Scattered to the Winds

Little time for blog entries this week. 

Work has Jay in Oslo Sunday through Friday (30-Oct to 4-Nov).  He may also need to be in London the end of next week (Nov 10-11).

Helen is headed for a two-week trip to Nepal (Nov 1 – 15) to visit women who have received financial support from her Dining for Women group.

We’ll get back to blogging later this busy month.

Puttin' on the Fritz

Last weekend, we moved to our third apartment since arriving in Stockholm four months ago.

Our Dining and Living Area

We are now fully ensconced in our apartment on Götgatan at the southern end of Södermalm.  The yearlong lease gives us an opportunity to settle into Swedish living.  It also gives Per and Monica, the apartment owners, a sense of carefree relief that the apartment and their pet cat Millie will be cared for as they set out on a year long sailing adventure in the Caribbean.  A win-win situation.

Change, however, does not come without its challenges.  

We once wrote a blog while in India entitled “Why is Everything So Hard?” that chronicled our trials and tribulations performing life’s mundane activities.  Thankfully, Stockholm is no Bangalore.  There is an orderly and predictable nature to activities here…but still there are surprises.

Moving to our new apartment introduced a wave of things, simple things, that just refused to work.  The first to rise in protest was the apartment door key.

Blue Fob on Reader
Street Side Door

Stockholm apartments typically have a multi-layered security system. Street- facing doors have a security keypad or as is the case for our new apartment, an electronic reader.  When placed nearby, the reader detects a small, flat, blue fob that hangs from our ring of keys.  Interior apartment doors have two locks.  

Offending Key that Would Not
Open the Lock

One lock, we discovered, has a mind of its own.  Helen struggled for 20 minutes alone and with the aid of new neighbors before the key – lock combination finally cooperated and the door opened.  After a second episode of the key refusing entry until some unseen miracle occurred, we opted to feel safe using only one lock.  Check.

Stove and Oven

Next was the stove and oven.  The stovetop units had previously heated meals and the stove baked a casserole, so when misbehavior started it was a mystery.  The oven was first.  Our baked chicken dinner was ready, but the oven door would simply not open!  Okay plan B for dinner.  Heat something on the stovetop.  No deal.  Not a single unit would generate heat. 

Per Repairing the Oven Door Latch
(a playful pose)

We found the owner’s manual and slowly translated Swedish instructions and determined a child safety lock system had been engaged.  A few instructions guided twists of knobs and the sliding of a tiny lock and the stovetop returned to full operation.  Next, our most handy apartment owner, Per, arrived and with confidence only a owner has, removed the entire oven latch system.  Check.

USB Data Stick for Mobile Internet Access

In the midst of this mechanical mayhem, our access to the world wide web stopped when our USB mobile wireless data stick failed.  Egad!

We fortunately have wired Internet access as we await the installation of wireless configuration in the apartment, so we can still share with friends and family that no matter where you are, “things will be hard.”

Occupy Stockholm

Our home in Stockholm sometimes feels a bit remote.   Tucked just 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, we are at the start of the winter darkness season.  A month from now, the sun will set by 3:00 pm.  We anticipate that this early darkness will only add to the sense of global detachment.

Detachment is not new here.  Despite the eruption of European wars of the previous century, Sweden remained on a neutral sideline. Even the current financial roiling in the nearby Euro zone is distant from the consciousness of our Swedish kroner-based society. What could ever penetrate this forever even-keeled society?

Enter Occupy Wall Street.

Swedish Rally Participants

It is not that the nation as a whole has been swept forth in a surge of anger and angst.  Despite the dizzying height of taxes… our VAT/sales tax is 25% on some items… Swedes generally embrace their socialist society.   Unemployment that peaked in April 2010 at 9.1% has seen a downward trend with last reported figures in August 2011 showing 7.4% of the population was unemployed.

The system is the problem!

It is hard to discern the underlying social context for the Occupy Stockholm movement.   We clearly understand the emotional context for occupy movements in New York, Chicago, Boston and other US cities.  Even movements in Rome, Tokyo, London and other countries with economies fraught with uncertainties make sense.

People Gathered In Sergels Torg

Why occupy Stockholm?  The Swedish psyche, from what we have observed in our very short time here, welcomes the rational ordering of social interactions.  In shops, banks and public offices, one takes a number from a dispenser and waits in orderly fashion to be served.  Both cars and bicycles stop for pedestrians crossing the street.  It is unfathomable to think of a Swedish mob chanting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” marching down a main thoroughfare.  Then again, an insular nation has little inclination to dispatch its citizens to undesirable locales.

So why the gathering at Sergels Torg; the march and encampment in the grassy park in front of Sweden’s central bank?

Not 1 Penny More!

Clearly, Occupy Wall Street has become a global phenomenon with a sufficiently broad sweep of discontent to offer an appeal to an ever-widening audience.  The global financial system that allows us to slide our Visa card across shop counters around the world has also intertwined us into a far more uncertain world of credit default swap options.  Shared concern is not difficult to find.

The Times They are A-Changin'

There was time when banks were local and at the core of our financial certainty.  We of an earlier generation all clutched our savings passbook - seeing nickels and dimes grow to dollars.   Yet, as one handmade poster noted at the Occupy Stockholm rally, “The times they are a changin’.”    

It appears that some Swedes are more attuned than others to the changing times. 

Not Our Cup of Tea

This Sunday we resumed what we have come to call our religious odyssey by attending Sunday service at The English Church here in Stockholm.  Also known as St. Peter & St. Siegfried’s, the English Church is a Church of England Anglican Episcopal house of worship.

We began our pilgrimages to houses of worship when we lived in Bangalore (2005 – 2007).  Distant from our familiar Unitarian Universalist churches, we ventured forth on Sundays to partake in local religious worship.  Many of our journeys were to Christian churches left behind by the British in southern India.  To expand our religious boundaries and despite our feeble understanding of Hindu rituals, at times we partook in individualistic religious worship when we encountered a Hindu temple.

Common to all our odyssey adventures was the openness extended to us to join in religious ceremony.  Also unifying was the deep devotion we witnessed in the faithful across a wide spectrum of beliefs and faith.  Such was our experience on Sunday.

Upon arrival, we were welcomed by the cheery, British-accented minister, the Reverend Nick Howe, and invited to find seats in the sanctuary.  The church was originally built in Liverpool in 1866 and later moved to Stockholm in 1913.  Designed in a neo-Gothic style using red and pink sandstone, a circular extension was added in 1984.

 The service began promptly at 11:00 and proceeded on its own languid and solemn pace for the next hour and twenty minutes. 

The faithful, numbering between 90  and 100 souls, participated with devotion in the theist-centric traditions on which the service was rooted.   We, too, were once grounded to such roots, but long ago ventured forth on a different religious course.   Thus, we comprehended the rhythm of pray, absolution, communion and benediction, but witnessed all from a respectful distance.  Our spirits were not renewed. We will continue our search for a religious home.

Yet, this was an inviting congregation.  After the service, we accepted a kind initiation to attend the social hour where coffee, finger food and conversation are exchanged.    The main event of this social hour was closely coordinated with the Sunday sermon theme of harvest and bounty.   An auction to sell the bounty provided by congregants had been planned to raise funds for a children’s orphanage in Riga, Latvia and a soup kitchen in Johannesburg, South Africa.  

Helen was an active bidder.  “Who will bid 50 crowns for this jar of homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam?”  In response, Helen’s hand would quickly fly heavenward.  Our eventual “take” was a pan of homemade brownies and two plastic bags filled with the most delicious butternut squash soup.

So at the close of this Sunday’s religious odyssey, our souls remained hungry, but our stomachs were filled.   

Amen…Shalom…May it be so.

Celebrating Seven Years

Seven years ago today, we married among family and friends in our church in Atlanta.  Yesterday, we sat together in the white table cloth, candle lit dining room of the Stadshotell in Trosa, Sweden and celebrated the wonderful life we have shared together. We have been blessed and have much to be thankful for.  Trosa could not have been a more charming setting for our celebration.

Tre Små Rum, where we stayed

Trosa, a former fishing village turned trendy upscale tourist magnet, an hour drive from Stockholm, was unknown to us when we began to  discuss where to celebrate our anniversary.  However, as our social circle expands, ideas and travel adventure stories are shared with fellow Americans who have long called Sweden home.  Trosa was suggested by one of Helen's friends from the American Women’s Club.

 

So we packed our bags, bought bus tickets and began our adventure to the truly charming and alluring town of Trosa. Trosa’s early history dates back to the 14^th century with its official founding noted in 1610.  A great deal of Trosa’s early charm was rendered to ashes when the Russians sacked and burned the city to the ground a century after its founding.  Spared, however, was the Trosa Town Church whose darkened wood steeple still stands today.

The Baltic fish trade that thrived into the late 19^th century no doubt gave rise to the contours of the city with its narrow winding streets and ubiquitous collection of painted red homes. Red paint, originally made from water, rye flour, linseed oil and the residue from the copper mines, has been a traditional Swedish color for cottages and barns.  The ingredients preserved wood in the harsh Swedish climate and had the additional characteristic of being cheap.  Mixed among the red homes were others painted yellow; the traditional color of the wealthy elite.  All this color coding raised a moot point, however, since Trosa is considered among the wealthiest cities in Sweden.  Clearly the switch from fishing to tourism was a wise and profitable choice.

Library and Tourist Center

Our tour of this tiny burg was based on the Heritage Trail map we obtained from the tourist office in the town library (with another saved tower on top). 

The Brewery Bridge

Following the map, we traipsed over the old brewery bridge (bryggarebron) that was once owned and operated by a brewery that produced beer and soft drinks until 1902.  We visited the town church that had been spared from Russian wrath and walked the now peaceful green graveyard grounds.  

Anton's Krog (Restaurant)

Across the Villa Bridge (Villabron) and down a wonderful tree-lined lane, we found Anton’s Krog. Now a most popular restaurant, the building was once the police and fire station and at some time in its past acquired the steeple top of the old town hall.  

Gröna Torget

We sat for a while in the Green Square (Gröna Torget) made possible by a fire in 1863 and a decision by the town to make a park of the open space in 1900.  We have come to fully appreciate the Swedish predilection to include parks and open space in their city environments. 

Trosa's harbor and boardwalk

We visited the harbor and walked to the end of the long pier. It was clear the harbor no longer catered to the needs of weather beaten fishermen, but more to the needs of gentlemen sailors.  In a world of instant communications and GPS navigation we knew the pier’s end point, called the “The Butter Bucket and World’s End,” didn't hold the same foreboding as it did for sailors generations ago.

The Butter Bucket

After a day of walking, we rested and then headed to the Stadshotell for a wonderful anniversary dinner.  It was the end to a perfect day and the start of another year together.