in An American in Europe,Dark winters & light summers,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Stockholm weather

If you look closely, you can see the faintest hint of green on the trees of Djurgården.

And then when I look at this photo, all I see is winter.

I know that there are countless ways in which living in Sweden has been a positive thing for me. But I can tell you definitively that it has done at least one very freaky weird thing to me: it has made me seasonally psycho. I obsess over the weather. I agonize over the change in seasons. I long for the long days of summer while I live in fear of the winter dark. It’s just a little odd, isn’t it?

Just now, I am obsessing over spring. It’s April 24th and technically speaking, it has been spring for over a month. Friends in other parts of the world have been sharing their spring photos FOREVER. But the transition to the new season is happening oh so slowly here in Stockholm. While on a walk on Djurgården yesterday, I could see that the grass is definitely getting greener. And there is the faintest hint of green on the trees now too. But I want more, dang it. Much, much more.

A Djurgården flower box.

And a Djurgården swan. He wants spring too.

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Bringing out the sun in Stockholm: Spanish wine tasting

April 22, 2012

in Life as an expat,Living abroad,Living in Sweden

Before the Spanish wine tasting. Missing: the Legaris and the Estrella Damm Inedit.

Marie-Louise guides us through the finer points of the tasting.

Friday was gray and rainy and all together just not pleasant. But on Friday night, I hosted a Spanish wine tasting and felt like I was transported to the sun. The tasting was for the American Women’s Club, but we had Swedish spouses along, of course, along with one Spaniard, one Mexican, one German and one Canadian. So all together, we were rather international, I think.

Marie-Louise Feiler was the sommelier for our group of 18 and she led us all around Spain to try a variety of wines and grapes, starting with cava, moving to rioja and ending with cabernet. And at the very end, Mia had us try Estrella Damm Inedit, a new Spanish beer created by master chef Ferran Adrià and his ElBulli team and designed to accompany food, much like wine.

We had an amazing night. And in case you are wondering, here is what we sampled (all wines were purchased at Stockholm’s Systembolaget):

Codroniu Cuvée Raventos

2010 Lagar de Cervera, Rias Baixas

2005 Marquez de Arenzio Reserva, rioja

2008 Baron de Ley Finca Monasterio

2009 Petit, Montsant

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, Costers del Segre

2008 Legaris, Ribera del Duero

Estrella Damm Inedit

Opening the Estrella Damm Inedit.

Studying the tasting notes.

Listening intently. Impressive!

The day after: lots of empty glasses and bottles.

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Culture clash of food

April 19, 2012

in Australia,Life as an expat,Living abroad,Living in Sweden,Swedish food

Where Australia meets Sweden: Vegemite and knäckebröd.

When I first met my Aussie husband 13 years ago, I liked to make fun of Vegemite. I likened eating the yeast extract as akin to eating petroleum. And I believe that I also called it the gooky leftovers from beer making. (Which is true, when you get down to it.) Of course, I also said that the American peanut butter and jelly sandwich was far superior to the Vegemite sandwich. But Robert began sneaking the paste into sauces and singing its virtues as a health food, full of vitamin B, etc. And somewhere along the line, I got used to its bitter, salty taste. Now I love it. I even crave it.

When I moved to Sweden, I had kind of a similar reaction to knäckebröd – Swedish hard bread. “What’s the big deal about eating a kind of bread that could best described as cardboard,” I wondered. And then I had some of the homemade knäcke and learned just how good that stuff can be.

The old saying is that familiarity breeds contempt. But I think sometimes it also breeds love. Because my favorite go-to, in-between meal snack of late has been Vegemite and butter on a piece of knäckebröd. I like to think of it as where Australia meets Sweden.

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Around Stockholm: or a walk in the woods, but without Bill Bryson

April 17, 2012

in An American in Europe,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Stockholm

Skogso nature reserve.

Pine and birch trees that are not quite ready to leaf out yet.

Here are some more photos of Saltsjöbaden, the seaside town – it literally translates to salt sea baths – where I spent Easter weekend. Just now, Robert and I have so many decisions to make about our future in terms of where we will live and what we will do, including even whether we will stay in Stockholm. As I said to a friend the other day, it’s like we have all the pieces of the puzzle, but none of them are quite fitting together yet.” I am sure we will figure out what’s next, but just now it’s hard. In the meantime, I am anxious. So I suppose I am posting these peaceful forest and Baltic Sea views in the hope that they provide me with a little grounding.

A light in the forest.

The Baltic Sea.

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The good thing about spring snow

April 15, 2012

in Living in Sweden,Stockholm,Stockholm weather

These crocus were poking their way out of the snow in Humlegården.

The last snowman standing?

After snowing hard for several hours yesterday morning, by the afternoon it turned to almost rain which soon made way for bright sunshine. By 5.30, a lot of the snow had melted. But its traces could still be found in Humlegården where I found several snowmen and a new one being created while another boy made a snow angel. I also found crocus and the first forsythia I’ve seen blooming this year. Today, the snow is practically gone. Ah, it is springtime in Stockholm.

The first forsythia.

The snow remnants.

The bright sun and warmer temperatures were quickly melting the snow.

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Snow, customer service & other April surprises

April 14, 2012

in Cultural differences,fitting in with the locals,Learning a new language,Life as an expat,Living abroad,Living in Sweden,Stockholm weather,Swedish cultural behavior

It’s snowing buckets out there and it has been for hours. There are several inches of snow on the ground and it looks like more will be accumulating. And you know what, I love it. I am not minding this springtime snow for the moment. Or at least not while I am snugly tucked inside the house.

On another surprising note, I had good customer service yesterday. In Stockholm. As this tends to be the exception and not the rule, I will share my tale. I called my local Systembolaget (the only place you can buy wine and alcohol in Sweden) to order a bunch of wine for an upcoming party. First, you need to realize that my Swedish is slow. Instead of ordering a wine by its order number as most Swedes would – number two thousand, two hundred and twenty one – I spell out each number separately so as to make sure that my Swedish is clear and leaves no room for miscommunication. On top of this, my clerk was a fast talker. So in my slow Swedish, I repeated everything he said back to him to make sure I was understanding what he was saying. “OK, what you just said was…”

It was a long conversation. I thought for sure that this guy would lost patience with me. But he didn’t. Not even when I ordered several bottles each of seven different kinds of wine. When I was done, the clerk complimented me on my excellent taste in wines. That was my next shock. Such small talk niceties, while common in the US, aren’t the usual in Sweden.

So I told him that the wine was for an upcoming wine tasting party. And he said that it should be a really nice evening for my friends. And then he thanked me, telling me that taking my order was mycket rolig or very fun for him. I about fell off my chair as I am pretty sure that it was a tortuously long order for him to take. On top of it, he then told me that he looked forward to meeting me when I came to pick up my order. The whole conversation left a smile on my face.

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Parallel worlds: in both art & life

April 12, 2012

in Art, architecture, music, film & books,Life as an expat,Living in Sweden,Stockholm's art,what to see in Stockholm

Elaine Sturtevant's repetition of Gonzalez-Torres' untitled light display at the Moderna Museet.

I’ve been thinking about an exhibition I saw recently at the Moderna Museet or Modern Museum here in Stockholm. Called Parallella världar or parallel worlds, the exhibition has a myriad of video displays by Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila. There is an amazing video installation where you sit in the middle of a round room on a chair that spins in any direction you want so that you can see the scenes that are taking place all around you. Where is Where is an amazing and often overwhelming installation that depicts how history affects our perception of reality. Two worlds are shown together, including one where the war 50 years ago in Algeria brings two Arab boys to kill their French friend. This storyline is contrasted with one where a European poet tries to make sense of this event in her writing with the help of the character Death. It’s powerful stuff.

Somehow this show got me thinking in another direction as well, in terms of how when you live as an expat, you also live in parallel worlds. You live in your adopted homeland and try to figure out the nuances of a new culture and language. But you also live in the world where you are from, the world that has shaped and made you who you are. Somehow, you try to make sense of these two worlds and meld them together to become the you that is shaped and changed by both worlds. As a result of this experience, you no longer really fit in with either world.

There are so many things about Sweden that I love, respect, admire and have adopted, but there are also a lot of things I don’t understand and that I don’t like. And what’s more, I don’t think I want to change that thinking too much. I want to keep the American in me, too. It’s not always easy to live abroad, but I like to think that I have been changed for the better as a result of it.

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