Montreal

Re-discovered this blog today in a bout of boredom that involved uncontrollable naps, a pizza pop and a failed attempt to go swimming. Slightly depressed by my lack of stamina for, you know, doing shit...I turned to the internet. I did some internet sleuthing and discovered that my blog has been visited 347 times, including 3 page views from Russia! (?) Well, random visitors: your anonymous viewership (pathetic as it may be in numbers) gave me a much undeserved boost in esteem concerning my writing. So for your (anonymous) reading pleasure, another blog from the archives. This one is just becoming relevant for me again as I inch closer and closer to that scary state of University bachelor of arts graduate. And as I consider where next to call home: 


Home often sneaks up on me. It happened today while walking around the streets of Montreal early this morning. May 1st is a big moving day in the city, and the streets are filled with pick-up trucks and u-hauls. Scantily clad men and women haul cardboard boxes up those archetypal montreal staircases, and leave mattresses onto the street en masse. The curbs become temporary storage spots for the unwanted remnants of student apartment--broken  binders, econ textbooks, and bedside tables. There's something exciting about it all. So many new beginnings orchestrated simultaneously. 


I've spent some time thinking about what home is for me. I've never had an easy answer to the question "where do you come from"?  The most honest answer is a string of places that have slipped away from me. Or else an eclectic list of memories that never seem to add up to a suitable answer: digging up clams on sandbars, carrying my sister over seaweed, and searching for coins in the back of my grandfather's lazyboy recliner. I carry these images about like maps of where I've been and who I am, but the places themselves seem to have escaped the category of home. 


But every now and then places surprise me and become home. It seems as though Montreal, or at least parts of it, have done just this in the past three years. When I first arrived here from the sanitized suburbs of Ottawa, I wasn't sure what to think of Montreal: it was dirty, dirtier than I imagined it would be, the sidewalks caked with winter's leftovers and the infrastructure admittedly falling apart in some sections (a piece of the Mercier bridge fell off in my first semester, as I recall).  But despite it's rough at the edges quality, the city manages to win you over eventually. For one, it has an incredible energy. You'll know this if you've braved a frigid winter night when, despite the near minus 40 weather and impending snowstorm, city slickers pull on their toques for an outdoor dance party like igloofest or to catch an art show on nuit blanche. The frenzy over an important habs game is another thing entirely. I'm not the first to note that a montrealer's allegiance to the habs is religious. We wait for the return of the Stanley cup with an overpowering belief in not only it's inevitability but of it's moral justness. We're probably one of the only cities to respond to a WINNING GAME by rioting in the streets. 


Montreal can be pretty too. If you don't mind ending up in the background of someone's wedding pictures, the old port is always  a scenic way to pass time. And it tries so damn hard to be European, you can't help but be a little charmed.  I'll stop myself before I become a spokesperson for tourism Montreal, but all this is to say that I'll miss Montreal over the summer and all the friends and family that populate it.  

Goodbye Stock-home!

It happened: I walked out of a ministry building onto the bustling tourist walkway of Drottringgatan and realized that I was done. Done with case study interviews. A lot of feelings at once competed to express themselves. Luckily a pack of twenty people wearing "I heart Stockholm" shirts passed by me at that moment, just surreal enough to pull me from what could be some sort of embarrasing outburst in the middle of downtown Stockholm. Why do people travel in coordinating outfits? Why? This is not the first instance. In Ostermalm the other day I saw eight Swedish girls dressed in kimonos? Blue kimonos with that massed produced hawaii -inspired theme. You know the one. But why on a Kimono? And why on eight little girls, their blonde hair pulled back into stiff ponytails? What discursive messages are at work, I ask?


It seems I've drifted onto something that was not the point of this post at all. I feel compelled to write some sort of ode to Stockholm, to the little time I've spent roaming her streets, looking for important people in buildings with codes to get in (everything has a bloody code here, everything).  So here's to you Stockholm. Here's to your locked doors and special codes (because if you don't have the code, should you really be there?). Here's to your tall tanned men with their hair slicked back with hair gel (oh so much hair gel). To that pop song that kept playing all summer (jag kommer, jag kommer!) --the best rendition of which was performed at three in the morning by a gaggle of drunk teen girls on the tbana. To the fact that the sun happened to be rising at the same time, and to Johan let me fall asleep a little bit on his arm even though I had locked us out of a party for half an hour (n.b: every door has a lock and code). 


Here's to roommates (Johan and Sabina) who were willing to try my crazy Canadian cuisine and who even had the audacity to like it! Here's to Johan's unbeatable dance moves and Sabina's great taste in Northern soul. Here's to Stockholm University students (Moe, Helene, and Kyle)who let me crash their laundry parties and political parties and taught me how to play Kubb (see illustration below for clarification). 



Here's to turning professional relationships into evenings spent with cans of Folköl by the lake in Haninge, and afternoons in grassy parks (of which there is no shortage in this fair city!) Here's to  discourse prosodies,Adam Curtis films and so many spoonfuls of instant kaffee. (Rivalled only by our scandalous consumption of fil) 


Here's to hearing my first ever Swedish rendition of Ani Difranco songs, thanks to the acoustic talents of Annelie. And here's to all the politicians, policy-makers, disability activists, civil servants, project leaders and so on who replied to my carefully worded e-mails and calls,and  taught a little Kanadensiska what disability policy in Sweden is all about (well, we'll see if I actually learnt anything won't we). 


It's been wonderful and I'm sad to move on. But adventure beckons. I'm heading south, soon to be rejoined with the Margaret Mead to my Ruth Benedict. You know who you are, Lyns. 

Garden parties and Swedish Ettiquette

Yesterday my roommate and good friend Johan turned thirty. I am very proud of him, and was honored to attend a garden party at his parent's BEAUTIFUL home. As is to be expected at any big social event where a foreigner is present,  the conversation inevitably derailed into Swedish habits and peculiarities. Here's some things I learnt:

1. Shoes are not worn in the home (this seems to be in line with what we do in Canada, though maybe not in the States...where everyone thinks I am from at some point)

2. About the "swedish corner": say you have a cake (as one often does at a birthday party). Swedes will cut away at the cake until there is just a little bit left. It is rude to take that last piece of cake. This last piece of cake causes Swedes a great deal of anxiety for they may really want it, but they cannot, MUST NOT be the one to take the last piece. Instead, they may take half of the last piece, and then a half of that half and so on until there is but a crumb left on the plate. While hacking away at this last piece, one must also insist to others that THEY take this last piece. The others must politely refuse and insist that half of whatever is left will be fine for them, thank you very much. 

The result: there was a little bit of each cake left over that night. As a foreigner, I considered it my duty to put these polite party-goers out of their misery and finish off all the chocolate, blueberry and coffee-cake that was brutalized into little pieces on the plate. 

Funny funny Swedes. I will miss you dearly. 

Some moments in Stock-home

A suggestion if I may, Virginia...

Charming Encounters at the System Bolaget

Another anecdote from the internet's worst blogger. To encourage myself, I will write in smaller doses, like dipping my toe into the water. Today, I dropped by the system bolaget (state-owned liquor company) to buy three cans of beer. I took time picking out a variety of cheap beers whose liquor per kronor count was desirable (yes, this is an apparently Swedish way to calculate things). Having picked out three tall cans that shimmered beneath the fluorescent light, I proceeded to a really long line-up filled with old men. It was that time of the afternoon on Friday where the promise of a sunshiny weekend (and the certainty of ridiculously short opening hours for saturdays) provoke white men between the ages of 40-55 to go nutty and pack  baskets with 24 individual cans of the SAME beer. 


And here was I, bright eyed and twenty years of age, with my three cans tucked under one arm and my Ontario drivers licence in my other hand. I eagerly placed  my beers on the conveyor-belt-contraption (is there even a word for it?) behind those of a bespectacled pensioner who was quick to reach for the divider and quarantine my own purchases from his. At long last, it was my turn.  


The man working the cash looked friendly but worn down, having performed the same gestures and uttered the same requests for hours on end by now. While he swiped through my beers, I extended my ID out to be examined, preparing myself for the impending scrutiny. I still hold my breath during this process, ready for the request of "a second piece please" or " could you tell me your birthday please?"  This time around, the cashier took an exceptionally long time staring down my card. Mentally, I got in the zone for combat. "September 27th 1990! " I would roar into the stale air of the mall, and "you need a second piece of photo ID? Take my passport! My student ID! My copy card!" 


Just when I thought he was about to pitch the card at me in disgust, something happened. A little smile in his eyes, as he reached behind him to retrieve---and I shit you not about this part--a little tin of MINTS. He handed back my ID with the mints and nonchalantly told me that the total came to 41 Crowns. 


"What is this?" I asked, reading the top of the tin in vain: " Tack för att du vissar leg!" (google translate delightfully translates as "thank you for the leg!"). 


"It's for handing your ID to me without asking, " he explains as he places the cash into the till, "you're under 25. It's a reward that you get sometimes." And then he playfully wiggles his finger at me "sometimes, but now always!"


I left the mall on some sort of natural high, thinking to myself "yes, Sweden has got it. That is exactly what one should do. Mints! I have mints!"  To complete the moment, a truck full of male highschool graduates passed me, wearing their customary sailor hats and --in spirit of the excellent weather and being ridiculously fit--were shirtless and covered in beer. In a way, I felt as though they were cheering for me as they danced around to electric pop. For me and my socialist mints. 

Café Ritorno

I’ve been contemplating for a while what exactly to do with this blog. Every attempt I make to write seems to end in trailing sentences. I get shy, unsure of why I’m posting to a blog that—from what I can tell—only a few people read. Often, my attempts feel insincere. I want to seem like I’m having an exciting time, a productive work visit, that I am being, on the whole, an interesting and well-rounded person.  Well, I’m pretty much my same old predictable self here when it comes to the important things. And we all know one of those important things is coffee, coffee-consumption and cafes. 

So, here I find myself at a quite charming and rustic café on Odengatan, situated across from a modest park and an unfortunate bout of construction. Walking into Café Ritorno, one is greeted by a peculiar and transfixing man known for his eclectic tastes in hats. He stands behind a prohibitively high display case (from my perspective) that hosts a mouth-watering mix of pastries. I’ll give the Swedes one thing: they take their pastries very very seriously here. Today, the gentleman of the hour sports a plastic green tophat of sort with a fake flower popping out the left side. Beneath the hat, a bush of curly grey hair. Perhaps his own, but most likely an added feature of the hat.  When I walk in, he throws out a cheerful “hej!” in my direction. One of the few words I’m able to consistently identify around here. 

Behind the ordering spot is a doorway into the main sitting area. The café is, in short, asthetically confused. But in such a way that you can’t help adoring it. No less than three chandeliers hang from the modest sized room, while regal paintings of landscapes don the walls. The walls are mustard yellow and red, red curtains partitioning off the archways. I find myself a spot beside an old jukebox that is secured to the wall. It seems not to have worked since the available artists were in their hey-day: Bobby Darin, The Tornados, Duane Eddy and Johnny Burnette to name a few. The café is filled with students and others just looking to grab an afternoon fika.  An unexplained television perches above a fire exit. Again, this TV’s glory days have clearly passed sometime ago. 

I order a coffee as usual. I’m not one to get fancy drinks, but even a regular coffee in Stockholm is fancy. For one, they simply do it better than American style brew. More bitter, more taste, just more in general. But sadly, any coffee bought out in Stockholm is fancy in terms of cost. I dish out 25 crowns for my own cup (that’s nearly $4 CAD for anyone keeping track).  After parting with what still feels to me like monopoly money, the gentleman-in-hat points vaguely toward the main room, telling me that my coffee will be in there. “What is this?” I ask myself “What is this Nordic custom of serving yourself?”  Indeed, the coffee table is quite apart from the pay point itself, separated by a dirty glass wall. If I were a less honest person, or simply more caffeine deprived, I would take the liberty of refilling my cup again and again. And the beauty is that not many people are looking. But alas, the Swedish trust in my honesty is too sweet. I feel obliged to follow the rules. 

I’ve been here for hours now, and no one has shot me a disapproving look or asked me to leave. I might have found a gem here. And I haven’t figured out how to use the internet yet, which forces me to—you know—do things. Do work. Do that thing I’m supposed to be here for. Or write blog entries. All of these are options. 

In the next room, someone plays a harmonica. No coherent tune, just some rambling melody they just made up. Twenty-somethings in their striped shirt poke meaningfully at their mac books. I feel less insexure about my own bunker of a laptop considering the dress-me-down feel of the café.  I’ll come back here, yes. But in the meantime, off to my next adventure. I’ve got my high-waisted hipster uniform on, so perhaps I’ll wander into Södermalm.

Getting lost in Stockholm

Today was my first full day in Stockholm, and I spent it tiring myself out walking up and down and around the streets of the city center. I brought along what I thought would be a very useful aid, my lonely planet travel guide. While the guide admittedly helped me reorient myself after getting truly lost, my pride kept me from really using it too much. I think that I was the shiest tourist about. I was a true hipster about the whole ordeal, and kept not wanting to look like a tourist at all. Imagine me bumbling about, trying to look certain, hiding my camera in the sleeve of my coat. I must have looked quite silly, really. 

And I sounded silly too. The oddest thing happened. When I went to buy my month pass for the t-bana, I was jittery. Living in Montreal has already given me a healthy fear of speaking English which I have seemingly carried with me to Sweden.  So when I had to ask for help at the t-bana, a strange voice came from me. It was English yes, but oddly I spoke it with a pseudo-British accent: not my accent for sure, but a far leap away from the queen's English or whatnot. 

The t-bana is quite different from Montreal's metro. For one, it doesn't smell like pee. At least, not in the stations I frequented. I had been told that many were designed by local artists or something, but I had not been told that they actually look like caves. I should have taken a picture of them, they looked like a chicer version of the batman batcave. Like if Batman had gone through an art-deco phase. 

Above ground, I had the mission of finding Stockholm's alleged equivalent to Montreal's plateau, a place where hipsters roam the streets in a similar fashion: apathetic yet painfully trendy. However, I got off the t-centrallen and went entirely the wrong way. But it was okay, I found some churches and museums along the way and the token tourist photo ops. To be honest, by the time I got to hipsterland (Sodermalm) I was tired, hungry and afraid of all the prices in SEK. "20SEK for a coffee? No, that can't be right. That's not a number easily divisible by 6.3! And even if it was, or even if I could figure it out in my head, that's too much!" Similarly, I went in a grocery store and panicked when everything was in the double digits. This is going to take some getting used to. 


I've included one of my favorite pictures from the day. It is of a sign advertising lobster that is (I'm assuming) from Canada. 

 And if anyone can identify who this charming fish-wielding fellow is, I would be quite appreciative.  I forgot to check the name on the plaque and the quality isn't too great. I don't know whether it is supposed to be a full grown man or else a child whose parents have a sense of humour concerning hairstyling. "Here Gustav, go pose with the fish! Ja, Ja, your hair looks fine!"

packing is such sweet sorrow

Hello (internet) friends!


One way or another, I've convinced you to click some link and arrive at my blog. I haven't tried maintaining one of these since I was thirteen, and that one quickly became a  public venue for me to spew my vapid white girl problems. I vowed never to repeat my mistake again, unless I had a worthy cause. Seven years later (with a little more austerity in my emoticon use) I think I'm finally ready to try this again. 


In five days, I'll be boarding a plane to Stockholm looking pretty fly with my giant backpacks (yes, two of them), rubber boots and an oh-so-secret passport holder. You know, the kind that you wear under your shirt or whatnot, as if that were somehow more convenient than the normal wallet in purse approach. To make matters worse, it sits just below the waistline of my comfy travel pants, thus assuring that I will look like a pervert at some point en-route to Sweden.  "What's that? You need to see my passport? Well, just excuse me while I discretely reach into my pants to fetch it..." 


I really don't understand the advantage of those  passport-fanny-pack things. Are they supposed to somehow disguise my identity as a tourist? As if the locals in where ever-the-flip I will be just saunter about their daily business with such contraptions secured around their waists? Perhaps the passport-fannypack was in fact designed by pick-pocketers as a systematic way to identify North American tourists where ever they crop up in the world. I'm not one to entertain conspiracy theories, but I think there might be something to this one. Nothing screams affluent tourist like the passport fannypack. 


I'll keep this post short, but here's the basic info on what I intend to do with this blog. As mentioned, I'll be in Stockholm real soon. I'll be spending two months in Sweden, doing a case study for the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy on disability policy and equity in the labour market. After those two months, I'll be roaming around Europe trying to take a scenic detour to London (where my flight back to Montreal will be leaving). I've received some indication from friends and family that they might miss me during these three months, and that they might want to have updates on my travels. So, for the summer I will update this blog as regularly as possible on all my European adventures. My lovely Montreal roommate, Elise, has graciously lent me her camera for these purposes. As a result, she will be bestowed  the best travel gift upon my arrival. Sorry to all other folks. It doesn't mean I love you less. 


AND, since I will miss you all dearly, please post on this blog. We all know how expensive it is to call internationally, and the time difference will likely result in some communication delay. So feel free to give me a shout this way, or at my skype account (my skype account is my first and last name, and I'm the only one with my name based out of Montreal as far as I know). 


P.S Kanadensiska is Canadian in Swedish if you haven't figured out the wonders of google translate yet!