Category: Lifestyle

In town today, pavements everywhere were cordoned off with orange pylons and hazard tape. Men in flourescent yellow coats were shouting ‘Watch out!’ and ‘Stand still!!’ and waving us pedestrians into the street and straight into the on-coming traffic.

Mounds of snow were pushed down from the roof-tops by men perched precariously on the roof tiles and attached by ropes and harnesses. A seemingly insecure occupation. The snow came exploding into the pavements below and splinters of ice and powdery snow billowed up like jets of steam. Walking through Stockholm today was like navigating a minefield with explosions to the left and to the right.

It seems like the snowy roof-tops have become too dangerous in the city. And when this happens, who do you call? The snow busters.

This is yet another strange part of life in Sweden. Avalanches in the city.

This morning we had a power cut and the flat was plunged into darkness. It’s also my birthday and I was celebrated, accordingly, by candle light. In Sweden, birthdays are celebrated in much the same way as in other countries – presents, cake, songs. Although the birthday song in Swedish is bizarrely about hoping the birthday boy or girl lives to a hundred and is then pushed around in a wheelbarrow.

A few years ago, I had my 40th. I had a big party with 40 guests and we ate and danced into the night. At Swedish birthday parties, it’s quite common that the guests perform – singing a song with altered words, acting out a cabaret or reading poems. It’s a grand way to be celebrated.

The big birthdays are important in Sweden. Most people celebrate 30, 40, 50 with a bang. Some even say that 50 is the biggest party of your life. You celebrate your achievements and the journey your life has taken you on. This is quite different from the UK where people tend to want to forget that they are ageing. Small celebrations but nothing big. 40 is uncomfortable, and 50, my god – 50 is a nightmare.

And this reflects one of the differences I see in cultural behaviour between Sweden and the UK. Celebrations.

While Sweden maintains tradition and celebration, the UK has abandoned it. Christmas and New Year in the UK are probably the only national celebrations that survive. But in Sweden, festivities abound and traditions are kept alive. Apart from Christmas and New Year, there’s Lent, Easter, Walpurgis Eve, May Day, National Day, Midsummer, Crayfish party, ‘Surströmming’ premiére, the Eel feast, All Saints’ Day, St Martin’s Day, Advent, Lucia. Many of these celebrations revolve around tradional food and gathering together of friends and family.

Many Swedish traditions have ancient roots, others came with immigrants or the church. Regardless of the origin, Swedes observe and enjoy these traditions.

It’s a shame that traditional celebrations aren’t as important in other countries such as the UK anymore. They are a part of the life cycle here, giving shape to our lives and giving us a sense of time and seasonal rhythm.

I love the Swedish way of observing the traditions, eating the food and being together with friends and family.

So, Happy Birthday to me. I live in Sweden.

As a dog-owner, you are forced to go outside 4-5 times a day. Even in the deepest winter, you have to don hiking boots, fleecy jumper, thermal gloves, thick coat, woolly scarf and warm hat and venture out for a bracing walk in the battering wind.

Sometimes being outside is a very lonely experience. On the coldest, most-miserable days, there is hardly anybody else around. Just a few other sad dog-owners,an occasional lonesome jogger and a handful of hardy smokers huddled outside the local pub.

So, today, with the sun fixed brightly in the sky and the thermometer hovering around zero degrees, I head out with a smile on my face. It is a joy to be outside. I walk down my street, through the local square and down towards the lake. By the lake there’s a footpath. It’s always so lovely to stroll along there and admire the ice reflecting the sun and see the ducks bathing in the cracks and open areas. Stockholm really is a beautiful city. When the sun shines, the buildings radiate in orange and red.

Approaching the footpath, I notice what seems to be a queue. The kind of queue you see in a department store around Christmas time when kids line up to see Santa.

Strange, I think, has something happened?

I arrive at the end of the queue and realise that nothing has happened, it’s just the sheer volume of people that are lining up to go for a walk along the pathway. The queue is moving, but very slowly. Pensioners, young couples with push-chairs, dog-walkers, joggers, speed-walkers, cyclists,toddlers, groups of lads, it seems like everybody is out for a Sunday afternoon walk in the sunshine. Like a mass migration of lemmings, Stockholmers have left their homes and gone for a walk along the same stretch of footpath.

Me included. I go with the flow.

The walk is slow-going but eventually I make it to the other end. I feel pleased with myself that I have been so vigorous and out-doorsy. Then I scuttle across the street and plough home a different route to avoid having to press back through the crowd.

I’ve experienced this before in Stockholm, when I lived in a different part of town. At the first sign of sun, everybody goes out for a walk. Fully understandable, given the length and darkness of the winter.

In cultural theory, we talk a lot about how all cultures spring from a set of basic needs that we humans share. For instance, we all share the need for water, for food, for shelter. It’s just that we have solved how we meet these needs in different ways, depending on geography and circumstance. And it’s these differences that form the basis of culture.

In Stockholm, on a sunny Sunday in February, I guess we all share the same need. To breathe fresh air, to see light and to feel that maybe, just maybe, the winter is soon over.

Wandering from the beaten path in the Bronx, down back alleys amongst trash cans and restaurant containers is known to be dangerous. It’s just not something you’d do.

Entering the council estate off Coldharbour Lane in Brixton in London, past the brick buildings with narrow walkways and tiny windows is also known to be dangerous. You just wouldn’t do it.

And in Johannesburg, you wouldn’t venture out into the shanty towns at night, away from the bright lighted protection of the tourist area. Sad, but true. Unless you had a death wish, you just wouldn’t do it.

But Stockholm is comparatively safe. Most of us feel secure travelling on public transport, making eye contact with a stranger on the street and walking home late and night.

True? No!

Stockholm is a dangerous city! A city where you walk on the wild side. Where you take your life in your hands every time you walk out of the house. A town where you live on the knife edge.

In today’s newspaper, the cover story was about a woman recuperating in a local hospital. She’d been walking down the street, minding her own business when a block of ice plummeted from a snowy rooftop and smacked her in the head. She survived with stitches but it could’ve been much worse. A few years ago, a teenage boy was killed by a lump of ice that slid off a rooptop and crushed his skull as he walked along the road.

So, I scoff at the Bronx, at Brixton and at Johannesburg. It’s us in Stockholm who look death in the eye every time we leave the building.

I work out at my local gym in a nearby hotel. The gym is used by local residents and hotel guests alike. It’s a small gym, long and narrow, with enough room for one treadmill, a couple of step machines, a few weight machines and a free weights area. Being small it gets easily cramped, so it’s necessary to show respect for each other and cooperate so everyone gets the most out of the space available.

This weekend I was there on my own. It was a paradise. I could move freely about the gym without considering the needs of anyone else. It was a rare pleasure.

Until, hotel guest Mr Svensson walks in. The hotel also has a small plunge pool and Mr Svensson is ready for that. However, he’s decided that a little exercise on the step-machine would be good first. Dressed only in a pair of swimming trunks, bear-breasted and bare-footed, the sweaty 70-year old Mr Svensson climbs onto the machine and starts excersing. Gym etikett? Forgetikett. Half-naked and out of breath, Mr Svensson seems to have no sense of dignity or consideration.

I manage to ignore Mr Svensson, half successfully, when daughter and son-in-law Svensson come in and climb onto the machines beside him. They begin to converse. Loudly. The musical they went to last night was sooo good. Stockholm is sooo stressful. People even run on the escalators. I focus on my arm curls and try to banish them.

I consider myself a person who is able to focus. In most situations. Even Swedish country folk criticising the big city doesn’t penetrate my focus. But then it happens. Grandma Svensson arrives. Dressed in an outdoor coat and comfortable boots. In her arms, she carries grandaughter Svensson, a year-old baby, who she proceeds to put down and allow to crawl all over the gym floor. This rugrat, the loud conversation, the naked stepmachine grandad all proves too much for me, so I leave.

My work-out is finished.

On the way home, I try to analyse the situation. Why did they think it was ok to behave that way in a gym? They clearly had a sense of entitlement.

I don’t know the answer but I am glad of one thing. I am glad I wasn’t in the plunge pool.

I often wonder how many English people end up with broken noses when they visit Swedish friends at home.

You arrive at their building. You tap in the obligatory door code. Climb the stairs or ride the lift. Ring the doorbell and wait. Swiftly, the door opens. But in the wrong direction! Unlike in the UK, the doors open outwards in Sweden and you didn’t expect it. The door moves towards you like an inevitable wave. And you’re not quick enough to get out of the way. Smack! Broken nose.

But why do Swedish doors open outwards? What could be the explanation? Does it symbolise that the English are inward-looking, and Swedes are more outward-looking? Is it for security? It’s more difficult to kick in a door that opens outwards. Could very well be.

I think, however, it’s something entirely different. The price of accommodation in Sweden is high. Houses and flats are sold according to their precious square meterage. This makes the space behind a door important. Definitely sellable. Furnishable perhaps. One extra usable square meter means space for a hatrack.

So, it’s obvious, doors open outwards to give people a valuable extra square meter. And this is roughly the price of a broken English nose.

Early January in Stockholm and it’s dark and cold. So cold that the lakes turned to ice a month ago. So cold that your lungs hurt when you inhale. So cold that being outside, well, is brief. I scurry from flat to office, office to home. I try to find as many underground shortcuts as possible. I freeze even though I am wearing 5 layers of clothes.

I walk briskly down Kungsgatan, hunched with cold, and cursing the sting of the chill, when a focused Swede runs past me. Dressed in shorts, a reflective vest and a Ipod, he’s off on a jogging round. Probably down to the frozen canal and along the slippery canal-side path. He’s probably going to circle city hall and run casually along the lakeside, past the boats frozen fast into the ice. His legs are red and slightly chapped. His breath is billowing steam. But he doesn’t seem to care. The cold won’t stop him from his daily jogging round.

That’s what I call determination.

Freezing? It’s for wimps.