Yes I’m still living, but it’s just about. To cross the streets in Sweden is very dangerous indeed. Not that there is by far as many cars as in Brighton BUT they are driving on the wrong side of the road! Funny enough before I went to England I was convinced it was the English cars that were driving on the wrong side. In England there are texts in the streets saying, “look to the left” etc, which it isn’t in Sweden. But thinking about it I was never sure when crossing a street in Brighton whether I had read the text correctly or upside down. In the end the best thing probably is to look in booth directions (and pray that you look in the correct one first).
To continue my journey in to the world of Swedish clothes; the other day I read Metro (the free newspaper that, I’m quite sure you can find in London to). They always have a two-page article dedicated to a special subject and this day it was about shopping. The headline was: Shop serious to find your own stile (Shoppa seriöst för egen stil) which sounded a bit interesting, I like people that has their own stile. The strange thing was that what the article really was about was the basic clothes that you need in order to build your OWN stile. They listed all the clothes needed, how many, what colour and even what length of the skirt: 10 briefs, two jeans, four plain t-shirts etc. And then they suggested that you could add your OWN stile with a scarf in your own colour! And the funny thing is that this is exactly how I think that many Swedes dress. By the way I have now found out that brooches is in fashion in Sweden. After seeing the third brooch of the day, on the shoulder of my friend this evening, I finally asked her and she confirmed that this is “the latest”.
So to another thing. My dear friend Cos was not that happy when seeing the picture of him and Leilla and Emma (all colleagues from book depot) at the blog. Too let you know that he does not agree with the photo, this is what he wrote: “By the way, that's a very unflattering photo of us. You look okay, but Emma looks like Marilyn Manson, Leilla looks like an evil hobbit, and I look like someone's just leaned a drunkard up against the wall. Sigh.” I am now looking forward to receive a more flattering photo of my friends to publish on the blog ;0)
I am now lying on the bed in my tiny bedroom with a cup of tea and a cookie, thinking back at my first week in Sweden. Today was unusual weather, unusual for Sweden anyway, because it changed during the day. It started awfully wet and rainy and ended with sunshine and a sky as blue as I only have seen it in Scandinavia (it is the same colour as the blue in the Swedish flag). Normally, in Sweden, you can tell by looking out of the window in the morning how the rest of the day will be. When the sun is shining like today I really like Sweden, even if it was cold only + 10c in the evening. However there can be weeks, especially during autumn and winter, when all the days are exactly the same, grey.
In the same way as there is a similarity to the weather in Sweden there is also a similarity in people’s way to be and to dress. The reason is probably partly due to that Sweden has such a small population. The stores all sell very similar clothes. Today a colleague said that she hade heard from other friends (not only me) living abroad that you could find clothes in all colours in the stores, not like in Sweden where it is almost impossible to find clothes in “not fashion colours”. Apparently green is the fashion colour at the moment, not to wonder that almost everyone dresses in black! My mother, by the way, said she wasn’t surprised that people had stared at me when wearing my sunhat with flowers, as described in the last blog contribution from 12/9. She said, “I am not surprised they were staring if you were going around in the city of Uppsala wearing that big, colourful hat. They of course must have thought it was a beach hat, in Sweden you don’t normally were hats in the city “
A nice thing is that at my work KIB (were everyone has been so nice to me this week and really welcomed me back!)the clothe code is much more relaxed and inventive than in the society at large (and we don´t wear uniforms like at Bookdepot or Thorntons). You can wear almost exactly what you like for work, and we do :0)
So, after one year abroad, I landed in Skavsta, Stockholm again. When coming out from the airplane I took a deep breath and thought that I actually could smell the cleanness in the air. The first meeting with dear old Sweden was a bit surrealistic, where was all the people gone? It did not help that T-centralen (Stockholms major train station) was less busy than Brightons. It was also strange to see the spacious streets, wow if the buss drivers in Brighton had all that space when driving their double-decker buses! There where lots of new big houses but so few shops (this is not necessarily bad though, I will be less tempted to buy things ;0). However the biggest surprise came the next day when I, without any suspicion, went to buy my breakfast at the supermarket (because in Uppsala there is not a café serving all day breakfast in every corner like in Brighton). It was then that I realised how expensive Sweden is! I just refuse to pay £3 for a small Nivea roll-on or £2.20 for a small cappuccino (that probably anyway isn’t as good as Pretts (in North street, Brighton) cappuccino for £1.50). However it doesn’t matter how expensive the cinnamon buns (kanelbullar) in Landings konditori (tea-shop in Uppsala) are, they are always worth their price.
It was quite fun to see all the amazed looks when walking through Uppsala city with my big, very colourful sun hat today. I also was a good girl and washed up several machines with laundry. The house has its own washing machines in the basement but although it is practical I don’t enjoy it as much as going to the launderette at Montpelier Street where I could watch and I talk to people while washing.
By the way, there is not any Marmite to get in Uppsala (I have tried, believe me) nor is there any Shortbreads :0( but I did come across one shop selling Flapjacks :0)
I’ll try to update my blog at least once a week and hope to get some pictures in from Sweden next weekend when Tobia is back from Warsaw with his camera phone.
Det börjar närnma sig avresan till Sverige och i o m att jag byter land så kommer Kanelbulle vs Scones att byta språk till engelska.
Det här är sista svenska inslaget på ett tag är tanken. Vi har underbart varmt sommarväder i Brighton nu och om ett par timmar ska Tobia och jag träffa en kompis och gå och bada i havet, mmm, plask. I går var jag på en "hej då" pub och club runda med mina kolleger Cos, Leila och Emma från bokhandeln som alla är jätte trevligt och som jag verkligen kommer att missa, oj jag menar sakna.
Skickar med ett några sista kort från solen i Brighton.