Cold

It's gotten cold this week. At the moment it is 39 degrees and snow or hail (if I'm not misreading the Swedish paper) is a definite possibility tonight. In October! Lord! This means stuffing the kids into their snowsuits in the morning and afternoon for the journey to and from school and arguing with them about hats and gloves (and yes, despite his limited vocabulary -- he can only say "ball," "mama," and "dog" -- Julian is good at arguing using high-pitched wails and grunts). Since most of the Americans I know here are from Illinois, Michigan, and other frigid places, I'm getting no sympathy for my frozen tootsies from them. Only Sandy from San Mateo and Stephanie from Burlingame feel my pain. Luckily I look good in hats. Small mercies.

IAASE

I am going to form a new and important international organization, which I will call the International Association for the Advancement of Swim Etiquette. All you swimmers out there know the important work we have before us. Fundraising to support this crucial issue should be no problem given the complete absence of pool etiquette the world over. Our mission will include increasing awareness of:

• Stopping at one end of the pool if someone is swimming up your ass and is obviously way faster than you
• Moving to the left or the right at the end of the lane. The middle is for flipturns my friend
• The correct method for passing. Hint: it does NOT include swimming into the person coming the other direction
  
• Eliminating fins and snorkels from lap lanes. You wanna snorkel, find a reef
  
• The need for those cool swimsuit spinning machines. Not technically etiquette related, but sooo important

Should you wish to donate, please contact my development assistant at circleswimdope@yahoo.com. Thank you.

Cafe Culture?

A year ago "cafe" was not the first word that came to mind when I thought of Sweden. But as it turns out Swedish cafes are just great, running the gamut from sleek-modern halls decked with flocked wallpaper to cozy little shabby chic retreats. Here's one of my favorites (of the shabby chick variety), Le Petit Cafe in Haga:

And yes, of course Ava's drinking a latte.

My other favorite at the moment is called the Språkcafeet, or the language cafe, happily located on Esperanto Platsen. They do a mean vegetarian buffet lunch for 69 SEK ($10) and there are nightly language exchanges where you can come and speak your language of choice. It's a bit crypt-like, which is perfect for escaping a grey day.

I try to avoid the American-wanna-be Espresso House (complete with odd 10-ft-tall photos of lonely paper coffee cups posed in urban locations: cup on a newspaper vending machine, cup on a wall) as much as possible. It's one of the few cafes (perhaps the only in town?) that serves decaf.

Liseberg's last day

I think I mentioned we have an amusement park called Liseberg two blocks from the house. This is good except for the fact we have had to pass it every day on the way home from school and discuss with Ava at length why we can't go today despite the fact a) it's open and b) we have an annual pass. ("Um, er, Mom doesn't have the right shoes on?") Except for the somewhat scary bunny mascot(s), Liseberg is the most kid-friendly amusement park I've ever seen with all sorts of kiddie rides that Ava can go on, including baby bumper cars, which cracks me up. They also have some crazy skilled face-painters:
At any rate, the Liseberg summer season ended on October 9 with a great fireworks display which we watched from our balcony after first thinking the U.S. had redirected planes from Iraq to Sweden. Apparently the park actually opens again for the Christmas season on November 14 with a nice holiday market, complete with purveyors of mulled wine, elk sausage and roasted almonds wrapped in cones. Yum.

She came, she ate meatballs, she left

My Mom is gone again after a very short week in town. And yes, thanks, I did take her to the airport on the right day (at least I think so but I haven't heard from her so ...). Mostly we went for walks around town, drank coffee and generally schlepped her along to school drop-offs and pick-ups, grocery shopping, and playdates in the park. Ava adored having Grandma here and they were very busy with a big box of craft supplies Mom brought. I should also acknowledge my Mom for bringing 51 lbs. of other crap for me with her, including chocolate chips, hot sauce, hair dye, Christmas toys, lots of Amazon.com book orders, and 6 boxes of flipchart pens. Julian was convinced Mom was going to steal him away to California, so he wasn't especially charming until the very end. I told him he wasn't making a very good impression, but he just signed for more cheese. Good thing he's cute.
While Mom was here Adrian and I were able to sneak out to a really nice dinner party on Saturday with my Canadian friend Gen and her Norwegian husband, Tor, and then again to the Bishop's Arms for some quiet beers on Monday night. I think we may be able to do it again in ... hmm, aiming for May 2009.

Grandma's here

My mom arrived on Wednesday night. She did not arrive on Tuesday night, which is the first night I drove to the airport to pick her up with Ava in tow. It took me two hours (and three separate trips to the news agents for a hot dog, chocolate bar and juice box for Ava) before I asked Adrian to call Wilbur to see if Mom had missed her connecting flight from Frankfurt to Gothenburg. Nope, she hadn't missed it, she just hadn't LEFT San Francisco yet. I'm not sure how I thought a plane that was leaving SFO 6:30pm on Tuesday was also going to arrive in Sweden at 6:30pm on Tuesday. I suppose it might have been wishful thinking that I'd get her an extra day. But now she's here (and I really know my way to the airport) and getting to see our life in Sweden up close. She even got to see Julian projectile vomit today just as we arrived at a picturesque waterfront path and were preparing to take a stroll amongst the fall leaves. Lucky lady!

Kids in the rain

So what do you do on a rainy weekend in Sweden with two kids? Well, one option is to bundle the tikes up in all the handy rain gear and take them to one of the indoor playlands that are around town. Yesterday, we chose Bushuset, which is a short tram ride from our house. It costs $10/kid for a two-hour window of craziness. Ava particularly enjoyed the slide that shoots you into a frighteningly deep tank of colored balls and the dark disco dance room, where she amazed us with some head-banging African tribal dancing. Julian played with Legos.

Social kids

Ava is a VERY social person. I mean I thought I was social and then she came along. On the introversion-extroversion scale she's like waaaaay over on the right side. Our friend Amanda calls her "Cruise Director Ava," which is just about right. If I turn around for a minute at the playground, she'll strike up a conversation with the nearest kid or adult, which is sort of great and sort of worrisome.

She's also quite taken with the theater and told me today when she grows up she wants to be an opera singer. (I think she got this straight from the book about Olivia the pig or at least I hope so since she seems to have inherited my tone deafness and inability to remember lyrics). I think she might have a better chance with acting. Here she is at the park being scared:
Angry:
Happy:
Here's to chatty, social, theatrical, extroverted children everywhere!

Cinnamon Bun Day

Yes, there is an official day to celebrate the cinnamon bun (kanelbulle) in Sweden and it's today! Happy Kanelbulle Dag to you!

Cross-cultural communication

The workshop in Lund I co-facilitated, called Communication and Cultural Differences, was a great success, despite the fact I lost my wallet on the way to Lund. Yes, I somehow managed to lose my very big wallet around 10pm on Sunday at the gas station in Ängelholm, about 45 minutes north of Lund. Not a great way to start the week to be sure. Luckily it was turned in with nothing missing and I ended up just picking it up on the way home.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, the course went really well and I learned a lot from the lead facilitator, a Brit named Trevor. He has lots of good stories to tell about holding the course around the world. I guess in China they had a guy who apparently really needed to take a phone call but didn't want to be rude and leave the room so he just went under one of the tables and had his phone call there. 10 points for creativity.

The course incorporates a section on understanding cultures based on 7 cultural dimensions (from Fons Trompenaars work) as well as a section on understanding personality types or temperaments. The idea being you need both pieces of the puzzle to understand where the person you're communicating with is coming from so you can shift your communication style to ensure your message is understood.

The course was my first chance to see a bunch of Swedes in a work(ish) setting, and it was eye opening. I'm still digesting some of it, but it was just so clear how collaborative and consensus-oriented the Swedes are in everything they do, even in something small like a team quiz in a training class. Unlike in the U.S., there was NO chance of someone shouting (amiably) "LOSER!!" to the other team and pumping their V-fingers in the air because they won. There was just lots of quiet checking in with everyone at the table and then a quiet hand-raise to answer the quiz question.

The physical reserve of the Swedish attendees also struck me. I think ideally Swedes would just nod at you when being introduced instead of having to touch you by shaking hands. I'd just love to see a Swede at a French party with all that kissing. This one man, Peter, asked what "touchy-feely" meant and I demonstrated in good old American fashion, and I think he nearly passed out. It was a classic cross-cultural moment. And of course, in true Swedish fashion, everyone was so darned nice you just want to take them all home for a cinnamon bun.

Swimming in Sweden

I've mentioned before that there's a great Olympic pool by our house called Valhallabadet. It's great. I love it. I also love the fact there's a big sign outside that says "Bad," which means "pool" in Swedish, but just makes me chuckle every time I see it.

The other amusing thing about swimming in Sweden is that the vast majority of people here only swim breaststroke. Breaststroke is the only stroke taught in school (do American kids even get taught swimming in school anymore??) and so you get a whole cadre of grown-ups who come to the pool with no intention of getting their hair wet. I routinely see people swimming with their glasses on. This picture is taken from the cafe next to the pool and doesn't do justice to the breaststroke-only phenomenon, but you can sort of get the idea. The other half of the pool is usually mostly empty because those lanes are reserved for "fast motion crawl" swimming. So I often get a lane to myself. Joy.