The Seventh Squirrel: February 2012

Svenska and 'merican Football

Let me say right off the bat that Swedish (svenska) is a surprisingly pleasant language, it's not in the class of say French or Italian in terms of beauty when spoken, but since I was expecting the it to sound something like German I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it sounded. However, attempting to learn a language in a lecture class of over 150 people near impossible... I haven't started studying for the test yet but after 3 classes the only phrase that I've managed to add to my repertoire is "my name is Olivia" (Mitt namn är Olivia). On the bright side I don't have to learn a completely different alphabet like I did with Hindi (42 letters plus 6 vowels.... they gave me nightmares) nor do I have to worry about a ridiculous number of accents (I'm looking at you French!) and pronunciation, though not intuitive, has consistent rules. So maybe after some severe cramming for the exam I might just be able to order a kaffe without embarrassing myself.

Fun anachronisms about swedish:
-The swedish word for married is the same as the word for poison (gift) hmmm...... not sure what this says about the swedish view of the institution.
- It is completely legitimate as an american to tell someone that you speak americanska (american) in swedish, its also acceptable to say you speak englseska (english) as well.

Now on to, the Superbowl. The game was surprisingly televised on Swedish TV using the feed from NBC which meant that my viewing experience was nearly identical to what it would have been in the states... aside from the fact that the commercial breaks were filled with swedish game analysis (none of the million dollar commercials were broadcast here) and I spent a decent portion of the game explaining various rules to the Europeans in attendance. And there were a surprising number of europeans willing to watch the game.... especially given that they only had a vague idea of what was going on and the game started at 12:30 in the morning (there were only 4 americans in attendance and we lost 2 of them at half time, compared with some 10-15 europeans most of whom stayed through all 3 and half hours of the game).

Given the fact that the few of us who did understand what was happening had to serve as interpreters (I can't tell you how many times I explained what a first down was and how the scoring system worked) I was thankful that the game ended up being relatively straight forward with blessedly few challenges. However, the Giants' safety at the beginning of the game was a pain to explain. Not only, because it hardly ever happens and is an inherently weird way to score; but also because it was due, not to a tackle in the Giants' endzone, but to a penalty in their endzone involving intentional grounding (which in turn required us to explain the concept of "the pocket" and how it relates to what the quarterback can and can't do).... all of which is generally information not needed to have a basic understanding of football (thanks for that Giants). But I guess I should be happy that an explanation of something like "the tuck rule" wasn't required, that would have been tricky.

What I really got out of this experience is that Americans really have no excuse for not understanding the offside rule in soccer.... we have rules up the wazoo for all of our sports, not just football but also baseball (fair/foul along the baseline) and basketball. And yet, we can't manage to master the only rule in soccer that is even remotely complex.... frankly we're just not trying.

Also madonna's half-time show was excruciating to watch... it caused all the americans to hang our heads in shame and everyone else to scratch their heads in confusion, we gotta pick it up for next year.

My idiot moment of the week:
Going to get my residency permit biometrics done then realizing once we got there that I had neither my paperwork nor my passport with me... Woops, I'll be making a return trip friday.

So... I have been woefully negligent in updating this blog and I have no excuse for it. Sorry Guys!

These past two weeks have been full of adventures and exploring. Some birthdays have been celebrated (Happy 21st Sarah!), Stockholm has been explored and much fun was had!

Sarah's 21st was this past Thursday so we and a bunch of our friends went out to Herman's, a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in Södermalm. 20 bucks (cheep by Stockholm standards) gets you access to an all you can eat buffet full of awesome vegetarian food. So yummy!

The wednesday before (its great having random days off from class) me and a friend of mine from my microbio class went exploring in Gamla Stan, the old city of Stockholm. The area is really amazing and beautiful, full of cobblestone streets, cute stores, nice cafes and beautiful old buildings. This part of the city is actually a little island at the heart of the Stockholm archipelago which makes it very compact and perfect fore exploring on foot. Also because we visited in the middle of the week in January we pretty much had the place to ourselves (understandable really cause who decides to come to Stockholm in the dead of winter.... haha, oh right I did).

The other highlight of my explorations was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship build by Sweden in 1628 that made it all of 1500 meters in the water before a gust of wind caught her wrong and down she went (Marine engineering tip of the day: don't build your ship too tall and too narrow and for god's sake put enough ballast in her!) But other than being a lesson in how not to construct a vessel the museum provides a view of Sweden during the 17th century (not such a fun place to live). However my favorite aspect of the museum was looking at how they reconstructed the Vasa after salvaging her from the ocean floor after 300 years, yep in 1961 they pulled the Vasa out from the ocean (in one piece) and stuck her in a museum. Cool biology factoid: the critter that normally munches on wood thats been left in water for too long can't survive in the Baltic water's low salinity so the Vasa's wood survived over 300 years of sitting on the sea-floor in the outer Stockholm archipelago. Needless to say I though the museum was awesome and I think its a must see for anyone coming to Stockholm (ie if you come visit me you're going to this museum).

Unfortunately, I think my explorations of Stockholm will have to be put on hold for a little while at least. This pas week the weather has taken a turn for the worse and instead of being a relatively balmy 2ºC the temps have dropped down to -12ºC which is a bit too cold for outdoor exploring. But, I'm not going to feel too guilty, I still have 5 months left in the city and so for right now I'm going to stay in and stay warm.

Up next on my agenda are: pulling an all-nighter to watch the superbowl tonight (starts at 12:30, yay!), getting my residency permit sorted out, joining a gym and planning my trip to barcelona in May (thanks for the Springsteen tickets Dad!)

Now as penance for being a negligent blogger, Pictures!