Sweden part 1

Happy New Year! I have been remiss in my blogging habits, what can I say, new year new start. I have much news to report, checking in from Lund, Sweden in the lovely apartment of my friend Vera and her roommate Felicia. I have been here for 10 days so far, and have four left before I head back to Spain.
I was looking for two weeks of winter and I sure as hell got them! I am ready for the blue skies and warm temperatures of southern Spain. Southern Sweden is very flat and windy, not to mention being very far north, making it very dark and cold. It is pitch black at 4 o’clock and temperatures have been hovering right around 0 degrees Celsius, with snow only one of my days here, but with enough rain to make me feel like I am in the PNW that had all of its mountains ironed out.

A Swedish Christmas! First important thing to know in one’s quest to experience a Swedish Christmas is that it is not celebrated on the 25th like it is in the US of A, but on the 24th. The 25th is the day when all of the young people go out drinking because they need a break from all the family time. So, first aspect is the food: lots of meat and pickled vegetables and herring. We had meatballs (which Vera and I made from scratch…ta da!), mini sausages and a ham roasted with mustard. Next is fish: lox with dill and lemon and pickled herring in three different sauces. A salad. Pickled baby onions. Pickles. Cherry tomatoes. Dry flatbread that made me think of matzo. Julmust, a coke-like drink with spices added to it. So. Much. Food.

Vera had her brother and her father over to have Christmas lunch/dinner with us, we ate right after the other Swedish Christmas staple…Donald Duck.
Apparently at some point it became the thing to do here to watch the Christmas Donald Duck episode, interspersed with ‘postcards’ from famous Disney movies with their best scene showed, ie. The Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene. It was interesting. And in Swedish.
Which brings me to my next point, which is that unlike Spain, where eeeeeeeeverything is done over in Spanish, Swedish television is rarely dubbed, it just has Swedish subtitles. The reality seems to be that it isn’t really necessary to dub it because everyone speaks English. I literally have not encountered a single person here who doesn’t speak fluent English, it is absolutely amazing. I am continuously impressed by their linguistic abilities. It is interesting because it seems to have become such a part of the language that people often substitute words or phrases of English in the middle of their Swedish without thinking. It actually reminds me a lot of the way Spanish and English are mixed in Gibraltar ‘okay nos vemos tomorrow para tomarnos un coffee, venga un besito, bye!’ Crazy.