Date Night

We are becoming more and more acclimated to life in Stockholm.  Upon returning from our most recent seven-day holiday trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, we both sighed “Home” as we touched down at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.  Although we still fail to understand most of the headlines splashed in large block letters across supermarket tabloids, food shopping and other everyday affairs now seem…well…normal.

It was with genuine American spontaneity that we decided to celebrate this increasing comfort with a date night.  Dinner at a recently discovered easy jazz club would be followed by a movie and a slow arm-in-arm stroll home.  Our spur-of-the-moment energy, however, quickly encountered the ever-present logical, orderly and well-considered constructs of Swedish living. 

Our inquiry on the theater’s website to confirm show times revealed that one does not dash headlong to movies.  Not only must most tickets be purchased in advance from the website, specific seating is selected as well. We soon realized that our Saturday night spontaneity had already been felt days earlier by forever forward planning Swedes.  Seats for the show times we desired were already reserved, booked and sold out.

So with Yankee adaptability, we reserved tickets for a Sunday matinee and on Saturday night headed out to Louis Jazz Club for dinner, music and some dancing. 

At Louis Jazz Club, a live band played swing jazz from Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Gene Kruppa to the delight of an appreciative gray-haired audience who most likely first heard this music played by Benny Goodman, Louie Armstrong, et al.  The band of clarinet, drums, xylophone, guitar and bass fiddle was augmented with rotating horn and piano players.  The music was grand and our meal was equally satisfying.  We now have of new Stockholm “haunt.”

Our Sunday matinee movie date was a showing of John Le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”  Our multiplex theater contains 8 salons with each salon having a seating capacity of about 100 people.  We found our pre-selected seats, listened and partially understood the traditional Swedish admonition recited by an usher of theater rules (e.g. turn off mobile phones) and then settled into the movie. 

The film was a two-hour slow unrolling of a cold war era spy-vs-spy adventure within the British intelligence community called the Circus.   Most adult films here are shown in their original English (or native language) with Swedish subtitles. The only time we are at a loss is when a non-English speaking character, like an evil Russian agent or double crossing Hungarian general, speaks in their native language. Swedish subtitle translations are provided and we are left to fill in the gaps with our imaginations.

We are, nonetheless, going with the flow. We will book movie tickets in advance, take our number at the bank, fish market, pharmacy, wherever, and wait patiently for our turn.  It is all logical and orderly….Spock would be pleased.